After a few days on the
job, new Hampton Roads, Va., Transit leader Philip Shucet said he’s working to
correct poor project management practices on Norfolk’s beleaguered light-rail
construction and eliminate a culture of fear that has gripped the agency, The
Virginian-Pilot reports. Both have contributed to the spiraling cost overruns
and schedule delays on the light-rail project that has cast a pall over the
transit agency.
Kansas has received a
grant to develop a business plan for an expanded Amtrak passenger rail service
south from Newton to Oklahoma City – but no money to actually develop the line,
The Hutchinson News reports. The $250,000 award from the $8 billion American
Recovery and Reinvestment Act High-Speed Intercity Passenger Rail program also
must be locally matched, which is not a foregone conclusion with the fiscal
crisis facing the state, officials acknowledged.
Norfolk Southern hasn’t laid down any of the track that will connect
its main line to the proposed $112-million intermodal terminal in Rossville, Tenn.,
but the company is laying down a foundation to keep the project on target to
open in two years, The Daily News reports.
An early state plan to
improve two busy railroad crossings has sparked questions about who should pay
for the project, even though no one knows the exact price tag yet, the St.
Louis Post Dispatch reports. The improvements are planned for crossings at
Mockingbird Lane near Illinois Route 162 and Cargill Road at Country Place
Lane. Both are in eastern Granite City about a quarter-mile apart.
Throughout the Presidents
Day Holiday weekend, the Rosslyn Metrorail station on the Blue and Orange lines
in the Washington, D.C., area will be closed and the Arlington Cemetery
Metrorail station on the Blue Line (station closes at 7 p.m. nightly during the
winter months) will also be closed from 10 p.m., Friday, Feb. 12 to closing,
Monday, Feb. 15, while Metro undertakes a major track rehabilitation project.
Normal service will resume on Tuesday, Feb. 16, at 5 a.m.
Hugh Fuller has
joined HNTB Corporation as the Northwest railway practice manager and brings
more than 30 years of experience in the transportation and railway engineering
fields. He has managed or designed more than a dozen light rail, streetcar and
commuter rail projects, making him one of the leading railway engineers in the
United States.
Michael T.
McNamara, P.E., was recently named
a senior associate at Gannett Fleming, an international planning, design, and
construction management firm. Based in the firm’s Valley Forge, Pa., office, McNamara
serves as executive vice president and chief operating officer of Gannett
Fleming Transit & Rail Systems, a
division of Gannett Fleming specializing in transit and railroad track, signal,
communication and electric traction design.
He resides in Voorhees, N.J.
On Feb.1, President Obama
proposed $1.82 billion in funding for 27 major transit construction projects
that will create jobs and increase transportation options throughout the United
States.
San Francisco Mayor Gavin
Newsom and the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency said that the
Federal Transit Administration has again provided a strong rating to the
Central Subway Project, Phase 2 SFMTA’s Third Street Light Rail Project. The
Project has received a positive review as part of the FTA’s New Starts program
with a Medium-High project justification rating and Medium-High overall rating.
Bombardier
Transportation, in consortium with China Railway Signal & Communication
Corp (CRSC), has won an order to deliver the BOMBARDIER INTERFLO 200 mainline
signaling solution on the Bin Qasim to Mirpur Mathelo Double Line Section of
the Karachi-Lahore line in Pakistan. The contract, valued at approximately $57
million, with Bombardier’s share amounting to approximately $38 million, was
awarded by Pakistan Railways (PR).
Outside contractors working
on the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s biggest projects are
routinely given positive evaluations despite mediocre work, in part to preserve
business relationships, an investigation by the authority’s inspector general
has found, the New York Times repots.
Despite the loss of $3
million in state funding promised in July 2008 by then-state Sen. Joseph Bruno,
a $40-million rail-yard project in Mechanicsville, N.Y., is still in the works,
local newspapers report. The new facility is to be built by Pan Am Southern
LLC, a joint venture of Pan Am Railways, formerly Guilford Transportation and
before that the Boston and Maine Railroad, and Norfolk Southern Railway. Boston
and Maine once operated extensive rail yards here, connecting with the Delaware
& Hudson Railway, but those yards were gone by the 1980s.
The city of Winter Haven,
Fla., is moving forward on the Integrated Logistics Center to be developed in
conjunction with the CSX Intermodal Terminal planned for the southern portion
of the city, The News Chief reports. The planning commission discussed during a
workshop Feb. 2 a change in future land use from Institutional-2 as designated
by Polk County to industrial-business park center for the approximately 932
acres. The city annexed the property in 2005 but didn’t assign a land use
designation or zoning.
High-speed rail may be
coming down the tracks one day, but the Stanislaus County, Calif., Board of
Supervisors entered into an agreement to plan and develop a regional commuter
rail system that could soon share those tracks, the Turlock Journal reports. The
Board of Supervisors unanimously approved a Memorandum of Understanding to
enter a working group to collaborate with the California High-Speed Rail
Authority that will see the county partner with more than 20 regional entities
from Sacramento County to Merced County.
It’s gotten a little
quieter for residents living along the Canadian National Railway in three western
suburbs, the Chicago Tribune reports. A long-anticipated quiet zone in Berwyn,
Riverside and North Riverside, Ill., went into effect Jan. 28, preventing
trains from sounding their horns at nine crossings except in emergencies.
Balfour Beatty Rail has
taken delivery of an Amberg Technologies GRP Track
Measurement System. The
system was purchased from Amberg’s North American distribution partner, the Kara Company of
Countryside, Ill. Widely used throughout the rail industries of Europe, Asia
and many other parts of the world, the GRP track measurement system is the most
advanced technology available in its class, Amberg notes, and just recently
made available in North America.
A consortium of
Invensys Rail Corp. (formerly Safetran Systems Corp.), Siemens Mobility and D/A
Builders, LLC, will install ATC utilizing advanced Communications Based Train
Control technology plus a back-up conventional signaling system on the entire
PATH main line network including all central office, wayside and car borne
equipment locations.
ARINC
Incorporated has been awarded a major contract to provide new rail control and
passenger information systems for the 77-mile Caltrain commuter rail line,
serving the San Francisco peninsula and California’s Santa Clara Valley. The
contract was awarded in December by the Peninsula Corridor Joint Powers Board,
the regional authority operating Caltrain.
MARTA has closed a majority of its escalators and is
conducting a comprehensive and independent system-wide review of all 149
escalators in its system. This action is being taken after MARTA recently
discovered that a private contractor had intentionally bypassed safety controls
on an escalator at the Dunwoody rail station.
An independent team of
consultants charged with looking at competitiveness in the U.S. rail industry
has found that railroad rates have been steadily increasing since 2004, with a
particularly steep increase in 2008. But Christensen Associates, Inc., of
Madison, Wis., found that the rate increases were driven by fluctuating fuel
prices and other costs and did not appear to reflect a greater exercise of
railroad market power over captive shippers.
