The chairman of the Sauk
County, Wis., Board called for closer coordination between parties involved in
railroad projects that could have economic impacts the area, the Baraboo News
Republic reports.
The new US 62/US 641
Tennessee River Bridge below Kentucky Dam should be opened to traffic Nov. 25,
the West Kentucky Star reports. US 62 and US 641, which run concurrently
through the area, have been closed at the site since September 9 and traffic
detoured via Interstate 24 as the new bridge approaches were completed and
connected to existing highways.
A special ribbon-cutting
ceremony was attended by SEPTA General Manager Joseph Casey, Pennsylvania State
Representative Joshua D. Shapiro and local government and community leaders at
Crestmont (R2) Regional Rail station.
The New Mexico Rail
Runner slips into Santa Fe on new tracks with modern signals to guard
crossings. But the old tourist train travels to Lamy, N.M., on outdated
infrastructure, according to the Santa Fe New Mexican. That discrepancy was
highlighted recently when the Santa Fe Southern Railway tourist train collided
with a car crossing the spur line on Rabbit Road, just south of the city
limits.
BNSF has agreed to fund a
significant amount of the cost of closing eight railroad crossings in Galesburg,
Ill., to develop quiet zones, according to city engineer Wayne Carl,
The
Register-Mail reports.
Work is now under way on
a construction project that will completely replace the 80-year old Vandeventer
Bridge is St. Louis. The bridge currently supports three rail tracks: two for
MetroLink, and a third for limited freight use. Constructed in 1929, the
bridge that spans Vandeventer Avenue, a major thoroughfare in the City of St.
Louis, is experiencing significant settling and deterioration. In addition, the
bridge is supported by four piers that are obstacles to vehicular traffic.
State and town officials
from Ashland and Framingham, Mass., met with the state’s new transportation
chief last night for a conversation about the state’s purchase of CSX
Transportation rail lines and what can be done to ensure that increased rail
traffic won’t further cripple their downtowns, MetroWest Daily News reports.
Seventy percent of Metra
bridges and 42 percent of CTA bridges are past their "useful life,"
according to a preliminary report presented to the RTA board Nov. 19, the Chicago
Daily Herald reports. A final report is expected in January, along with a plan
on how to address the problem, RTA spokeswoman Diane Palmer said.
SEPTA took another step
toward restoring rail service to Wawa in Delaware County with approval
yesterday of nine property easements necessary for the construction, the Philadelphia
Inquirer reports.
Union Pacific and San
Antonio River Authority officials adopted new practices for removing drift from
the river, the Victoria, Texas, Advocate reports. The agreement came a month
after a 500-yard logjam built up at the railroad company’s bridge on the San
Antonio River, over which the river authority has jurisdiction. The bridge is
near the Victoria-Refugio county line.
CSX Transportation has
put on hold two bridge projects in Medina County, Ohio, while details are
worked out between the railroad company and county officials, according to the
Medina County Gazette. A third project – replacing the 103-year-old bridge at
Mud Lake Road in Westfield Township – is scheduled to begin early next year.
The rebuilt bridge will allow double-stacked containers on rail cars to pass
under it.
A $4.8-million federal
grant will let Riverhead Town, N.Y., live out its longtime dream of having
freight trains running to and from the Enterprise Park at Calverton, the
Riverhead News Review reports. The entire cost of rehabbing the Calverton rail
spur, which leads into the park, will be funded with federal stimulus money,
lawmakers said.
CN reached a voluntary
mitigation agreement related to its acquisition of the principal lines of the
former Elgin, Joliet and Eastern Railway Company (EJ&E) with the Village of
Lake Zurich, Ill., located 37 miles northwest of downtown Chicago. With this
agreement, CN has VMAs with 20 municipalities that are home to two-thirds of
the population living along the EJ&E in Illinois and Indiana.
The Dixon administration is
expected to bring two contracts before the Board of Estimates Nov. 18 cementing
its two-year-old accord with CSX Transportation under which the railroad will
pay roughly three-quarters of the cost of replacing two of the city’s most
deteriorated bridges, the Baltimore Sun reports.
The Wheeling and Lake
Erie Railway Co. is on track to increase train speeds from 25 to 40 mph, and
railroad and public officials are advising motorists to take extra precautions
at crossings. The Gazette in Medina County, Ohio, reports.
Northstar Commuter service in
the Twin Cities area became a reality Nov. 16, with the first paying customers
for the new rail line. Northstar is BNSF’s first new BNSF-employee-operated
commuter service in nine years and has been more than 10 years in the planning
and execution stage, the company newsletter reports.
Patrick Donovan started
talking about Prichard, W.Va., a long time ago, he said, according to The
Herald-Dispatch in Huntington, W. Va. He foresaw a center of activity for
transporting goods, a place where trains carrying double-stacked containers
could drop off goods and where barges along the Big Sandy River, planes from
Tri-State Airport and trucks along the Tolsia Highway could pick them up.
He wanted it to be a stop
along the planned Heartland Corridor — a project that involves improvements in
Norfolk-Southern railways between the Virginia coast and Columbus, Ohio, so
trains can carry more goods in a more direct route. When finished, 28 tunnels will
be raised so that trains can carry double-stacked containers. The
public-private partnership also will include construction of three intermodal
facilities for easier transfer of containers between rail, roadways, rivers and
airways — at Prichard, as well as Roanoke, Va., and Columbus.
While efforts to raise
tunnels along the Heartland Corridor Project are moving right along, it’s been
a slow process to get preliminary work done on an intermodal facility in
Prichard. The West Virginia Public Port Authority went through a lengthy
process to hire an engineering firm to do an environmental study on the land
along the Big Sandy River, where it will sit. The study determines if the
project is compliant with the National Environmental Protection Act. It looks at
archaeological and flood concerns, stream restorations and wetland issues.
Baker Engineering of
Cross Lanes was hired in February for that project, and while the results of
the study are promising, Donovan said, the Port Authority still awaits approval
from the West Virginia Historic Preservation Office. When it finally becomes a
reality, it is expected to be an economic boon for the entire region, as
companies set up warehouses and other related businesses along the route, said
Donovan and Don Perdue, executive director of Wayne County Economic Development
Authority.
While the Port Authority,
as well as local government and Norfolk Southern await that approval for the
environmental study, they’re also waiting for news about a new grant for which
they’ve applied. They teamed up to apply for $50 million in federal stimulus
funding. Nationally, $1.5 billion is up for grabs through the Transportation
Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) Discretionary Grants Program.
If approved, $30 million in TIGER funds would go toward the Prichard intermodal
facility, and $20 million would go toward the tunnel work.
Donovan said he’s
encouraged by what’s in the outline describing projects that would qualify for
the grant money.
Receiving those funds
would free up more upfront money for the project. As of now, Senate Bill 569,
approved by the General Assembly in 2007, provides $4.3 million per fiscal year
through 2016 for the Heartland Corridor. The first fiscal year, $2.15 million
was allotted, but the following years, the full $4.3 million will be provided.
Norfolk Southern has already put $49.5 million of its own money into the tunnel
clearance project, with a $90 million match in federal funds. The tunnel
clearance project is estimated at $151 million, Norfolk Southern says.
Norfolk Southern has
donated 78 acres to the West Virginia Public Port Authority for the intermodal
facility at Prichard, and the authority already has 20-plus acres. The railroad
company would take care of hiring a company to design the facility, and it’s
undetermined right now who would operate it. Norfolk-Southern might contract
out an operator, but would be involved in selection of the operator either way,
Donovan said.
"Ideally, by late
spring or early summer, I want to have some dirt moving. I really do," he
said.
Meanwhile, all kinds of
earth is moving as workers continue to heighten tunnels along the railway.
"We’re currently
working on the last five tunnels," said Robin Chapman, spokesman for
Norfolk-Southern. "One of them is called the Cooper Tunnel, not far from
Bluefield. The other four are from Williamson and west of there on the Big
Sandy River. We anticipate finishing in mid 2010."
Workers increase the
clearance for double-stacked trains by either lowering the track, when
possible, or carving away rock in the tunnel.
In preparation for the
work, crews test drill into the rock to determine the density they’re dealing
with, and make sure there are no voids behind it. Then they install rock bolts
to stabilize the roof. Meanwhile, trains need passage, so crews usually begin
work in the wee hours of the morning so they can remove rock and spray a layer
of concrete over the work area as a sealant before trains come through in the
afternoon.
As Prichard and
southwestern West Virginia get ready for Norfolk Southern Corp.’s
double-stacked trains to move through, the eastern part of the state is looking
forward to a project by CSX Transportation. The rail company also is planning
to embark on a project to raise tunnels to accommodate double-stack trains
through the Mid-Atlantic region.
The $842-million National
Gateway project would affect Ohio, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia and West
Virginia, and is intended to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from trucks on the
highway, as well as saving $3.5 billion in shipper and logistics costs,
significantly increase freight capacity, reduce transit times between West
Coast ports and major population and triple the market access potential for
some ports on the East Coast.
There’s a prediction that
freight transportation is going to increase by 70 percent over the next 20
years, said CSXT spokesman Bob Sullivan. Moving it to rail rather than trucks
will reduce greenhouse emissions, he said.
The path of the double-stacked
trains would stretch from Wilmington, N.C., up the East Coast and northeastward
through the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Ohio.
Along the National Gateway,
the nearest intermodal distribution facility to West Virginia will be in
Pittsburgh.
CSXT is committing $395
million to the National Gateway project, and it’s asking for $258 million in
federal stimulus grants through the TIGER Discretionary Grants Program. States
are being asked for $250 million.
About $60 million will be
spent in West Virginia, to clear six tunnels in the state. But West Virginia is
being asked to contribute $5 million to the project, Sullivan said.
It took nearly 13 years,
$320 million and a few major derailments, but the Northstar commuter rail line
made its initial run this morning, moving full speed ahead out of Big Lake at 5
a.m., the Minneapolis Star Tribune reports. Avoiding congestion along Hwy. 10
in Sherburne and Anoka Counties, the sparkling blue, gold and white cars with
red trim left Big Lake for the new Target Field station in Minneapolis, with
45-second stops along the way in Elk River, Anoka, Coon Rapids and Fridley.
Some people like the
haunted train station look — the boarded-up windows at the Metra stop at 115th
Street, or the eerie yellow light shining on the plywood fencing at Cicero, the
Chicago Sun-Times reports. Metra, however, is assuming that most riders prefer
stations that don’t look as if they’re about to fall on their heads. So the
commuter rail service is doing rehabs on 27 stations in the area.
A nine-mile spur prevents
a key West Feliciana Parish industrial site from linking to the remaining 2,900
railroad miles in Louisiana – and to business beyond the state, industry
leaders claim, local media report. The spur runs west from Slaughter in lower
East Feliciana Parish, crosses U.S. 61 at Delombre and enters West Feliciana
Parish shortly before reaching the Renew Paper mill on the Mississippi River.
