If a seaport were built on
dry land, it would look a lot like Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad’s new
Memphis intermodal facility, the Memphis Commercial Appeal reports. Giant
cranes loom over vast expanses of tracks, roads and parking, soon to be piled
high with oceangoing shipping containers.
Starting Sept. 4, at 9:30
p.m., until closing (midnight) on Sept. 7, Metro will undertake a complete
track overhaul on the Blue and Yellow lines that will close the Pentagon City,
Crystal City and Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport Metrorail stations.
Customers using the Blue and Yellow lines should add 45 minutes to their travel
plans to transfer to a free shuttle bus to get past the affected work area.
An area that had emanated
objectionable odors could produce the sweet smell of commercial success along
Bill Carruth Parkway, according to the Times-Georgian in Carrolton, Ga. Paulding’s
Board of Commissioners voted last week to transfer about 130 acres formerly
used as sewage treatment plant spray fields to the Paulding County Industrial
Building Authority, which will plan, design, construct and market an industrial
park. The site across from the Water System building on the parkway is served by
rail, and "rail spur projects have done well," said Blake Swafford, director of
both the IBA and Paulding County Regional Airport.
Colo Railroad Builders has been awarded contracts to surface approximately 100 miles of track on two WATCO Transportation Services railroads, South Kansas & Oklahoma Railroad (SKOL) and Yellowstone Valley Railroad (YSVR). According to the company, the SKOL and YSVR selected Colo to execute its surfacing work because of their ability to perform quality, high-production surfacing both safely and at a competitive rate.
The governments of Canada and Quebec gave the green light to the rehabilitation and development of the Outremont rail yards in Montreal. The total estimate of the project is C$120 million (US$117,016,080). The Government of Canada has earmarked up to C$30 million (US$29,254,020) for the project from the major Infrastructure component of the Building Canada Fund. The province will provide a further C$30 million (US$29,254,020), while Montreal will contribute C$60 million (US$58,508,040). Federal funding will be granted on condition that the project satisfies all federal eligibility requirements for the Building Canada Fund and that the Government of Quebec signs a contribution agreement.
The Port of Long Beach will host a series of public meetings to solicit community input on plans to expand a staging area for double-stack trains. The staging yard is in the vicinity of 9th Street and Pier B Avenue. The goal of the expansion is to increase the on-dock rail usage in the harbor.
The U.S. Surface
Transportation Board denied a petition filed by The Regional Answer To Canadian
National (TRAC) coalition last week, local newspapers report. The TRAC petition
was in response to Canadian National’s recent request for track rights
exemptions to allow the company to change the flow of freight train traffic on
17 Chicago area rail lines, including the Elgin, Joliet & Eastern Railroad.
The Vermont Agency of
Transportation and the New England Central Railroad are seeking $52 million in
federal funds to boost the speed of Amtrak’s Vermonter intercity passenger
service and increase NECR’s capacity for heavier freight carloads. If awarded
the grant, NECR will contribute 10 percent of project costs.Plans for the two-year
project include upgrades to heavier continuously welded rail, bridge work, new
tie installation and ballast work along 191 track miles. The project would be
funded through the Federal Railroad Administration’s High-Speed Intercity
Passenger Rail program, part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
L.B. Foster Company has
been awarded a $3.9-million transit rail products stimulus-funded contract for
the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority Fern Rock Yard Track
Renewal Project. New York City-based contractor Railworks Track Systems, Inc.
is replacing track and contact rail installations dating from 1928 in
Philadelphia’s Fern Rock Yard with a wide range of transit products sourced
from L.B. Foster.
Utah Transit Authority will
begin major earthwork activities in the I-80 corridor in preparation for laying
new rail on the Airport TRAX line. The new line will extend TRAX service from
downtown Salt Lake City to Salt Lake International Airport.
Weekend track work will
close three Blue and Yellow Line Metrorail stations in Northern Virginia
throughout the Labor Day weekend.
The Pentagon City, Crystal City, and Ronald
Reagan Washington National Airport Metrorail stations will be closed from 9:30
p.m. Friday, Sept. 4, to closing, (midnight) Monday, Sept. 7. These stations
will reopen at 5 a.m., on Tuesday, Sept. 8.
Metrorail riders in Virginia who
are planning to ride the Blue or Yellow lines will need to transfer to a free
shuttle bus if they want to pass through Pentagon City, Crystal City or the
Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport Metrorail stations because Metro
officials will be conducting track work between the Pentagon and Braddock Road
Metrorail stations throughout the holiday weekend. Regular service will resume
when the Metrorail system opens on Tuesday morning, Sept. 8.
The Florida East Coast
Railway wants to build a radio tower twice as tall as the Jupiter Lighthouse
about a football field from Bob Culpepper’s front door on Park Street, the Palm
Beach Post reports. And the former Jupiter mayor and nearby residents on the
north side of the Loxahatchee River are none too happy about it.
Kansas City Southern is
promising action after receiving complaints from the Bossier City, La., Council
that its railroad crossings are damaging vehicles, according to local
newspapers.
City officials hear a lot
of complaints from residents who hear too much noise from train horns, the Longmont
Times-Call reports. In fact,
Longmont City Councilwoman Sarah Levison calls it "Sleepless in Ward 2." But
the only way the city could put a hush on train horns through Longmont is by
developing "quiet zones" at the 17 BNSF crossings in the city – a project that
city officials have never fully studied.
The next phase of DART Rail
will be the return of rail service to Deep Ellum, Baylor, Fair Park and South
Dallas after an absence of more than 50 years and will bring new opportunities
for development and offer new destinations to thousands of new passengers when
the first four stations of the 20-station, 28-mile Dallas Area Rapid Transit
(DART) Green Line open on September 14.
U.S. Transportation
Secretary Ray LaHood said that the Federal Transit Administration achieved a crucial
milestone: it beat the September 1 deadline to provide all states and local
communities 50 percent of their Recovery Act transit formula dollars. In fact,
FTA provided nearly 90 percent of its $7.5-billion transit stimulus money to
states and local communities. FTA is managing an additional $900 million in
discretionary funds for New Starts projects, the Greenhouse Gas and Energy
Reduction and Tribal Transit programs and oversight for a total of $8.4
billion.
The collapse of the Union
Pacific railroad bridge in downtown Waterloo, Iowa, during last year’s historic
flood has cost the Iowa Northern Railway, the primary user of the span,
millions of dollars. Farmers, grain cooperatives and ag manufacturers have also
suffered economic and efficiency losses due to costly detours, according to the
Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier.
Before highways, there were
railroads – Houston’s first circulatory system. Civic boosters bragged in the
1920s that Houston was the place "where 17 railroads meet the sea." The trains
hauled cotton and grain. Downtown had three passenger stations, the Houston Chronicle
reports.
Northstar, the state’s
first commuter rail service, will offer five morning trips from Big Lake,
Minn., to downtown Minneapolis and five return trips in the afternoon along a
40-mile corridor, with stops at Fridley, Coon Rapids, Anoka, Elk River and Big
Lake. One reverse commute roundtrip also will be offered on weekdays, and three
weekend roundtrips are planned on Saturdays and Sundays.
The leader of the effort to
build the proposed DesertXpress high-speed train between Las Vegas and Southern
California said his company has launched a worldwide search for vendors and
suppliers so that construction on the $4 billion project could begin by the end
of March, the Las Vegas Sun reports.
