When railroads were first stretching their tentacles across vast new parts of this country, each new expanse of track was bought with Herculean human labor, the Racine, Wis., Journal-Times reports. No longer. Maintaining and replacing the rails still requires manpower, but far less of it. Mechanization has replaced much of what the gandy dancer and the sledgehammer achieved.
A morning swig from a
plastic milk jug, the refrigerator where it was kept and the spoon used to
shovel that first bite of breakfast – the journey these everyday items take
from raw materials to finished products started at local railroad yards,
according to the Redlands, Calif., Daily Facts.
Warren Buffett and Bill Gates face a
roadblock on the route toward payoff on their investment in U.S. freight
transportation, Bloomberg reports. Chicago, whose railroads made it hog butcher
for the world a century ago, is a tangle of bottlenecks where a quarter of the
nation’s rail freight stalls while trying to navigate the city.
A rusty Missouri River
railroad bridge that came to symbolize the battle between historical tourism
and modern transportation has been saved from demolition due largely to federal
stimulus funds, local newspapers report. Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon said Union
Pacific has agreed to give the old bridge to the central Missouri city of
Boonville, which hopes to convert it for use by hikers and bikers on the Katy
Trail State Park.
The first phase of the
Santa Clara, Calif., Valley Transportation Authority’s (VTA) BART Extension to
Silicon Valley has been given an overall project rating of "medium" in the Federal
Transit Administration New Starts Annual Report for Federal Fiscal Year 2011,
which was released Feb. 3.
Supporters of consolidating
Springfield, Ill., rail traffic on the 10th Street corridor plan to take a wish
list of overpass construction, track relocation and other design improvements
on an annual trip to Washington D.C. next month, The State Journal-Register reports.
The list will exceed the $26.5 million sought for the same project last year,
Gary Plummer, president and CEO of the Greater Springfield Chamber of Commerce,
said Friday.
In broad strokes and
fine detail, officials have revealed how they will pay $340 million for
"the biggest project in the history" of Lincoln, Neb. — turning a
windswept rail yard into a home for a new downtown arena, the Lincoln Journal
Star reports.
Continuing talks on
making the area more environmentally friendly focused Tuesday night on
expanding the use of trains, buses and bicycles countywide, according to the
Elgin Courier News, The Elgin, Ill., Community Network hosted a discussion at
Gail Borden Public Library that looked at the future of transportation in the
area. Among those attending were representatives from Metra, Kane County
Division of Transportation and Schaumburg-based engineering firm TranSystems,
the company contracted to draft the city’s Bikeway Master Plan.
Measure R money isn’t
just for road projects’ it can now be used to purchase railroad tracks, the
Foothills Sun-Gazette reports. The Tulare County, Calif., Board of Supervisors
approved an amendment to the Measure R expenditure plan that will allow the
county to purchase railroad fixtures including ties, ballast, tracks and
signals to ensure that the property is maintained for rail use.
Coffman Specialties, Inc., of San Diego has been awarded a
$36.3-million contract to construct a rail spur and intermodal rail yard at the
Mesquite Regional Landfill, where municipal solid waste will be received for
disposal by way of California’s first waste-by-rail project. The Sanitation
Districts of Los Angeles County awarded the contract to Coffman Specialties,
the lowest of eight bids received for the project that will include a rail
spur, bridge and construction of the facilities where containerized trash will
arrive by train for disposal at the regional landfill. The Mesquite Regional
Landfill is located about five miles east of Glamis, Calif.
Two planned Metra stations
could transform neighborhoods on Chicago’s South and North Sides — spurring
economic development, curbing carbon emissions and making it just plain easier
for residents to choose public transportation, proponents say, according to a
report in the Chicago Tribune. But when that vision will become reality is
uncertain.
Whether
you might take the train for holiday travel in the future might well depend on
a $200-million request for federal funds. Missouri Transportation Director Pete
Rahn says people are being drawn to rail travel for reasons other than saving
money on fuel, local media report.
Fort Worth officials and
regional planners have long tried to get federal support behind solving the
infamous freight train delays at a railroad intersection south of downtown, the
Dallas Morning News reports. Mayor Mike Moncrief on Dec.21 seemingly made more
progress with one phone call than North Texas politicians have made in years of
lobbying federal lawmakers. Moncrief’s audience: Vice President Joe Biden.
This city (Chicago) was
built on railroads that moved meat from its famous packing houses, steel from
its mills, corn from surrounding fields. Today Chicago is still the nation’s
leading rail hub, with about 37,500 rail cars passing through daily, the Washington
Post reports. But massive congestion on Chicago tracks costs millions of
dollars in shipping delays, and it causes substantial noise and air pollution
as trains idle for hours, waiting for track clearance. The problem threatens to
get worse since freight traffic is expected to double in the next 20 years.
To advance the BART to
Silicon Valley Project parking spaces and lane closures will occur while crews
conduct work to identify utilities along Capitol Ave between Trimble Road and Montague
Expressway in Milpitas, Calif., Monday, December 21, 2009, through Thursday,
December 31, 2010, weekdays only, 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. (excluding lunch from
12:30 p.m. to 1:00 p.m.). Utility investigation activities include quick vacuum
excavation in a one-foot x one-foot hole approximately five to six feet in
depth, extracting the material to expose and survey the utility, to confirm
utility and depth.
Assistant Senate Majority Leader Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said that the final Omnibus Appropriations Act that includes $126,432,544 in funding for several Illinois projects was approved by a joint House and Senate Conference Committee of which Durbin is a member. The House and Senate are expected to take up and pass the legislation before the end of the year. The bill will then go to the President for his signature.
For most of its existence, the Amtrak service through the Missouri River Valley has operated on schedule no better than 79 percent of the time, and as low as 55 percent, local media report. Over the past month, Amtrak has been on time on 94 out of a hundred runs, Web site www.connectmidmissouri.com reported.
Lattes flow for commuters
at Tinley Park’s $5-million Metra station, an architectural gem. But the only
thing flowing at Cicero’s dreary train stop is the rainwater that blows through
the corrugated-metal shelter, according to the Chicago Tribune.
Enough people would board a
train in the Phoenix area’s suburbs that a future commuter-rail system would be
as popular as some of the busiest lines in the West, new studies have found, The
Arizona Republic reports. A trio of yearlong rail studies, in nearly final
form, indicates commuter rail could carry almost 18,000 passengers a day by
2030. Planners at the Maricopa Association of Governments say, based on the
findings, they favor a 105-mile, X-shaped system that could feature 33 stations
and cost roughly $1.5 billion. That’s a little more than the Valley’s 20-mile,
light-rail starter line. The commuter-rail network would use existing freight
track through downtown Phoenix, with lines from Queen Creek to Buckeye and from
Chandler to Wittmann. The northeast Valley, whose light-rail line lacks
funding, would remain without commuter rail.
Watco
Transportation Services, Inc., began operations of a new railroad, the Boise
Valley Railroad on November 23. Additional manpower and locomotive resources
were on hand to provide effective first day service on both the 11-mile Wilder
Branch and the 25-mile Boise Cut-off. Each job left the yard with more than 40
railcars.
