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.
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.
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.
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.
The public is invited to a community meeting July 29 at Ayer, Mass., Town Hall on protecting the underground wells at Spectacle Pond, organized by Congresswoman Nikki Tsongas, local newspapers report. Representatives from the Surface Transportation Board, EPA, DEP and railroads will hear community input and questions about the plans to protect the aquifer that supplies drinking water to 15,000 people in Ayer and Littleton, Mass.
Pan Am Railways is building a 25-acre parking lot on the Ayer/Littleton town line, over underground wells that supply 60 percent of Ayer’s drinking water and is a Zone III aquifer for Littleton. The water supply could be permanently contaminated by runoff and spills from the railroad and new Ford cars to be unloaded at the 800-space lot. The handling of toxic chemicals by a known polluter over an irreplaceable water source poses a huge risk for Ayer and Littleton. The public is invited to comment on the plan and ask questions.
In March 2009, Pan Am Railways was fined $500,000 for a spill of 900-1,700 gallons in Ayer, which was the largest criminal environmental fine in the history of the Commonwealth. The fine was one of many imposed against Pan Am Railways because of scores of spills in New England. Ironically, the fine was levied while the company broke ground on the lot, without giving the town 60 days notice, as stated in the 2003 Consent Decree, which the towns and company are legally bound by.
Pan Am was back in federal court July 8 with its parole officer (yes, Pan Am Railways has a parole officer) to ensure it had implemented environmental protections and trained employees to prevent spills. It hadn’t. Another hearing is set for Oct. 15, with Pan Am’s parole officer. The $500,000 fine is in escrow because Pan Am Railways appealed the fine.
The towns of Ayer and Littleton have been fighting this project for more than a decade.
Attorney General Martha Coakley described Pan Am in the March 2009 memorandum on sentencing: “The defendants have a long track record of violating the environmental laws, including a particularly long record of unreported releases of oil and other hazardous materials to the environment, and have utterly failed to develop reliable or consistent environmental management systems despite having been ordered to do so repeatedly.”
State Sen. Jamie Eldridge [D-Ayer/Littleton] is working to intervene.
“I am deeply concerned about Pan Am and Norfolk Southern Railroads’ proposed car unloading facility being placed so close to an aquifer. A spill at the site would be devastating to our local communities, deeply compromising the safety of the water we drink. We have the responsibility to protect our supply for current residents and generations to come.”
(This article by Frank Busalacchi was published by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. He is chair of the States for Passenger Rail Coalition and secretary of the Wisconsin Department of Transportation.)
Everyone who travels the nation’s roads, bridges and rails has a stake in a major project under way in Congress this year: the reauthorization of the country’s surface transportation law. This mammoth law, rewritten every six years, determines how much money will be available to maintain and expand the country’s transportation system. Moreover, the legislation determines how this huge pot of money — $286.5 billion in the last bill — will be spent.
As chair of the States for Passenger Rail Coalition and secretary of the Wisconsin Department of Transportation, I strongly urge Congress to revisit our transportation priorities, which for too many years have favored highways and airlines. It’s time to reinvest in a highly valuable and underused transportation mode: intercity passenger rail service.
The reasons for spending more on rail are many. Perhaps the most important reason is public demand. Travelers are voting for more intercity passenger rail service by boarding trains in record numbers. In 2008, Amtrak carried a record 28.7 million passengers — the highest number in the passenger railroad’s history. When gasoline prices broke the $4-a-gallon barrier last summer, increasing numbers of travelers changed their travel plans to rail, including nearly 900,000 travelers in Wisconsin.
Price alone is not the only reason many travelers are switching to rail. Growing congestion on our nation’s highways and increasing delays in the air are making rail an attractive option for millions.
Of course, as more people choose to travel by rail, the demand on the system rises. Amtrak is facing an unprecedented equipment shortage: 17 percent of Amtrak’s locomotives and 15 percent of its passenger fleet are out of service. Investment in track and signal infrastructure is needed now to deal with existing rail congestion and to add new passenger rail service for the future.
In the midst of an economic recession, investing in rail is a wise use of federal dollars. It is estimated that for every $1 billion invested in passenger rail projects, 30,000 new, good-paying jobs are created. In Wisconsin, Amtrak pays $4.3 million annually in wages.
Last year, I had the pleasure of serving on the National Surface Transportation Policy and Revenue Study Commission. The commission’s most significant finding illustrated the financial magnitude of the need: $357.2 billion in capital improvements required by the year 2050. Additionally, a commitment of $5 billion per year will be needed for the 80/20 federal rail grant program over the six-year reauthorizing period.
This important program provides 80 percent federal and 20 percent state funding for passenger rail projects, mirroring the funding split in highway projects. This funding split finally recognizes the importance of passenger rail in our national transportation system. The commission also identified a series of inherent advantages in passenger rail that further demonstrate the value in greater funding for this important transportation mode. Chief among them are:
Mobility: Intercity passenger rail offers an alternative to using the private automobile, bus or airplane for transportation. At the current average of 2.2 million monthly riders, this means that several million people every month are removed from the already overcrowded roadways and airports.
System redundancy: Intercity passenger rail creates system redundancy in the intercity corridors it serves. Redundancy helps to ensure that transportation is possible even when an event occurs that disrupts the primary transportation system.
Delay reductions: One of the potential benefits of intercity passenger rail service is reduced highway congestion. In congested corridors, intercity passenger rail would only have to capture a small share of the total traffic in order to generate a substantial public benefit for all corridor travelers.
Environmental: Intercity passenger rail may also generate potential health benefits by reducing vehicle emissions, lowering pollution, and indirectly mitigating health and environmental costs.
Safety: Passenger rail is one of the safest modes of travel — far safer than highway travel.
The reasons to invest more in passenger rail are compelling and in the national interest. The question is whether Congress has the will to take a fresh look at the nation’s surface transportation system and increase funding for rail — the transportation mode that moves people efficiently while reducing the burden on our congested highways and airlines.
New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine and Congressman Steve Rothman said that they are teaming up to deliver passenger rail to Bergen County with an extension of light rail service. Joined by N.J. Senator Loretta Weinberg, Assemblyman Gordon Johnson, Bergen County Executive Dennis McNerney and Ridgefield Mayor Anthony Suarez, as well as other state and local officials, the announcement came after the conclusion that another long-studied rail technology being advanced by NJ TRANSIT did not offer a practical alternative for Bergen residents in the near term.
“The time has come to put the Bergen in Hudson-Bergen Light Rail. The twin facts that NJ TRANSIT has settled on a mode of service and Governor Corzine is here pledging his personal support for the Northern Branch gives me renewed hope that the dream of passenger rail will be realized for Bergen County,” said Rothman.
“We can no longer wait for emerging technologies that make the perfect the enemy of the good. Light rail will enable thousands of Bergen residents to get to work on the Waterfront, or make easy connections to PATH and ferries into Manhattan,” said Corzine.
Bergen light rail will provide significant environmental benefits, including reduced carbon emissions, taking 8,500 cars off the road each day. The Hudson-Bergen Light Rail system has been a catalyst for economic development and a national light rail transit model with nearly 45,000 passenger trips daily, with a 24th station under construction at 8th Street in Bayonne.
NJ TRANSIT submitted a Draft Environmental Impact Statement to the Federal Transit Administration last year that studied both light rail and re-emerging Diesel Multiple Unit types of equipment. However, in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, the only manufacturer of DMUs that met American safety standards for operating in mixed freight/passenger territory filed for bankruptcy. A global search for another manufacturer that could meet strict Federal Railroad Administration safety requirements led NJ TRANSIT Executive Director Richard Sarles to conclude recently that the possibility of new DMUs rolling off the production line is several years away at best.
Sarles also acknowledged the Federal Transit Administration’s efforts to advance multiple New Jersey rail projects, noting that NJ TRANSIT has received the Record of Decision for the Mass Transit Tunnel; the MOS FONSI for the Lackawanna Cutoff; completed environmental review for the Edison Station Parking Expansion Project, the Lower Hack Bridge Phase II project, and HBLR’s Danforth Interlocking project over the last several months.
“We appreciate the leadership of FTA Administrator Peter Rogoff and hard work of the Regional Administrator and staff to continue to effectively move many projects forward at once,” said Sarles.
FTA’s release of the revised Northern Branch DEIS will trigger local public hearings as soon as this fall. The hearings will give communities along the planned service route an opportunity to raise any additional issues that need to be incorporated into ?NJ TRANSIT’s service plan. NJ TRANSIT expects preliminary engineering to begin in 2010.
At full operating capacity, the light rail service is planned to operate from early morning through late evening hours, seven days a week, with trains departing every 6-12 minutes in the peak travel periods. A trip from the northernmost portion of the line will take 21 minutes to Tonnelle Avenue, 25 minutes to Port Imperial for ferries to New York, and 37 minutes to Hoboken for PATH and NJ TRANSIT commuter rail connections.
Light rail ridership is estimated to be about 24,000 passenger trips daily. While the cost estimate for extending light rail has not yet been finalized, preliminary estimates set the price at about $800 million to $900 million. The Northern Branch project is included in the joint long-range capital program of the NJ Department of Transportation and ?NJ Transit, benefitting from a mix of federal and state Transportation Trust Funds.
GE Transportation said that Central Puget Sound’s transportation authority, Sound Transit, has officially opened its north-south Central Link light rail line, operating with a complete GE Transportation communications and train control signaling solution.
Metropolitan Planning Organization members approved spending $25,000 in hopes of eventually gaining millions to relocate about seven miles of Norfolk Southern tracks in Colbert County, Ala., local newspapers report. The board hired engineering firm Barge Wagner Sumner & Cannon to prepare a grant application that, if approved, would fund the estimated $80-million relocation project. Funds would come from the Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery program. The federal program is funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.
City and county officials have discussed the need to relocate the tracks away from high-traffic areas in the county. Some city officials say delays and safety concerns created by the railroads tracks have stifled economic development opportunities and are causing stores to lose business. MPO member and Tuscumbia Mayor Bill Shoemaker, who is a former Alabama Department of Transportation engineer, said the railroad relocation discussion has been going on for about two decades.
The most recent cost estimate for relocating railroad tracks that wind through Tuscumbia, Sheffield and Muscle Shoals is about $80 million. Before the recovery act was approved, local governments had no means of paying for the project.
Jesse Turner, director of Transportation Planning for the Northwest Alabama Council of Local Governments, said the $25,000 includes a $5,000 match from Colbert County, Sheffield, Tuscumbia and Muscle Shoals. He said the relocation project must be approved by the Alabama Department of Transportation.
The federal program, which is known as TIGER, makes $1.5 billion available for large road and bridge projects, passenger and rail freight, public transportation and port infrastructure. Allen Teague, a preconstruction engineer with the Alabama Department of Transportation, said the state plans to submit five projects to be considered for a TIGER grant.
Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood and Federal Railroad Administrator Joseph Szabo said proposed rules are designed to prevent train collisions through the use of Positive Train Control. The Notice of Proposed Rulemaking prescribes how railroads must use Positive Train Control systems to prevent train-to-train collisions.
PTC technology is capable of automatically controlling train speeds and movements should a locomotive engineer fail to take appropriate action. For example, such technology can force a train to stop before it passes a red signal, thereby averting a potential collision. Other benefits of PTC systems include prevention of over-speed derailments and misaligned switches, as well as unauthorized incursions by a train into work zones.
“These proposed rules give railroads the framework to use this life-saving technology,” said LaHood. “We believe this is an important step toward making freight, intercity and commuter rail lines safer for the benefit of communities across the country.”
Under the Rail Safety Improvement Act of 2008, major freight railroads and intercity and commuter rail operators must submit their plans for PTC to FRA for approval by April, 16, 2010. PTC systems must be fully in place by the end of 2015. The proposed rules will specify how the technically complex PTC systems must function and indicate how FRA will assess a railroad’s PTC plan before it can become operational.
“FRA is setting the bar high in terms of design, construction and oversight of PTC technologies among different railroads,” said FRA Administrator Joe Szabo. “FRA will continue to advocate for ways to strengthen safety standards in the railroad industry.”
The major freight railroads have reached an agreement for the operation of PTC technology across different rail systems, allowing for industry-wide use. In addition, FRA is coordinating efforts with the Federal Communications Commission to make a sufficient amount of radio frequency spectrum available, which is essential for PTC technology to function properly. This development will allow PTC technology to send and receive a constant stream of wireless signals regarding the location and speed of passenger and freight trains moving along rail lines.
The Alaska Railroad is revisiting the longest-running controversy in its 20-plus years as a state-owned carrier with a new application to use weed-killing herbicides on some sections of its track, the Anchorage Daily News reports. This time, railroad officials say they want to use a chemical that targets only plants and doesn’t affect animals or fish. They say it will be heavily diluted, and would be used next year only along sections of track between Seward and Indian that are at least 100 feet from water bodies.
Critics are standing ready with counterarguments: They say the railroad’s weed-killer of choice is dangerous to people and animals, and that there’s hardly anyplace along the railroad’s line where water is far away.
A decision on whether the railroad, which argues that weed removal is a safety issue, can go ahead is expected sometime next spring from the state Department of Environmental Conservation. The agency rejected the last request to use herbicides two years ago.
Anticipating another heavy response, Kristin Ryan, director of the agency’s environmental health division, has doubled the normal 30-day public comment period to 60 days. It starts today.
Public hearings are scheduled for Aug. 10 in Whittier, Aug. 11 in Seward, and Aug. 12 in Anchorage.
The railroad has been fighting weeds since the state acquired it from the federal government in 1985. With rare and isolated exceptions, it’s been required to do so with non-chemical means that have ranged from mowers, steam and hot water to one 1992 phase in which prison inmates were paid $1 an hour to hack the vegetation down. Railroad vice president and chief operating officer Ernie Piper said this week that weeds and brush in and near the tracks have gotten out of hand, especially on the southern 90 miles of line between Indian and Seward.
The Federal Railroad Administration, which regulates the Alaska Railroad, has promised hefty fines and expensive operational restrictions — cutting the speed at which trains can move or emergency closures of some sections of track — if the tracks aren’t cleaned up. In some places, plants and brush push roots into the gravel bed, or ballast, the track rests on, Piper said. That undermines the stability of the rail line. In other places, weeds and grass grow so thick through ties and rails that safety inspectors might not be able to spot flaws in welds or connections.
"They say, ‘we can’t see the ties and the fasteners and the plates,’" Piper said. "Particularly in the welded rail we’ve been putting in, you get expansion in the summer with the heat. They’re constantly under stress, and you’ve got to be able to look for the telltale clues."
Piper and railroad spokesman Tim Thompson said the track maintenance workers have done their best over the years with non-chemical controls.
"In the ’90s we tried the steam and the infrared and hot water, burning (vegetation)," Piper said. "None of it worked very well."
To their knowledge, they said, Alaska is the only state where railroads aren’t allowed to use herbicides in at least some places.
Last time around, the railroad’s application was turned down in part because the chemical wasn’t approved for use in water and might hurt fish, Ryan said. This time, the railroad is proposing using a weed-killer called "glyphosate," which Piper said is "the most benign of them all" and targets only plant growth.
"If you don’t photosynthesize, you have nothing to fear from it," he said. "If you ingested berries that had been sprayed with glyphosate, you’d just excrete it in your urine. Same thing with other animals and fish and so on."
But Pam Miller, director of Alaska Community Action on Toxics, said "a wealth of new scientific research" indicates that glyphosate "can harm animals and human health." Miller also argues that the railroad hasn’t done enough to try out non-chemical means of weed control, regardless of what the agency’s executives say.
"For them to say they’ve tried these methods is misrepresenting what they’ve done, which is just giving them sort of a (cursory) try without actually rigorously applying them to see if they can be effective," she said. "The railroad proposing the use of herbicides again really flies in the face of years of citizen opposition.
The celebration will include a display of about 45 North American Rail Car Operators Association motorcars during an open house at the Harsco facility in Fairmont. The 45 restored cars were originally built at the Fairmont plant and shipped to railroads around the United States and Canada.
