Patriot Rail Corp., a privately-held short line and regional freight railroad holding company, has agreed in principle to purchase the shortline railroad assets of Weyerhaeuser Company. The acquisition is subject to certain closing conditions, including Patriot’s due diligence and regulatory approval, and is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2010.
It may not be known how California’s $43 billion high-speed rail line will be financed, but officials hosted the groundbreaking of the northern terminus of the proposed line in San Francisco.
DART staff briefed the Board of Directors during a August 10 Board meeting armed with a proposed budget for FY 2011 and a revised 20-year financial plan that keeps the Orange Line extension on track and includes an extension of the Blue Line.
ENSCO, Inc., has been
awarded the Operations, Maintenance, Instrumentation and Analysis Support
contract from the Federal Railroad Administration, Office of Research and
Development. The task-order contract, composed of a one-year base period and
four one-year options, has a five-year ceiling value of more than $24 million.
ENSCO shall perform engineering and operations services to support the
development and application of advanced research and technologies for enhanced
rail safety. The contract continues ENSCO’s longstanding relationship with the
FRA. The company has been a major provider of instrumentation, field-testing,
engineering analysis as well as research and development services since the
1970’s.
Union Pacific has posted an
invitation to bid for work on the CREATE B2 Project. Work includes track
roadbed, drainage, bridge and retaining wall construction to add a railroad
flyover connection between the Union Pacific line and Indiana Harbor Belt
Railroad near Proviso Yard in the near west suburbs of Chicago..
Atlantic Track and Turnout
Co. is expanding its railroad trackwork manufacturing capability by purchasing
the capital assets of Mid-South Rail, Memphis, Tenn. Jeff Grissom, president of
Mid-South Rail, will retain day-today responsibility as director of engineering
for the Memphis plant and will assume new responsibility as director of
engineering and manufacturing for Atlantic Track.
Discussions between
Amtrak, East Lyme Selectman Paul Formica, the U.S. Coast Guard and local
boaters and marine businesses have resulted in an agreement that balances the
use of the Niantic River channel by the marine community and the need to keep
the bridge-replacement project moving forward and on schedule.
Infotech Enterprises Limited said that its wholly owned subsidiary,
Infotech Enterprises America Inc., has acquired Wellsco Inc., located in
Paragould, Ark. in an all-cash deal. Wellsco is a focused engineering services
provider to the U.S. telecommunications industry. Headquartered in Paragould, Wellsco
has more than 180 employees located across five offices. It counts some of the
largest Telecom companies in the U.S. as long-term customers.
PennDOT invites the
public to take part in a multi-day workshop later in August to discuss
improvement plans for the Coatesville train station. The station is located on
the Keystone Corridor, which provides high-speed rail service between
Harrisburg and Philadelphia.
Washington, D.C., Metro
Board Chairman Peter Benjamin made the following remarks at a joint meeting
between the Metro Board of Directors and the National Transportation Safety
Board at Metro headquarters on Monday, August 9:
Safety is the top priority
at Metro, for the Board, for Metro management, for all of our staff from top to
bottom. This Board intends to ensure that, to the best of our ability, each and
every National Transportation Safety Board recommendation to Metro associated
with its review of the June 22, 2009 accident is implemented.
(The following column by
Michael Dresser appeared on The Baltimore Sun Website on August 9, 2010.) Baltimore
received a relatively gentle reminder last week of some unfinished business
that it can ill afford to ignore. A CSX Transportation freight train derailed
last Thursday in the Howard Street tunnel, the scene of the nearly disastrous
July 18, 2001, derailment and fire that paralyzed much of downtown for a week.
Thirteen cars of a 79-car train left the tracks – 11 of them in the tunnel
under Howard Street and two outside the portal at Mount Royal Avenue.
The South Shore commuter
line in northwest Indiana is alerting passengers to a series of planned
temporary weekend construction outages. The next weekend outage is planned for
August 28-30. During these construction related weekend outages, the South
Shore Line will not operate trains in either direction between South Bend and
Gary Metro Center beginning 2:30 a.m. Saturday thru 3:00 a.m. Monday. The South
Shore will operate regular weekend train service between Gary Metro Center and
Chicago.
VR Mergers &
Acquisitions – St. Louis is pleased to announce the sale of Central Illinois
Railroad Holdings to strategic railroad buyer, R & R Contracting. The sale
included substantially all of the assets of Central Illinois Railroad Company,
Central Railink Services and Central Railgroup Construction Services.
Union Pacific is investing
more than $18 million to improve the rail line that runs from Fremont to North
Bend, Neb. Also Union
Pacific is investing more than $11 million to improve the rail line that runs
from Jefferson City, Mo., to Wooldridge, Mo. Also in Missouri, UP is investing more than $2 million to improve the rail line
in St. Louis, Mo., that runs from Vandeventer Ave. to near Jefferson Barracks.
In Wisconsin, UP Railroad is investing more than $2 million to improve the rail
line that runs from Merrillan, Wis., to near Millston, Wis.
U.S. Transportation
Secretary Ray LaHood today announced the Federal Railroad Administration is
soliciting research proposals to foster rapid development of high-speed and
intercity passenger rail service technologies in the United States.
A pool of
$25 million is available for basic and applied technology research, development
and demonstration projects to advance the state of the art in track and
structures, train control systems, operating practices and rolling stock. FRA
is seeking projects focused on accelerating development of technologies that
ensure safe, efficient and strategic deployment of integrated passenger rail
systems. The solicitation is open to all sources.
Governor Charlie Crist is
applauding Florida’s application to the Federal Railroad Administration seeking
$1.1 billion in funding that will allow Florida to deliver high-speed rail
express service in the Tampa-Orlando corridor with operating speeds of 168 mph
by 2015, local media report.
Colorado has received
$400,000 and Vermont $500,000 under the Federal Railroad Administration’s High-Speed
Intercity Passenger Rail (HSIPR) Program grant program funded from fiscal year
2009 appropriations. Colorado will use its funds to develop a state rail plan,
a prerequisite for receiving additional HSIPR intercity passenger rail funding.
Sound Transit released
updated long-term revenue forecasts to the agency’s Executive Committee that
show ST2 funding levels down by about 25 percent, or $3.9 billion. Last fall
Sound Transit estimated long-term revenue levels to be down by about 20
percent, or $3.1 billion through 2023. The latest estimates come from updated
forecasts the agency received showing an additional $767 million shortfall.
The Chicago Metropolitan
Agency for Planning, or CMAP, has unveiled a transportation wish list that has
the Illinois 53 extension and its companion project, the Illinois 120 corridor,
at the top.
Federal and state
officials joined representatives of the Town of Normal and Amtrak to
ceremonially break ground for a Multimodal Transportation Center that will
serve as a station for Amtrak rail and motor coach passengers, local transit
buses and will include a multi-level parking structure.