The Louisiana Department
of Transportation and Development wants to give the town a raised median and
safety gates at the Hwy. 22 railroad crossing, but some town officials don’t
want it, the Gonzales, La., Weekly Citizen reports. DOTD engineer Bill
Shrewsberry said construction would probably start late this year or early
next, in an effort to improve safety.
RailComm has been selected
to expand its wireless remote control yard system at Union Pacific’s Davidson
Yard in Fort Worth, Texas. The U.S. Department of Transportation requested the
redirection of the hump yard lead tracks in order to keep traffic flowing while
a new highway overpass is being constructed.
Stimulus funding that the
Tomah, Wis., Amtrak Station is slated to receive will be used to construct a
handicap boarding ramp, the Tomah Journal reports.
One appeal of a
controversial railway sale was denied this week, clearing the way for another
— this one in federal court, according to the Fox Valley Villages Sun. On
August 5, the federal Surface Transportation Board rejected an appeal by the
Illinois Commerce Commission. The ICC objected to Canadian National Railway
Company’s $300-million purchase of the suburban Elgin, Joliet and Eastern rail
line, which the STB approved in December.
Federal
regulators are underestimating the health threat posed by a railroad freight
center proposed for southwest Johnson County, environmentalists charge,
according to The Kansas City Star. They say that the U.S. Army Corps of
Engineers didn’t fully assess the cancer risk tied to the BNSF project and that
the corps’ predictions of diesel emissions are much less than what’s generated
at rail projects elsewhere.
The Port Authority of New
York and New Jersey released its latest quarterly milestone report announcing
that it has met 19 of 20 second-quarter 2009 rebuilding milestones. Milestones
for the second quarter included: the installation of more than 2,400 tons of
steel for the National September 11 Memorial & Museum, the equivalent of 20
Statues of Liberty; the installation of 1,250 cubic yards of concrete – the
equivalent of six miles of New York City sidewalk – bringing the plaza and main
entrance of One World Trade Center to street level; and, competitively bid one
of the largest and most critical work packages for the World Trade Center
Transportation Hub.
Provide more reliable
rail service. Eventually produce faster travel times. That’s exactly what the
Missouri Department of Transportation seeks to do in making applications for a
portion of $8 billion in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funding set
aside for high-speed rail development.
Papers and presentations are being solicited on all aspects of railroad civil, mechanical, electrical and systems engineering, as well as rail safety, planning, design, financing, operations and management for the Joint Rail Conference – 2010 High Speed and Intercity Rail to be held at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign April 27-29, 2010. Both freight and passenger rail subjects will be included, but the conference theme will be high-speed rail and other forms of developing intercity passenger rail.
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Miner Enterprises, Inc., has been chosen by Vale, the Brazilian multinational mining corporation to supply 70 AggreGate® ballast systems. The state-of-the-art air-powered dual cylinder AggreGate® system was specified for the order, demonstrating Miner’s international reach and reputation for high-quality freight car components around the world.
South-side residents and business owners say they don’t want any part of a proposed two-mile-long railroad trench that would run east-west near downtown Fort Worth, saying it would effectively cut them off from downtown, the Ft. Worth Star-Telegram reports.
Los Angeles’ Metro has begun installing turnstile fare gates at four Metro Red Line subway stations and will monitor progress to make sure passenger traffic moves smoothly while still achieving the goals of preventing fare evasion and improving transit station security.
Restoring passenger rail service from New Orleans along the Gulf Coast to Orlando, Fla., will cost tens of millions of dollars and take a minimum of almost two years to accomplish, according to a new Amtrak study that also predicts the revived route would be a money-loser, according to the Mobile, Ala., Press-Register.
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Although Norfolk Southern Corp.’s planned $129-million intermodal yard won’t be built within the city limits but instead in neighboring Rossville, Memphis’ logistics and distribution industries stand to benefit from the railroad’s decision to expand its local presence, The Daily News in Memphis reports. Not only is the railroad’s sprawling facility dubbed the Memphis Regional Intermodal Terminal, but it will be close enough for Memphis-based companies to gain unprecedented logistical access to eastern cities.
The National Transportation Safety Board has determined that the derailment of a CSX train in Painesville, Ohio, Oct. 10, 2007, was a combination of a rail problem and human error in fixing the track, according to local media. The report showed that the CSX Transportation division engineer responsible for track maintenance said the temporary rail joint involved in the accident was installed only 10 months before the incident.
To relieve the notorious Tower 55 train gridlock in Fort Worth, Texas, one of the nation’s biggest railroads wants to dig a 1.5-mile-long trench and submerge its tracks as they run through a commercial and residential area south of downtown, according to the Ft. Worth Star-Telegram. The east-west trench proposed by Union Pacific would roughly parallel Vickery Boulevard from Eighth Avenue to Martin Luther King Jr. Freeway and require buying of 15 properties, partial purchase of 15 more and moving 16 residences and businesses.
Boush and Bute streets are scheduled for partial closures beginning July 21, according to the Norfolk, Va., Department of Public Works. For the next seven days, the closures will take place so that utility work may be done in preparation for light-rail construction. This is the first of two phases of work set to occur in the area.
The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority will hold five community meetings on the Westside Subway Extension Project to provide an update on Metro’s continued progress with this project.
Rockford, Ill., area officials pushing to bring commuter train service Metra to Winnebago County are using Amtrak to help deliver the service – and their efforts threaten to derail DeKalb County’s bid for passenger rail service, according to the Northwest Herald.
