Orange County Transportation Authority (OCTA) officials and city leaders from Fullerton, Placentia and Anaheim, Calif., marked the start of construction on the final three projects in the O.C. Bridges program with a groundbreaking ceremony May 9.
Caltrain completed the $155-million San Bruno grade separation project, which it says has improved rail safety for the city and for the commuter railroad by elevating the train tracks over San Bruno, San Mateo and Angus avenues.
Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe has created a Railroad Safety and Security Taskforce, which will develop an action plan to prepare and respond to possible train derailments. The launch of the task force follows the April 30 derailment of a CSX freight train carrying crude oil shipped from the Midwest to Yorktown. The accident occurred in downtown Lynchburg adjacent to the James River.
Metropolitan Transportation Authority‘s Metro-North Railroad completed a track reconstruction effort that began in July 2013 on the tracks through the central Bronx used by New Haven Line and Harlem Line trains. The authority says the work results in a safer, smoother ride and improved operating speeds.
Three of Connecticut’s representatives to Congress, Rosa DeLauro (D-CT), Jim Himes (D-CT) and Elizabeth Esty (D-CT) and Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (D-NY) unveiled the Rail Safety Enforcement Act, comprehensive legislation the congressmen say will enhance rail safety.
The House Appropriations Committee released its Fiscal Year 2015 Transportation, Housing and Urban Development funding bill. The committee proposal allocates $17.1 billion for the Department of Transportation, $727 million below FY 2014 funding levels.
The Association of American Railroads (AAR) recently recognized Chicago’s Metra for its commitment to employee safety in best safety practices from railroads around the industry at the annual Railroad Safety Leadership Forum in Atlanta.
Beginning May 5, Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) New York City Transit’s (NYCT) FASTRACK program will return to the A and C lines in Brooklyn.
BNSF has kicked-off its plan to invest approximately $1 billion to improve and expand rail capacity in states along its Northern Corridor, which spans the northern U.S. between the Pacific Northwest and Chicago. Some of the projects that will help expand capacity and improve traffic flow for all freight and passenger trains for current and future growth on those routes are well underway.
The National Railroad Construction and Maintenance Association, Inc.’s (NRC) Annual Railroad Construction and Maintenance Equipment Auction was held on May 1 at the Quality Track Equipment facility in Austinburg, Ohio, and set a record of $1 million of equipment auctioned to on-site and online bidders.
On April 10, following reports of VIA Rail Canada‘s Automatic Warning Devices (AWDs) systems at six Barrhaven-area rail crossings going into fail-safe mode with higher frequency and for longer periods of time than usual, VIA Rail retained experts at RailTerm and engineers from Hatch Mott MacDonald and Siemens to conduct an investigation of its infrastructure and signaling system and further investigate the root causes of these occurrences.
In a move to enhance the safety of Metro-North Railroad and Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) signaling systems sooner, Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) Board committees approved the expansion of a contract with a joint venture of Bombardier Transportation/Siemens Rail Automation by an additional $11.3 million.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper government today launched Rail Safety Week with new funding to improve railway crossings.
The Sound Transit Board has agreed to help implement improvements to Amtrak passenger rail service between Portland, Ore. and Vancouver, BC, Canada.
As part of an ongoing effort to secure a law mandating a minimum of two crew members in the cab of all locomotives, the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (BLET) and the United Transportation Union Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers (UTU-SMART) have provided their state legislative boards with model legislation to secure minimum crew size laws on the state level.
Kansas City Southern (KCS) and the Joplin, Mo., Police Department hosted an Officer on a Train event on April 24 to promote public safety at railroad crossings in the city.
Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s Metro-North Railroad has named three to top leadership positions.
Protran Technology has been awarded a grant by the Transportation Research Board (TRB) to develop and test the Intelligence Rail Integrity System (IRIS) to give advance warning of rail buckling and breaks,
The Association of American Railroads (AAR) issued a new report to the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) updating the industry’s progress on installing Positive Train Control (PTC) and said the industry will not meet the December 2015 deadline.
Charlotte City Council has authorized $249.8 million for construction of LYNX Blue Line Extension (BLE) and Blue Line Capacity projects.