BNSF is pushing Congress to
scale back a requirement for carriers to install automatic-braking systems on
most of their tracks, reports Bloomberg News. "Heavy-handed" legislation
enacted last year would cost Fort Worth, Texas-based BNSF almost $2 billion,
Chief Executive Officer Matt Rose said.
Transportation Secretary
Ray LaHood announced that 13 grants totaling $189.8 million in Recovery Act
funds will go to improve state and local transit systems in the United States
while supporting the creation of jobs and providing much needed transportation
options for millions.
Work on Caltrain’s Grade
Crossing Improvement Program, which will enhance safety at railroad crossings
in San Mateo County, continues. The current projects at Encinal, Glenwood and
Ravenswood avenues in Menlo Park, Calif., will take place August 23-27 between
the hours of 8 p.m. and 4 a.m. Throughout the project at least one lane of the
street will remain open. Flagmen will direct traffic and pedestrians around the
construction. The work is part of a larger program to improve grade crossings
in San Mateo County.
The city of Burlington,
Iowa, has a lot of irons in the fire, according to The Hawkeye. With that in
mind, City Manager Doug Worden updated city council members on the status of
two projects nearing completion during a recent meeting.
Construction of a 1
million gallon underground wastewater equalization tank on Gunnison Avenue and
a similar tank near the BNSF tracks on Lucas Avenue is complete.
Denver’s Transportation
Expansion (T-REX) project, which opened to the public in November 2006, has
completed the final close-out on the project. The transit portion of the T-REX
project is being completed $3.7 million under budget. The Regional
Transportation District’s Southeast Light Rail line was built as a part of
T-REX, which was a combined highway/light rail expansion project and successful
partnership between RTD and the Colorado Department of Transportation. The
project was also completed 22 months ahead of the original schedule and
included several additional enhancements along the corridor that weren’t part
of the original project.
Metrorail riders in the
Washington, D.C., area soon will be able to use four major cell phone providers
to make calls or access the Internet from 20 of Metro’s busiest underground
stations.
Verizon Wireless, Sprint Nextel, AT&T and T-Mobile began
installing hardware at designated Metrorail stations that will allow Metrorail
customers to make calls, send text messages or surf the Web from 20 stations
starting Friday, October 16.
U.S. Transportation
Secretary Ray LaHood today said $298.7 million in American Recovery and
Reinvestment Act dollars will go to NJ TRANSIT for 13 projects that will
improve aging infrastructure, help ease daily commutes and generate jobs across
the region.
Concrete ties on the Old
Colony commuter rail lines are wearing out far faster than they’re supposed to,
a spokesman for the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority acknowledged
according to the West Bridgewater Times. The lines — Middleboro/Lakeville and
Kingston/Plymouth — have been found to have 4,000 ties that need to be
replaced, said MBTA spokesman Joe Pesaturo.
Where are all the trains? When
Canadian National Railway won federal approval to buy the EJ&E line for
$300 million in December, suburbs worried about the effects of heavy freight
traffic, the Plainfield, Ill., Sun reports.
The Association of
American Railroads urged the Federal Railroad Administration to faithfully
follow the Congressional statutory mandate requiring railroads to implement
positive train control technologies across certain portions of the national
freight rail network. In 2008, Congress passed a law requiring the nation’s
freight railroads by Dec. 31, 2015 to implement PTC on certain main line tracks
used for transporting passengers or toxic chemicals. However, AAR notes that
FRA’s proposed rule would impose a financial burden above and beyond what Congress
intended, potentially adding hundreds of millions of dollars in additional cost
to the railroads as they face using private capital to pay for the federal PTC
mandate.
Major U.S. freight
railroads and their advocates have argued for years that government investment
is needed in the country’s rail system to take freight off congested highways
and keep the economy moving, Reuters reports. But supporters say rail
investments have been largely ignored by Congress, suggesting political support
is lacking, despite warnings action must be taken sooner rather than later.
Allen Jones has found out
that no matter how sophisticated the world is, working for the railroad still
requires the use of a sledgehammer and a switch broom, the Morning Sun of Blue
Springs, Mo., reports. These two hand tools are still the most frequently used
implements when doing track work. The sledgehammer, of course, is for driving
steel, pushing rails wider and setting flags. The switch broom has a hoe-like
end for removing rocks from between the rails at railroad switches. The broom
end of this tool is used to sweep dirt, leaves and snow from between the rails.
Canadian National Railway
is inching closer to transporting jet fuel from Flat Rock, Mich., to Toronto, according
to local newspapers.
On June 22, the city’s Planning Commission approved the
company’s plan to open a jet fuel transfer station at its rail yard on the
north side of Vreeland Road, just east of Peters Road.
Company officials are
working on obtaining permits from the Michigan Department of Environmental
Quality and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, said Patrick Waldron,
Canadian National spokesman.
New York City’s
Metropolitan Transportation Authority released its 2010-2029 Twenty Year Needs
and Preliminary 2010-2014 Capital Program for public review and comment. Taken
together, these documents identify the MTA’s long-term infrastructure needs and
a short-term plan to begin addressing them within current budget expectations.
The documents are available online at www.mta.info, where the public can also
submit comments.
Railroad and economic
development officials are laying tracks to school leaders in hopes of
addressing concerns at McAdory Elementary School that threaten to derail a $112
million Norfolk Southern intermodal hub, the Birmingham News reports.
More than roads are
buckling under the extreme heat. Iowa’s railroad tracks also are susceptible to
the high temperatures, and this is keeping railroad crews and Iowa Department
of Transportation track inspectors busy, the Waterloo Cedar Falls Courier
reports.
ARINC is helping
Washington Metro officials design a new system to avoid rail collisions just
weeks after a deadly train crash near the Maryland state line, according to The
Capitol in Annapolis, Md. Officials from the Parole-based company said they are
providing expertise as its workers develop technologies to position the company
as a frontrunner in helping trains everywhere run more safely. That’s in
response to a federal mandate requiring rail operators to upgrade their systems
to help prevent collisions and deaths of railway workers by 2015.
The historic train depot at
West Fifth and Orange streets in Chico, Calif., will see a pair of improvements
due to federal and local projects, the Chico Enterprise Record reports.
Amtrak will use $509,000 in
federal stimulus dollars to build a 550-foot concrete platform along the
railroad tracks. The city of Chico is planning to use up to $150,000 in city
transportation funds to rebuild the wooden deck that runs around the northern
part of the depot building.
BNSF will conduct work along the tracks from Naperville, Ill., into downtown Chicago the week of August 10 and in September, the Clarendon Hills Doings reports. The work will cause minimal pedestrian and traffic delays in Clarendon Hills from Aug. 11-13 and Sept. 6-10. The crews will be in Hinsdale Aug. 12-13 and Sept. 7-10, in Western Springs Sept. 9-10 and 13, and La Grange Sept. 9-10 and 13-14.
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.
