Sen. Dick Durbin said July
23 that giving the Union Pacific Railroad $98.3 million in federal money for
track improvements without an agreement in place to allow high-speed passenger
rail is still a good idea, The Springfield, Ill., State Journal-Register
reports.
U.S. Transportation Secretary
Ray LaHood said that the Denver Union Station project will receive just over
$300 million in federal loans through an unprecedented and historic innovative
financing arrangement using the Department of Transportation’s Railroad Rehabilitation
and Improvement Financing (RRIF) Program and the Transportation Infrastructure
Finance and Innovation Act (TIFIA) Program. The project is funded with a unique
financing structure and for the first time combines credit assistance from both
programs.
Can two rail agencies share
a set of new tunnels under the Hudson River to midtown Manhattan and save
billions of dollars, instead of building separate tubes under the Hudson River?
asks the Asbury Park, N.J., Press.
Excavators are eating
into a slope above BNSF’s main line in the Fruit Valley neighborhood, the Columbian
reports. The work is to prepare the site for a 3.2-mile-long set of bypass
tracks designed to help ease a railroad chokepoint in Vancouver, Wash. The new
line will run along the east side of the BNSF main line from downtown Vancouver
all the way to the Fruit Valley Road overpass.
More than a century ago,
gangs of burly men would lay railroad ties at a snail’s pace, driving them in
with sledgehammers, the Lansing, Mich., State Journal reports. Today, the work
proceeds more quickly with large hydraulic machines, but still not fast enough
to avoid causing headaches for motorists facing traffic backups and detours.
In 1985, a young and
energetic Mississippi State University forest products professor began testing
a new treatment on railroad crossties, the Starkville, Miss., Daily News
reports. At the time, Terry Amburgey had little notion that his experiment
would change railroad infrastructure almost 25 years later.
Kansas City Southern reported
that its Mexican subsidiary, Kansas City Southern de Mexico, S.A. de C.V.
(KCSM) has worked throughout the weekend on the Anahuac Bridge and re-opened
the bridge at 5:55 p.m. on Saturday, July 24. KCSM began running trains on the
re-opened line immediately.
Local residents and hotel
guests will sleep sounder now that routine horn blowing by trains passing
through downtown St. Joseph is diminished due to a joint project between the
city, the Missouri Department of Transportation and BNSF, local media report.
Work is now complete on safety improvements at several rail crossings that make
the city of St. Joseph eligible for a federal quiet zone designation.
Metro officials in the
Washington, D.C., area, worked throughout the night to mitigate the impact of
Sunday’s thunderstorms to Metrorail service Monday, July 26. Sunday’s storms
knocked out power to much of the region, including rail stations and rail yards.
However the effect of the storm on Monday’s rail service was expected to be
minimal.
At 5 a.m. on Monday, July
26, Miami-Dade Transit resumed regular service on the entire Metromover system,
including the Brickell segment of Metromover’s Outer Loop. The Inner Loop and
Omni segment of the Outer Loop were reopened on Friday, July 23, 2010.
From Sunday, July 25, to
Thursday, July 29, crews are continuing a project that will improve rail
crossings at Mary and Sunnyvale avenues in Sunnyvale. Crews will grade and
trench the site and install foundations for the improvements. They also will
make wiring modifications in the signal houses. The work is part of a VTA
project to improve safety at eight crossings in Sunnyvale, Mountain View and
Palo Alto.
Illinois Governor Pat Quinn
announced more than $500 million for critical mass transit infrastructure
improvements throughout Illinois. The funding, provided through the Illinois
Jobs Now! capital construction program, will create and retain an estimated
18,000 jobs and improve traveler safety.
The
Sound Transit Board completed work defining a preferred alternative for the
East Link light rail project by selecting specific configuration options for a
future route on 112th Avenue South in Bellevue, Wash.
In February, U.S.
Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood announced $100 million in American Recovery
and Reinvestment Act funds for projects to help reduce rail bottlenecks in the
Chicago region. On July 22, the U.S. Department of Transportation and the
Illinois Department of Transportation finalized a grant agreement for the
CREATE (Chicago Region Environmental and Transportation Efficiency) program to
begin work on those projects.
Secretary LaHood said freight congestion
mitigation projects include new traffic control systems, track and bridge work,
a highway-rail grade separation and safety improvements on various rail viaducts.
The Surface Transportation
Board said its Section of Environmental Analysis has issued the Draft
Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the R. J. Corman Railroad
Company/Pennsylvania Lines Inc. (RJCP) proposed construction, operation, and
reactivation of a 20-mile railroad line between Wallaceton and Gorton, in
Clearfield and Centre Counties, Pennsylvania.
The Seattle-area Sound
Transit board of directors took a major step towards delivering the Sounder
commuter rail expansions that voters approved in 2008 by authorizing the
purchase of rights to four additional south line Sounder round trips.
CRSBG-Donovan Manganese
Steel Hardening Co. Ltd. of China has entered into a patent license agreement
with UNITRAC Railroad Materials, Inc. of Knoxville, Tenn., to operate a
patented Explosive Depth Hardening Blast chamber at its headquarters in
Shanhaiguan District, Qinhuangdao, Hebei Province.
Dan Blocher replaces Neil
McFarlane, who is TriMet’s new general manager, as executive director of capital
projects for TriMet in the Portland, Ore., area. Blocher, 49, will direct and
manage all aspects of planning, development, design and construction of TriMet’s
capital projects, including the Portland-Milwaukie Light Rail Project now in
the design phase. He has been with TriMet for 13 years over two periods of
employment.
July 23-25, Metro in the
Washington, D.C., area will make upgrades to its track on the Blue and Green
lines to improve reliability and service. As a result of this crucial work
aimed at keeping the railroad in a state of good repair, riders can expect
delays of up to 30 minutes.
Jacksonville-based CSX
Transportation reached an agreement with the U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency to pay $11.2 million to clean up a former wood treatment plant site in
Desoto County in Southwest Florida, the Florida Times-Union reports.