The Maryland Transit
Administration advises the public of an upcoming Amtrak project on the
Northeast Corridor between New Carrollton and Baltimore that will impact MARC
Train Penn line riders. This major track work project, replacing the crossties
on the northbound track, will require Penn Line schedule changes approximately
every 4-5 weeks for the next six months.
Allowing
the rail link between Aroostook County and the rest of the state to disappear
would be economically devastating to the region. But, with limited resources,
the state isn’t in a good position to operate a financially troubled rail line,
according to an editorial in the Bangor Daily News.
Kansas City Southern said
that it has acquired the Puerta Mexico intermodal facility at Toluca in the State
of Mexico. Later this month, Kansas City Southern de Mexico, S.A. de C.V.
(KCSM) will add direct train service from Lazaro Cardenas to Puerta Mexico,
providing Mexico City import and export shippers with a service alternative
featuring improved consistency and reliability and better transit times.
Union Pacific will improve
Seattle’s transportation infrastructure with a $5.7-million investment to enhance
its track from Seattle to Fife, Wash. Running generally parallel to Interstate
5, this section of Union Pacific track is critical to the movement of goods in
Washington and helps keep local and regional economies competitive. The project
is under way and will continue through the middle of 2010.
North Shore construction
work in Pittsburgh will cause much of the intersection of Allegheny Avenue and
Reedsdale Street to close through Friday, April 2, 2010. The closing is due to
the ongoing construction of the North Shore Connector light rail project.
February’s inclement weather resulted in an extension of construction in the
area.
A $133-million federal
stimulus project to build a railroad "flyover" at the Metra, Amtrak
and freight tracks in Englewood on Chicago’s south side will untie a knot in
the nation’s rail system and make way for high-speed rail, government and rail
officials said Friday, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.
CSX Transportation has
agreed to take soil samples from under a bridge it owns in south central
Kentucky to test for any contamination from peeling paint flakes, local media
report. A group of concerned citizens in Barren County said their own tests of
the soil showed high levels of lead. The group’s leader, David Garvin, told The
Daily News in Bowling Green that CSX had previously been ignoring the concerns.
Vice President Joe Biden
and U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood announced funding for 191 new
Recovery Act transit projects in 42 states and Puerto Rico that will help
transform the nation’s infrastructure and support thousands of jobs across the
country. In making the over $600 million in new awards, the Federal Transit
Administration met an aggressive deadline to award 100 percent of its Recovery
Act transit formula dollars by March 5.
U.S. Senator Susan
Collins of Maine, a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, secured a
commitment from U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood to work with her,
state, and local officials in an effort to keep the important Maine, Montreal
& Atlantic Railway operating in Northern Maine. Secretary LaHood pledged to
send the Federal Railroad Administrator to Maine to work on a plan to keep the
railway operating.
Congressman Jerrold Nadler, the representative of Lower Manhattan and the senior Northeastern
member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, said there will be $156 million in American
Recovery and Reinvestment Act funding for the Fulton Street Transit Center in
Manhattan. These federal funds, which Nadler supported, will be used for
construction and improvements of the new Downtown transit hub. Improvements
will focus on connections between stations, passageways, platforms, systems,
and restoration of the historic Corbin building.
U.S. Senators Charles E.
Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, Congressman Jerry Nadler and Congresswoman
Carolyn Maloney said that the United States Department of Transportation will
allocate more than $274 million under the American Recovery and Reinvestment
Act for the Long Island Rail Road East Side Access Project and the Second
Avenue Subway Project. The East Side Access Project will create a rail link
from the Long Island Rail Road via the 63rd Street Tunnel to Grand Central Station
that will help tens of thousands of Nassau, Suffolk and Queens commuters save
hours on their daily commutes. The Second Avenue Subway Project will help to
ease congestion on the Lexington Avenue line, the most crowded subway line in
the nation.
A federal investigation has
identified pervasive flaws in rail safety at Metro and severe inadequacies in
the agency responsible for oversight. Findings released March 4 call for
widespread changes in how the nation’s second-busiest subway system is
supervised and managed, the Washington Post reports.
On
March 5, Congressman Dan Lipinski (D-Ill) joined House Transportation &
Infrastructure Committee Chairman James Oberstar (D-Minn.), Chicago Mayor
Richard M. Daley, Illinois Governor Pat Quinn and IDOT Secretary Gary Hannig for
the groundbreaking on the Englewood Flyover, which is now expected to begin
this year thanks to $133 million in new federal funding.
Engineers who design
facilities and structures live in a cycle of planning and planning again, the
BNSF electronic employee newsletter reports. But sometimes, even with the best
of planning and looking "around the corner," a surprise comes along
that requires a different approach. That’s what happened with the Burlington,
Iowa, bridge project, which involves rebuilding a bridge originally built in
1867-1868.
MTA Long Island Rail Road
customers using the busy Ronkonkoma Station now have almost 300 new parking
spots available to them thanks to completion of a railroad-funded renovation
project on the northeast side of the tracks in the Town of Brookhaven. The
rehabilitation of the former dirt lot included drainage, curbs, asphalt paving,
sidewalks, lighting, striping, signage, fencing and landscaping.
Hundreds – perhaps
thousands – of old creosote-soaked railroad ties dumped along a 30-mile stretch
of the Deschutes River may be removed in coming months thanks to persistent
cage-rattling by Eugene, Ore., businessman and clean-water enthusiast John
Brown, The Eugene Register-Guard reports.
IMPulse NC LLC promoted of
Jeffrey Wharton to president. Wharton previously served as executive vice president
and general manager for the company. He has more than 30 years of transit
construction and manufacturing experience and currently serves on the board of directors
of the American Public Transportation Association, and as Chair of the APTA Business
Member’s Business Development Committee.
Work on a $2.8 million
project to add additional signals to the Caltrain signal system will take place
between 8 p.m., March 8 and 4 a.m., March 9 at Fair Oaks Lane in Atherton, Calif.
A five-level parking
structure opened at Aurora, Ont., GO Station near Toronto offering customers
866 new parking spaces. Customers at this station now have access to more than
1,700 parking spots, making it easier to leave their cars behind.
The Public Utilities
Commission of Ohio approved construction authorization from the Ohio Rail
Development Commission directing Norfolk Southern to install flashing lights
and roadway gates at grade crossings in Montgomery, Summit and Warren counties.
PUCO also approved an agreement authorizing CSX Transportation to install
flashing lights and roadway gates at the Taylor Road (154-092R) and Ringwood
Road (154-089H) grade crossings in Oxford Township, Butler County.
