Denver Regional
Transportation District General Manager Phillip Washington noted the completion
of recruitments for several key RTD positions. These recruitments have been
under way since February as part of GM Washington’s reorganization and
restructuring of the agency, and will not require an increase in headcount.
Each weekend in June, there
will be major track work taking place to address Metro’s priority of
maintaining a state of good repair on the Red, Blue and Green lines. In addition,
construction work on the extension of rail to Dulles will take place on the
Orange Line. All of June’s weekend projects will impact travel times and cause
delays.
Union Pacific will improve
Nebraska’s transportation infrastructure with a $5-million investment to
improve the rail line that runs from Council Bluffs, Iowa, to Fremont, Neb. Work
on the more-than-33-mile stretch of railroad track began May 26 and is
scheduled to be completed by the end of July.
CN has awarded a contract
to Roche Ltd. Consulting Group of Quebec City to perform a comprehensive
engineering inspection of the Quebec Bridge, which spans the St. Lawrence River
between Quebec City and Levis.
Caltrain’s plan to
electrify and modernize Peninsula commuter rail service received a critical and
historic approval from the federal government yesterday – clearance to run the
most modern equipment available in the world. The Federal Railroad
Administration issued a waiver of longstanding rules that prohibit what is
known as "mixed traffic" – operating standard American trains and lighter rail
equipment on the same tracks.
Canadian Pacific notified
by the Teamsters Canada Maintenance of Way Employees Division that the
Memorandum of Settlement reached in April 2010 by Canadian Pacific and the TCRC
MWED has now been ratified by the membership.
Société de transport de
Montréal must temporarily close the main entrance building to Place Saint-Henri
métro station, located on Saint-Ferdinand St., to carry out renovation work. As
the renovations will extend from June 7 to August 29, bus stops will be
relocated to the corner of Saint-Jacques and Saint-Ferdinand streets.
The Memorial Day Holiday weekend Dulles Corridor Metrorail Project work on Metrorail’s Orange Line that had resulted in the disruption of rail service between the West Falls Church-VT/UVA and East Falls Church stations in northern Virginia was completed successfully and service between the two stations resumed at 5 a.m., Tuesday morning, June 1.
Three consortia that supply
smart card electronic fare payment systems and fare gates to some of the
biggest transit operations in the world have qualified to submit proposals to
supply a Smart Card and Faregate system for Vancouver’s TransLink, to be in
operation by the target date of first quarter of 2013.
Frustrated by the
clanging and banging of freight trains through their neighborhood near UC
Riverside, Calif., residents have demanded better sound protection and more
specifics on safety improvements before they support a planned expansion of
Metrolink service, The Press-Enterprise reports. But retrofitting more than 100
homes, adding underpasses and developing a community safety plan could cost
millions of dollars and potentially delay the Perris Valley Line.
Gangs will be in the
north central area and across the HiLine of Montana this spring and summer, but
these gangs are an indication of an improving economy, the Great Falls Tribune
reports. BNSF will invest $77.2 million in capital maintenance projects,
including rail replacement, tie replacement and track surfacing.
Florida East Coast Railway named
James Hertwig president and CEO of the company effective July 1, 2010. Hertwig is an accomplished expert in
intermodal transportation and is highly respected throughout the industry. He
has been president and CEO of Carolina Freight Carriers Corporation, president
of Landstar Logistics, Inc., and most recently president of CSX Intermodal.
CSX Transportation said
that it has entered into a rail security partnership with the State of Florida
that represents a model CSXT hopes to use with other states it serves.
Continuing the
Patrick-Murray Administration’s commitment to providing accessible
transportation service to all residents of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts,
MBTA General Manager Rich Davey joined local officials and members of the West
End community at the Science Park/West End Station to announce a $22-million
investment for accessibility improvements to the station. The project includes
the construction of two elevators that will provide access from a new street
level lobby to the train platforms at the top of the viaduct.
The effort to fix a
dangerous and congested rail intersection near downtown Fort Worth known as
Tower 55 may finally be on track, the Ft. Worth Star Telegram reports. Texas
Department of Transportation officials said that they would formally endorse an
application for federal funding for the Tower 55 project, a $93.7-million
proposal to modernize crossings often used by children on the way to school.
Portland, Oregon’s regional
transit agency TriMet formed a partnership with junaio to integrate transit
data ranging from station locations, bus routes to estimated arrival times into
a TriMet channel on the junaio 2.0 mobile augmented reality platform. Available
free on the iPhone 3GS and coming soon to Android devices, junaio 2.0 features
the TriMet channel to give riders easy and instant access to complete transit
information on nearby stops by simply pointing their phone around them.
The Los Angeles County
Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Metro) invites the public to a new
community meeting on Monday, June 7, to discuss alignment options for tunneling
between the Wilshire/Rodeo and Century City Stations now being examined as part
of the Westside Subway Extension Project environmental study now under review.
Chicago area Metra commuters at Hanover Park on the Milwaukee West Line and Fairview Avenue on BNSF will experience some delays and inconvenience due to station work.
The Public Utilities
Commission of Ohio recently offered to pay, using grant funds, a portion of
Medina’s share of an upcoming railroad upgrade project if the city agreed to
used any saved money to install new gates and signal lights at crossings on
Lafayette and Ryan roads, the Medina Sun reports.
The U.S. Department of
Transportation said that nearly $80 million in grants have been delivered to
states as part of President Obama’s historic high-speed and intercity passenger
rail program. These grants will go toward the development of a brand new
Recovery Act funded high-speed rail system in Florida as well as critical
upgrades to existing passenger rail service throughout the country.
