The industrial city within
a city is taking shape on the south end of Joliet. Ill., the Herald-News
reports. CenterPoint Intermodal Center-Joliet — a 4,000-acre, $2-billion
project that is changing the landscape of a once rural edge of the city — will
begin to become a working industrial center in the coming months.
San Bernardino County, Calif.,
transportation officials met a state deadline May 7 to keep a $202-million
railroad overpass project on track, according to officials who negotiated the
hastily finalized deal, The Press-Enterprise reports.
A planned $100-million
expansion of CSX Transportation’s freight rail facilities near Franklin Street
in Worcester, Mass., has been heralded by state and local officials as a major
boon for economic development, the Worcester Business Journal reports. But just
how many jobs the expansion will create, and what the impact on the local
neighborhood will be, remains to be seen.
The federal stimulus may
be pumping greenbacks into the economy but it’s also making a part of Woodside,
N.Y., distinctly less green, the New York Daily News reports. Locals are
steamed over Amtrak’s brush-clearing effort that recently chopped down more
than a hundred mature trees along rails running parallel to Northern Blvd.
The Federal Railroad
Administration has announced proposed rules to amend the Track Safety Standards
and Passenger Equipment Safety Standards for high-speed and high-cant-deficiency
train operations to promote safer rail vehicle and track interaction.
Chicago Transit Authority Brown
Line trains will be unable to enter the Loop from approximately 7:15 a.m. until
1:30 p.m. Sunday, May 9, due to structural maintenance work on the Wells Street
Bridge. During this time, shuttle buses will replace rail service between the
Merchandise Mart and the Clark/Lake stations. Brown Line trains will operate
normally between the Kimball and Merchandise Mart stations.
A study committee voted to
start preliminary engineering on a $95.8-million downtown Milwaukee modern
streetcar line, the Journal Sentinel reports. The Milwaukee Connector study committee voted, 3-1, to seek Federal Transit
Administration approval for the engineering work on the streetcar, which would link downtown attractions to the lower
east side with trips every 10 or 15 minutes, from early morning to late at
night, seven days a week, for $1 a ride.
Travelers heading to
Washington, D.C., will be whizzing through University City, N.C., at 90 mph
sometime in the next few years, and that is causing rail officials in Raleigh
to look at changes to protect Charlotte’s drivers, residents and trains, Carolina
Weekly reports. Improvements are planned for 12 miles of the existing track
starting south of N.C. 49 near Concord and reaching all the way to Orr Road in
the University City area. The project is just one of a number of projects the
N.C. Railroad/Norfolk Southern Railway plan along a much larger section of
track.
The federal Surface
Transportation Board today reaffirmed its jurisdiction over DesertXpress, a
planned high-speed rail line linking Las Vegas and Victorville, Calif.
Phil Pagano, Metra executive director, who was under investigation for financial misconduct, was struck and killed by a train in an unincorporated area of Crystal Lake, Ill.
Metra released the following statement from its Board of Directors:
"It is with great sadness that we report the passing this morning of Philip A. Pagano.
"Phil served this agency with distinction for many years. Today, we shall remember the good work he achieved with our board of directors and the men and women of Metra. He was dedicated to our passengers and he always considered the men and women of Metra his family and there is a tremendous sense of loss within the agency.
"We shall remember him as a dedicated husband, father and grandfather who loved his family more than anyone. Our deepest sympathies as well as our thoughts and prayers are with him, his family and all those who loved him."
Illinois lawmakers signaled
their support for a 220-mph high-speed passenger train that could someday
connect Chicago and St. Louis, The Quad-City Times reports. On May 5, the State
Senate unanimously approved a resolution creating the Illinois and Midwest
High-Speed Rail Commission, which will recommend ways to design, build and
maintain the train route. Members of the commission will be appointed by the
governor and lawmakers.
In an announcement that
Madison officials hailed as a boon for downtown, Gov. Jim Doyle said May 6 that
the "obvious, correct choice" for an Amtrak station is near Monona Terrace in
Madison, Wis., the Wisconsin State Journal reports
The main railroad between
Memphis and Nashville has been knocked out of service, as the flood damaged
five bridges along the route, the Tennessean reports. The Memphis line has been
shut down since May 2, according to the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency
and CSX Transportation, the line’s owner. Workers were assessing damage, but
the flood appears to have washed out two bridges over the Harpeth River and
rendered three others unusable.
Sierra Northern Railway
Engine No. 48 rumbles slowly down the tacks toward Watsonville, Calif. A
growling, 125-ton rolling box of steel and fuel, its form or one similar has
hauled people and goods along the 32 miles of the Santa Cruz Branch Line
railroad since 1881. Beneath it, the tracks and the land at least 20 feet on
either side are owned by Union Pacific, as old and imposing a company as you’ll
find in American business. And until the Cemex cement plant in Davenport closed
down in January, Cliff Walters and Wes Swift, the engineer and conductor inside
the train, had plenty of work driving loads both north and south of Santa Cruz,
their bosses at Sierra making a modest but steady profit while turning over
lease payments in cash and services to UP like clockwork.
Caltrain will reconstruct
the East Bellevue Avenue crossing beginning at 8 a.m., Friday, May 7 and
continuing through 6 a.m., Tuesday, May 11. During that time the street will be
closed to through traffic between Claremont Street and San Mateo Drive. During
construction, electronic message boards will be used to divert east-west
traffic to Peninsula and Poplar avenues.
Customers in the
Washington, D.C., area can expect lengthy delays of up to 30 minutes May 7-9 as
old track components are replaced on the Red and Orange lines, causing inbound
and outbound trains to take turns sharing one track on portions of the rail
system.
The Illinois Commerce Commission has granted
approval for reconstruction of a bridge to carry County Highway 8 over the Iowa
Interstate Railroad’s track and to relocate an existing highway-rail grade
crossing in order to make room for the reconstructed bridge. The relocation is
near the Village of Wyanet in Bureau County. The bridge in question, which was
built in 1931 and rehabilitated in 1981, also spans the Hennepin Canal. Further
rehabilitation is not possible due to deterioration of the structure. The new
bridge will be wider and provide a safer roadway for the travelling public.
As the U.S. economy
continues to recover, CSX Corporation remains sharply focused on safety,
service and productivity, the things that have made the company successful
through a variety of economic conditions, Michael Ward, CSX chairman, president
and chief executive officer, told investors at the company’s annual shareholder
meeting.
Harsco Corporation said
that its Harsco Rail unit has received new orders totaling close to $6 million
for the company’s innovative Drone Tamper, a new and industry-unique
configuration that enables railways to increase their track maintenance
efficiency and reduce costs.
Standing
before a Depression-era railroad power station in North Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Gov. Edward Rendell and Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter warned May 6 that
such aging relics could imperil the region’s commuter rail network and its
highways, the Philadelphia Inquirer reports.