Brightline Florida & HNTB Honored with William W. Hay Award for Excellence at AREMA Conference

INDIANAPOLIS –– Each year at the AREMA Conference, the organization bestows the Dr. William W. Hay Award for Excellence for an outstanding rail engineering project.

The Dr. William W. Hay Award for Excellence was established by the Directors of AREMA to recognize outstanding achievement in Railway Engineering and to honor the memory and accomplishments of one of their members and leaders: William Walter Hay.

Dr. Hay was a professional railroader in both the military transportation service and the private railway industry. He was a consultant on design, construction and operations of railroads and, for over 25 years, he was a Professor of Railway Civil Engineering at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. He was also a teacher, motivator and mentor for dozens of men and women who chose to enter the transportation industry.

The purpose of the award is to honor innovative railway engineering procedures, projects and products and the individual(s) who have created and successfully applied them to the railroad industry. Criteria for winning the award are:

• Innovation – The development and/or application of new concepts, products or practices including state-of-the-art physical and information-oriented technology.
• Safety – The enhancement of safety in either the application itself or as a process or procedure which contributes to the overall safety of railroad personnel or railway operations.
• Service Performance and Reliability – An undertaking which contributes to more efficient, effective and reliable railway performance, especially as viewed by the railroad’s customers.

The 2025 AREMA Conference is going on this week and the Hay Award was presented to both Brightline Florida and HNTB Corporation for the construction of a 38-mile east-west corridor, which is the final section of Brightlne Florida’s route from Miami to Orlando. This project involved approximately 700 workers and had 20 grade separations.