NJ TRANSIT Executive
Director James Weinstein said the agency has expanded its online service DepartureVisionTM
to New York Penn Station and Hoboken Terminal, making access to real-time train
departures available at all of its rail stations.
Buses will replace train
service for Long Island Rail Road customers traveling between Long Beach and
Valley Stream the weekend of May 15-16 as work is completed on the construction
of two new railroad bridges over Powell Creek and Hog Island Channel. The
$24.5-million project, which is funded through the MTA Capital Budget and
federal grants, began in March and is wrapping up as planned in time to
accommodate the weekend beach crowds expected in Long Beach beginning Memorial
Day weekend.
Washington State will do
a detailed traffic study of its plan to route passenger trains traveling up to
79 miles an hour through South Tacoma, Lakewood and DuPont, despite previously
calling such a study unnecessary, the News Tribune reports. The Washington
State Department of Transportation said that it’s required to conduct the
assessment as a condition for using federal stimulus money to pay for the $91-million
rail project.
A Louisiana House committee
took the first steps toward setting up a means to establish train or light rail
services in regions of the state, the New Orelans Times Picayune reports. The Committee on
Transportation, Highways and Public Works gave unanimous support to House Bill
1410 by Rep. Michael Jackson, I-Baton Rouge, a longtime proponent of rail and
mass transit. The bill now heads to the House floor for debate.
Steady growth across the
Triangle near Raleigh, N.C., will make traffic worse over the next decade, and
thousands of students and workers will be eager to park the car and catch a
train, the News & Observer reports. That’s the forecast in a new report on
demand for commuter trains that would run every 40 minutes during the morning
and afternoon rush hours. Now the area will have to see whether taxpayers,
elected leaders and commuters buy into the idea.
Société de transport de
Montréal (STM) informed clients that Côte-Sainte-Catherine métro station must
be closed temporarily so it may carry out major repairs. Access to the station
will remain closed to clients at all times from May 17 to August 22
inclusively.
Signaling its most forceful
objection yet – and perhaps protracted court battles – Union Pacific has
notified the California high-speed rail authority that it will fight the
state’s newest plans to run bullet trains from the South Bay to the Central
Valley, including along Monterey Highway in San Jose, the Mercury News reports.
VIA Rail
Canada said that as of May 11, travel times on the Montréal-Ottawa route will
improve with the introduction of new schedules. Trip times will be shortened by
as much as 15 minutes, while arrival and departure times for certain trains
will be changed to better suit customer needs.
MTA Long Island Rail Road
customers can now obtain train fare information via cell phone text message
from CooCoo, the Long Island-based text engine company that has been providing
train schedules and service updates via cell phone at no extra cost beyond the
phone company’s standard texting fee.
Sound Transit contractors
will complete final installation of light rail track switch heaters May 14-16
on the main tracks near the Link light rail Operations and Maintenance
Facility. Link trains will be delayed starting Friday, May 14th at 10 p.m.
through the start of service Monday morning at 5 a.m.
The Jo-Carroll Depot
Local Redevelopment Authority, LRA, is accelerating plans for development and
jobs at Savanna Depot Park after the federal government agreed to expedite the
property transfers needed for the proposed railcar mall and other development.
J.L. Patterson &
Associates, Inc., a transportation-engineering firm providing engineering
design, construction management and staff augmentation to public and private
sector clientele, as a sub-consultant to David Evans and Associates, Inc., will
be providing engineering design management, track design and structures design
services for the Oregon Department of Transportation’s High Speed Intercity
Passenger Rail Project. The scope of work includes National Environmental
Policy Act and Preliminary Engineering Services.
BNSF plans to spend $84
million on track improvements in Wyoming this year, the Casper Star-Tribune
reports. Major projects will include rail, tie and surfacing work, BNSF
spokesman Gus Melonas said.
Houston METRO President
& CEO Frank J. Wilson has resigned. The METRO Board of Directors accepted
his resignation at a Special Board meeting, May 7. As part of the resignation,
the Board authorized Chairman Gilbert Garcia to sign a Mutual Termination and
General Release agreement with Wilson. This agreement is posted on METRO’s Web
site.
Multinational railway signaling
and train control provider Invensys Rail has appointed former Network Rail
director Nick Crossfield as its new managing director for its Northern Europe
division. He takes the helm of the division in June and succeeds Mark Wild who
has been acting managing director since November 2009.
According to a notice
published in the May 10 Federal Register, the Federal Railroad Administration
is proposing to amend the Track Safety Standards and Passenger Equipment Safety
Standards applicable to high-speed and high- cant-deficiency train operations
in order to promote the safe interaction of rail vehicles with the track over
which they operate.
The Sonoma-Marin Area
Rail Transit (SMART) is an initiative in Northern California to provide a new
passenger rail service along 70 miles of an existing Northwestern Pacific
corridor. With the corridor having been out of service since 1994, the lead
designer, HDR Engineering, required a high precision, as-built track geometry
survey of the existing infrastructure.
The industrial city within
a city is taking shape on the south end of Joliet. Ill., the Herald-News
reports. CenterPoint Intermodal Center-Joliet — a 4,000-acre, $2-billion
project that is changing the landscape of a once rural edge of the city — will
begin to become a working industrial center in the coming months.
San Bernardino County, Calif.,
transportation officials met a state deadline May 7 to keep a $202-million
railroad overpass project on track, according to officials who negotiated the
hastily finalized deal, The Press-Enterprise reports.
A planned $100-million
expansion of CSX Transportation’s freight rail facilities near Franklin Street
in Worcester, Mass., has been heralded by state and local officials as a major
boon for economic development, the Worcester Business Journal reports. But just
how many jobs the expansion will create, and what the impact on the local
neighborhood will be, remains to be seen.
