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.
Flagstaff officials
finally will be able to silence train horns at the city’s five at-grade
railroad crossings in coming months, the Arizona Sun reports. The Arizona
Corporation Commission voted unanimously this afternoon to allow the city and
BNSF to begin installation of safety equipment at each of the crossings.
In just 96 hours recently,
the BNSF engineering team completed several projects on the Lafayette
Subdivision in Louisiana, according to the company newsletter. Considered an
engineering "blitz," the team aimed to maximize track work and minimize
disruption for community members, all while making sure safety was a top
priority. The work window was granted from 6 a.m. Monday, Sept. 21, through 6
a.m. Friday, Sept. 25.
BSNF began a major track rehabilitation and grade crossing project in New Iberia, LA, this week. Six crossings between Jefferson and Center streets will receive $900,000 worth of work to fix drainage problems.
Close to 2,500 feet of track will be replaced, new crossings will also be installed and new subsurface water pipes will be installed to stop water from accumulating inside the tracks during heavy rains. The work began Monday and should be completed by Thursday.
Lynda Frost, a
spokeswoman for Montana Rail Link, said trains traveling through downtown
Billings, Mont., were supposed to stop sounding their horns Sept. 18, one
minute after midnight, according to The Gazette. And those are some big horns,
emitting blasts of 96 to 110 decibels, as per federal regulations. A subway
train, at a distance of 200 feet, registers at about 95 decibels, while 110
decibels is comparable to a power saw three feet away.
Orland Park, Ill., is
moving forward with efforts to become a railway quiet zone, local newspapers
report. At a public works and engineering committee meeting, Robinson
Engineering recommended channeling poles be installed at railroad crossings at
159th Street and at Wolf Road. The poles are installed
at the center line near the railroad crossing to prevent cars from going around
the gates, Robinson Engineering representative Jeff Pintar explained.
Work on Caltrain’s Grade
Crossing Improvement Program continues in Burlingame, San Mateo and Menlo Park
between the hours of 8 p.m. and 4 a.m.: Broadway and Oak Grove Avenue,
Burlingame, Sept. 13-17; First and Ninth avenues, San Mateo, Sept. 14-17; and Encinal,
Glenwood and Ravenswood avenues, Menlo Park, Sept. 17-18. Throughout the
project area, at least one lane of the impacted street will remain open.
Flagmen will direct traffic and pedestrians around the construction.
The Oregon International
Port of Coos Bay will begin repairs this week on a series of tunnels whose
deterioration led to the September 2007 closure of the 110-mile Coos Bay line
formerly operated by Central Oregon & Pacific Railroad, The News-Review in Roseburg, Ore.,
reports. The work is the first stage of a rehabilitation project to get the
rail line back in operational shape. Officials hope the line could be running
again by the second or third quarter of next year.
When Lisa Burley moved
into her new southeast Bend, Ore., home in July, she thought she’d found a
perfect, quiet spot to spend her retirement, local newspapers report. Then she
heard the blast of a train horn, warning drivers and passers-by that the train
was approaching a rail crossing. Then she heard another one, and another –
usually three or four every night.
Work on Caltrain’s Grade
Crossing Improvement Program will continue at Encinal, Glenwood and Ravenswood
avenues in Menlo Park Sept. 8-10 between the hours of 8 p.m. and 4 a.m. Throughout
the project area, at least one lane of the impacted street will remain open.
Flagmen will direct traffic and pedestrians around the construction. The work
is part of a larger program to enhance safety at railroad crossings in San
Mateo County.
Railworks Track Systems and
subcontractors continue to work in sections to remove existing track and spurs
and rebuild the sections with new rail along the seven mile Sound Transit rail
corridor between South M Street in Tacoma, Wash., to Bridgeport Way SW in Lakewood. For
the next two weeks, track removal and replacement work is being performed
between S. 48th and S. 56th streets. This work is being coordinated with Tacoma
Rail to minimize or avoid any disruption to their customers for existing rail
service.
State transportation
engineers are preparing a series of railroad track improvements they hope will
ease bottlenecks for ever-increasing rail traffic in central Charlotte, N.C.,
the Charlotte Observer reports. The N.C. Department of Transportation wants to
make upgrades to a 10-mile stretch of Norfolk Southern track from near
Charlotte-Douglas International Airport to Orr Road in northeast Charlotte.
The State of Illinois is in
a rush to swallow up Federal Stimulus money earmarked for the development of
high-speed rail services, the Illinois Statehouse Examiner reports. However, in
the rush to meet the arbitrary deadlines imposed by the stimulus package, state
officials are giving little consideration to the economic impact of communities
along the high-speed rail system.
With the money already in
place to build what likely will be two overpasses and one underpass at three
major rail crossings in Galesburg, Ill., there is more good news, The Register-Mail
reports. The state has applied for about $550 million of federal stimulus
money, $52 million for what Illinois is calling its "Galesburg congestion
relief project."
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.
