The
Illinois Commerce Commission’s Transportation Policy Committee will host a
policy briefing on a proposed high-speed rail corridor from Chicago to St.
Louis at 1:30 p.m. Wednesday, September 9, in hearing room A of the ICC’s
Springfield office. The ICC is located at 527 E. Capitol Avenue.
At a ceremony in
Belleville, Ontario, Prince Edward-Hastings MP Daryl Kramp, Mayor Neil Ellis
and Pierre Santoni, VIA Rail Canada’s Senior Director, National Sales,
announced VIA’s plans for a new station with improved and expanded facilities.
VIA estimates that it will invest as much as C$7 million for the new station
and related improvements from recent capital funding for VIA announced by the
Government of Canada. C$2.5 million of the project’s cost will come from the
government’s Economic Action Plan.
The V&T Railway
Commission was told Monday that the latest section of tracks begins going down
within the week, according to the Nevada Appeal. Project Engineer Ken Dorr said
this extension takes the tracks into the canyon above the Carson River which,
when completed, will be the most scenic part of the 17-mile ride between
Virginia City and Carson City, Nev.
The Village of Montgomery
now has a plan in place in the event Metra commuter rail service is one day
extended from downtown Aurora along the BNSF tracks into the village, according
to the Oswego Ledge Sentinel. In a split, 5-1 ballot Monday evening, the village
board adopted an ordinance to amend the village’s comprehensive plan to include
the new Transit Oriented Development Plan and Park-n-Ride Location Study.
The historic railroad
station north of 23rd Street could be back in service for customers under
proposed passenger rail service in the region, the South Florida Sun Sentinel
reports. Other possible station locations being considered for Vero Beach
include the area of downtown near Pocahontas Park and at the old Diesel Power
Plant south of eastbound State Road 60. Possible start date for the service is
October 2012.
CSX Transportation says
there is no danger to residents, but it is letting one Jacksonville, Fla.,
Westside neighborhood know that it has found some contaminants in ground water
near an old rail yard site, the Florida Times-Union reports. The rail yard
south of Beaver Street between McDuff Avenue and Edgewood Avenue ceased
operations in 1985. But Jacksonville-based CSXT still owns the property and has
a dispatch center and other operations adjacent to the site.
Port Authority of Allegheny
County in the Pittsburgh area released a proposal to improve bus and light rail
service starting next year and keep its base fare at $2. The final draft
proposal of the Transit Development Plan would bring sweeping improvements for
the majority of Port Authority’s 220,000 daily riders. Changes would begin in
March 2010 and be phased in over the next few years.
NJ Transit Executive
Director Richard Sarles and Board Member Susan Hayes greeted rush-hour
commuters August 31 at the grand opening of the new 31st Street
entrance to the NJ Transit Concourse at New York Penn Station, a direct and
spacious gateway between the concourse and street level.
Picture Lewis and Clark
splitting up at some point between present-day Umatilla and Boardman and racing
to the Pacific Ocean, the East Oregonian reports. Two contemporary economic
explorers, the general managers of the ports of Umatilla and Morrow, are doing
just that. Their goal, however, is developing a better shipping route from the
mid-Columbia River to Puget Sound.
State transportation
engineers are preparing a series of railroad track improvements they hope will
ease bottlenecks for ever-increasing rail traffic in central Charlotte, N.C.,
the Charlotte Observer reports. The N.C. Department of Transportation wants to
make upgrades to a 10-mile stretch of Norfolk Southern track from near
Charlotte-Douglas International Airport to Orr Road in northeast Charlotte.
The future of downtown rail
– for right or wrong, better or worse, for whatever it turns out to be – is now
firmly in the City of Austin’s hands, writes Ben Wear in the Austin Statesman. Capital
Metro, carrier of the passenger rail flag around here for more than 20 years,
will still open its MetroRail commuter line (sometime soon). And conceivably
the agency could be hired to operate a rail line built by the city. But Capital
Metro, nearly out of money and tarnished by its halting MetroRail performance
so far, won’t be the prime mover.
Quixote Corporation, a
leading manufacturer of transportation safety products and advanced
technologies, celebrated its 40-year anniversary in July 2009.
Construction in downtown
Minneapolis continues as crews work on the Hiawatha Light Rail Transit extension
and the Northstar Commuter Rail station. Punchlist work continues at the
commuter stations in Big Lake, Elk River, Anoka and Coon Rapids. System testing
also continues as crews are testing both the Northstar train system and the LRT
extension.
A
promise to fund an additional station,
approval of a budget of up to $941 million and award of a contract to
start public utility relocation in downtown St. Paul capped a banner month for
the Central Corridor LRT Project.
Beginning August 30, MAX
Yellow Line trains in downtown Portland, Ore., will move to the new tracks on
5th and 6th avenues along the Portland Transit Mall. Also on August 30, MAX
Green Line trains will begin two weeks of test runs on the Mall and along I-205
before opening for service on Saturday, September 12.
The State of Illinois is in
a rush to swallow up Federal Stimulus money earmarked for the development of
high-speed rail services, the Illinois Statehouse Examiner reports. However, in
the rush to meet the arbitrary deadlines imposed by the stimulus package, state
officials are giving little consideration to the economic impact of communities
along the high-speed rail system.
Alabama State Port
Authority officials plan to meet this week with Norfolk Southern senior
executives to discuss linking the railroad’s proposed $112-million intermodal
facility in McCalla, Ala., to the newly opened $300 million container terminal
in Mobile, according to the Birmingham Business Journal.
(This article appeared the
July-August 2009 St. Croix Chronicle, a publication of the St. Croix Economic
Development Corp.)
Even in the current
economic downturn, it’s been several years of full steam ahead for Twin City
Signal in Hudson, Wis. In order to meet immediate demands for its services, the
railroad signal engineering and design company, founded in Hudson in 1996, has
expanded into an additional facility across from its 7,200-square-foot
headquarters on Livingstone Road. The move nearly doubles its space, and
founder and company president Lee Kisling sees rails and more rails in the future.
The Regional Answer to
Canadian National (TRAC) is petitioning the Surface Transportation Board to
take a careful look at a recent request by Canadian National to increase its
trackage rights on its rail lines throughout the City of Chicago and suburbs.
In a move that went virtually undetected, on August 5, 2009, CN filed 17
simultaneous Trackage Rights Exemption requests with the STB asking that it be
allowed to change the flow of train traffic on its Chicago area railroad subsidiaries,
Elgin, Joliet & Eastern Railway, Illinois Central Railroad Company,
Wisconsin Central, Grand Trunk Western Railroad and Chicago, Central &
Pacific Railroad. This request could allow CN the ability to significantly
increase the number of trains that operate along the EJ&E line and its
subsidiaries in dozens of towns including Chicago, Mundelein, Schiller Park,
Broadview, Joliet, Frankfort, Markham, Buffalo Grove and parts of Indiana.
The long-awaited rail
spur for Custom Polymers in Elm Street Industrial Park in Athens, Ala., has
passed the last hurdle toward construction, the Athens News-Courier reports. On
August 27, the Limestone County Industrial Development Board and Athens City
Council granted a railroad easement to the company and clarified a payment
process utilizing company, city, county and grant funds.
The company, which
leases a city spec building in the park, uses recycled plastic to produce
pellets used in the manufacturing of bottles, clothing, fencing and benches.