On April 27, employees of
Dakota, Minnesota & Eastern Railroad chose to be represented by the Brotherhood
of Maintenance of Way Employes Division – International Brotherhood of
Teamsters. After the National Mediation Board had reviewed the validity of the
authorization cards, the BMWED was certified to represent the 277 DM&E
maintenance of way employees.
Southern California
officials have one week to come to agreement on the public benefits of a
planned railroad overpass in Colton, or risk losing $125 million for the Inland
area, The Press-Enterprise reports. To quell concerns from coastal counties,
San Bernardino County officials have offered to pull their request for state
bond money for a massive interchange overhaul proposed near Devore. Officials
said they will find money elsewhere to reconfigure the Interstate 215 and Interstate
15 convergence.
The Association of
American Railroads said that Charles Keltner, a BNSF employee from Fort Worth,
Texas, has been awarded this year’s John H. Chafee Environmental Excellence
Award. U.S. Senator Frank R. Lautenberg (D-N.J.) also was honored with the
Congressional Chafee Award, which each year goes to a member of Congress who
demonstrates dedication to the environment.
Preliminary engineering
for surface improvements to Tower 55 will begin soon following an April 8 vote
to fund the project by the Regional Transportation Council, the Ft. Worth Business
Press reports. The at-grade surface improvements for the congested Tower 55 rail
yard, widely considered to be the most congested rail yard in the United
States, are expected to cost about $95 million. The yard sits at the southwest
corner of the intersection of interstates 35-W and 30.
An unexpected about-face on
the route to be used for new Chicago-Dubuque Amtrak train service leaves Genoa-
and South Elgin-area leaders feeling bewildered, the Elgin Courier-News reports.
But the decision makes it more likely that a new Metra commuter service could
be set up in coming years from Elgin through Gilberts and Huntley to Belvidere
and Rockford.
It wasn’t a good day for
Caine Hlavaty, who was ticketed for trying to beat the crossing gates — and an
oncoming train — while riding his bike across the tracks in Elmhurst, the Chicago
Tribune reports. Now he was complaining he had missed his bus for work.
Faced with a $30-million
budget deficit in the coming fiscal year that is reflective of a long-term
unsustainable economic model, Caltrain is urging the California High-Speed Rail
Authority to retain the current route between the Central Valley and San
Francisco and preserve the opportunity for Caltrain to access funding for
improvements that will help secure the operating and financial future of the
Peninsula commuter rail service. The high-speed rail authority is soliciting
public comment on the Revised Draft Program Environmental Impact Report.
An 11th-hour
clarification in when federal officials need an approved agreement on the
Colton , Calif., Crossing railroad overpass has given local and train industry
officials four more weeks to work out the details, The Press-Enterprise
reports.
Efforts to save a $202-million
railroad overpass in Colton, Calif., are on track, but an agreement between two
railroads and local officials faces a high bar when a state commission will
decide if the agreement shows the public will benefit enough, The
Press-Enterprise reports.
Railroad and local
transportation officials have less than two days to save a $202-million train
overpass proposed in Colton, Calif., but have not announced any breakthroughs
and remain guarded regarding if an acceptable deal can be reached, The
Press-Enterprise reports.
Successful completion of
TieTek’s Chapter 11 process requires that all bids for the assets be received
by 5:00 CST on Friday, April 16, 2010, according to Robert Fowler, President of
VR Mergers & Acquisitions. VR is the Bankruptcy Court-approved broker for
TieTek, LLC and its parent companies, TieTek Technologies, Inc., and North
American Technologies Group, Inc., which recently filed voluntary petitions for
relief under Chapter 11 of the federal Bankruptcy Code in the United States
Bankruptcy Court, Eastern District of Texas.
Unless agreement can be
reached in two weeks, $131 million meant to separate railroad tracks in Colton
will go to other Southern California projects, and leave the region’s two
freight railroads without a project they say is critical to moving goods out of
the region, The Press-Enterprise reports.
In
Matt Rose’s 10 years at the helm of BNSF, he’d heard plenty of investors talk about quarterly performance. A few
would even talk about the railroad’s annual performance, Dan Reed writes in USA
TODAY. Then on Feb. 12, he answered a call from Warren Buffett, the legendary investor who looks for long-term return
and whose Berkshire Hathaway holding company had just closed on its $26-billion
purchase of the 77 percent of BNSF shares it didn’t already own.
The Executive Boards of
the Unified System Division and the Pacific Federation, both divisions of the
Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employes Division of the International
Brotherhood of Teamsters, said a merger between the two federations will take
affect April 1, 2010. The newly created federation will retain the name,
Unified System Division.
Denver’s RTD has reached a
total $143.8-million agreement with BNSF that will move progress forward on two
FasTracks corridors to Arvada/Wheat Ridge and Westminster, Colo.,
according to a column by Kevin Flynn in InDenver Times. The
comprehensive agreement includes $102.7 million for the outright purchase of
railroad right-of-way for the Gold Line and several miles of the Northwest Rail
FasTracks corridors; a lump sum of $36.9 million in relocation funding for BNSF
to move and replace its facilities that are in the way of RTD’s projects; up to
$4 million in direct reimbursements of BNSF’s other costs for additional
construction or relocation that may occur incidental to the projects and
$200,000 for title insurance, closing costs and escrow fees.
An agreement is near
regarding improvements around a long-sought railroad overpass in Colton,
Calif., between railroad and local officials, as the overall project’s fate
heads to a state commission, The Press-Enterprise reports.
Vice President Joe Biden
and U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood announced funding for 191 new
Recovery Act transit projects in 42 states and Puerto Rico that will help
transform the nation’s infrastructure and support thousands of jobs across the
country. In making the over $600 million in new awards, the Federal Transit
Administration met an aggressive deadline to award 100 percent of its Recovery
Act transit formula dollars by March 5.
Federal stimulus grants
could have redrawn the map of freight rail lines throughout the Rockford, Ill.,
area and truck routes around Rochelle, Ill., GateHouse News Service reports. Instead, after the $108-million requests were rejected last week, it’s
back to the drawing board.
The downtown Tulsa,
Okla., area is now a quiet zone for train horns, officials said. The
"quiet zone," or Downtown Sealed Corridor Project, which consists of
five extended railroad crossings, requires railroad operators to not blow their
horns in designated downtown areas except in emergency instances, the Tulsa
World reports.
An often-contentious plan
to separate railroad tracks in Colton, Calif., is among 51 projects nationwide
set to receive millions in federal stimulus funds, although local officials
never identified it as a top regional priority, The Press-Enterprise reports.
