(The following column was
written by Tom Brooks, the Alaska Railroad’s chief engineer, and appeared in
the Anchorage, Alaska, Daily News.) Inspectors from the Federal Railroad
Administration–the regulatory agency with safety-related authority over all
U.S. railroads–were back in Alaska earlier this summer. Among other things,
FRA inspectors require the Alaska Railroad Corporation to improve weed control.
Amtrak is offering its
expert guidance on station development to communities in Illinois, Iowa and
Wisconsin where new state-supported Amtrak service is planned to begin in the
next three years. As a part of its Great American Stations Project, Amtrak is hosting
local and state leaders in a Civic Conversation with a special focus on the
development of stations on planned Chicago routes to Dubuque, Iowa, via
Rockford, Ill.; to Iowa City via the Illinois-Iowa Quad Cities; and to Madison,
Wis., via Milwaukee.
In
1995 when railroad veteran Michael Haverty joined Kansas City Southern Railway
as chief executive, the carrier seemed to be chugging into a long, dark tunnel
with no exit, The Kansas City Star reports. The future for the Kansas City
railroad appeared anything but bright. Mergers in the rail industry were
creating mega-carriers in the nation’s western half. The giants, Burlington
Northern Santa Fe and Union Pacific, were threatening to overwhelm Kansas City
Southern, the smallest of the major carriers, with its network running from the
heartland to the Gulf Coast.
On July 22, PATCO begins
the process of recycling newspapers, glass and plastic with the placement of
special trash receptacles at the Lindenwold, Ashland and Woodcrest Stations.
The special green receptacles with a recycling decal will be located mostly on
the station platforms although they will be available in other locations. The
program will be expanded to include all other PATCO stations including the four
subway stations in Philadelphia.
(The following column by
Brain Palmer was published in the Washington Post.) Americans love to complain
about the pitiable state of our once-great rail system and wonder why our
locomotives are stuck in the past. I mean, you can zip between Wuhan and
Guangzhou, China, at 220 mph. Japan’s Shinkansen system tops 186 mph. The
French TGV can blaze across the countryside at more than 200 mph. Yet the Acela
train, the pride of Amtrak, hits a ho-hum 150 mph at top speed and maintains
that for only a few minutes between New York and Boston.
You get history by the
earful when you ride around Raleigh with railroaders. And a little prehistory,
too, the News & Observer reports.
The Chicago Transit
Authority has installed LED signs at 14 rail stations that provide elevator
status information. The new LED signs are located above the accessible
turnstiles at accessible rail stations and provide the most current information
on elevator outages. By providing this information at the station entrance it
allows riders who need elevator access to check on the status of the elevators
at their origin and destination station before they pay their fares.
A grade crossing renewal
project in St. James, N.Y., will affect some midday train service on the MTA
Long Island Rail Road’s Port Jefferson Branch from Monday, August 2, through
Friday, August 6. During the work four eastbound and four westbound midday
trains will depart and terminate from the Smithtown Station instead of the Port
Jefferson Station.
Eugene J. Kim has been
named Vice President in the Los Angeles office of Parsons Brinckerhoff, a
global infrastructure strategic consulting, planning, engineering and
program/construction management organization. In his new position, he is
responsible for managing PB’s Los Angeles transportation planning practice,
which provides comprehensive multimodal corridor planning, transportation
policy and program implementation services to Southern California’s regional
transportation agencies.
(OneRail Coalition sent he
following letter to the Senate Appropriations Committee to support more funding
for railroads and rail transit.) As the Subcommittee prepares to mark up
Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies
Appropriations for Fiscal Year 2011, the OneRail Coalition urges a balanced
approach including equivalent growth in public investment for rail
infrastructure as well as highways and transit.
Massachusetts Department of
Transportation Secretary and CEO Jeffrey Mullan joined state and local
officials for the groundbreaking for the $17.7-million Four Corners/Geneva
Commuter Rail station project. As
part of the Fairmount Commuter Rail Line Rehabilitation Project, the Four
Corners/Geneva station is one of four new commuter rail stations to be built
along the corridor.
Metro’s Safety Department
received approval from the Tri-state Oversight Committee to close 22
corrective action plans last month that address safety issues identified during
internal and TOC safety audits. Some of the plans closed in June included
identifying and marking tripping hazards near the tracks, evaluating and
updating communication procedures for track workers and developing standards
for allowable wheel roughness and wheel repair for rail cars.
Metro’s staff
presented these and other steps made to improve safety to the Metro Board of
Director’s Customer Service, Operations and Safety Committee.
For Florida’s high-speed
rail, early work begins July 19 — in a very geeky way, local media report. Crews
are starting "geotechnical exploration."
PBS Coals has invested in
its own stretch of railroad, and this summer work on the project is complete,
the Somerset, Pa., Daily American reports.
The Friedens, Pa., company now has
a 10-mile railway that will transport most of the coal to a Baltimore port to
be exported. The project cost "just shy of $1 million," according to Hank
Parke, director of business development.
Saturday, July 17 to
Thursday, July 22, crews will continue a project that will improve rail
crossings at Mary and Sunnyvale avenues in Sunnyvale, Calif. 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.
On July 19, Sound Transit
will mark the first birthday of Central Link light rail, which during its
inaugural year of operations attracted an estimated six million riders.
Top officials with the
Michigan Department of Transportation and Amtrak joined representatives of the
city of Pontiac and Greyhound July 16 to break ground for the new Pontiac
Transportation Center, which will serve intercity rail and bus passengers. The
intermodal station project is funded with $1.4 million from the state’s
Comprehensive Transportation Fund account.
A major program to rebuild
nearly two-dozen century-old railroad bridges on Metra’s Union Pacific North
line is expected to start next month and will mean schedule changes for
thousands of commuters, the Chicago Tribune reports. Although the bridges are
on Chicago’s North Side, the entire line will be affected because the project
will force northbound and southbound trains onto a single track at work sites,
officials said.
While passenger trains are
still at least two years away from running on a "Three-C" corridor
for which Ohio has obtained federal stimulus money, state officials have begun
looking at what they hope will be a second phase, which would include two
Toledo routes. The Toledo Blade reports that the Ohio Rail Development
Commission has signed a $7.8 million contract with AECOM, a Los Angeles
engineering firm, to assess what would need to be done to institute 110-mph
passenger trains on four routes, including Detroit-Toledo-Cleveland and
Toledo-Columbus.
(Editor’s note: This story
updates a story posted on this Website July 13.) Mayor Richard J. Berry said
that the City of Albuquerque has been awarded $6.72 million from the U.S.
Department of Transportation to build the Montaño Intermodal Center. The center
will provide a new connection between ABQ Ride buses and the New Mexico Rail
Runner Express commuter train near the intersection of Montaño and 2nd St.
