Denver’s Regional Transportation
District — in the wake of a fatal commuter rail crash in Los Angeles — is
installing $3 million in safety technology, The Denver Post reports. The Automatic
Train Stop technology, or ATS, is designed to prevent trains from going through
a red signal, the cause of the 2008 Los Angeles accident in which 25 people
were killed.
Rhode Island’s planned
extension of commuter rail service from Boston and Providence to Warwick and
North Kingstown is on track.
The Rhode Island Department
of Transportation (RIDOT), with approval from the State Properties Committee,
completed the purchase of property needed for the Wickford Junction train
station and parking garage. The purchase price for the land and easements
located on Route 102 in North Kingstown, near its intersection with Route 4, was
$3.2 million, of which 80 percent came from federal funds.
The Wickford project, along
with the Warwick Intermodal Facility currently under construction, will provide
the infrastructure necessary to support the initial start-up phase of the South
County Commuter Rail Service. This service will extend existing Massachusetts
Bay Transit Authority trains through Providence an additional 20 miles with
stops at T.F. Green Airport and Wickford Junction. The new service is intended
to provide an alternative mode of travel to the already congested I-95 and
Route 4 corridor, which is the State’s fastest growing region, and provide
access to major employment, retail and recreational centers in Providence and
Boston. MBTA is expected to add commuter rail stops at T.F. Green Airport in
2010 and at Wickford Junction in 2011.
Once built, Wickford
Junction Station, with an estimated construction cost of $30 million, will
feature a train station and platform along with a 1,100-space parking garage.
It is expected that once construction begins it will take approximately 16
months to build the station and garage. Commuter rail service would start
shortly after that. Daily ridership is projected to be approximately 1,750
passengers, with eight weekday round trips planned.
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.
Morris County, N.J., is set to seek bids, and plans to reactivate the long-dormant railroad tracks behind Horseshoe Lake in Succasunna are moving ahead full steam, local media report. In a statement issued on Dec. 1 by the county freeholders, Freeholder Director Gene Feyl said that the Federal Highway Administration has issued its authorization for the Chester Branch Rehabilitation project. The move, according to Feyl, will allow Morris County to seek bids to improve the four-mile active freight line, which passes through Roxbury.
The Association of American Railroads today released the 2009 edition of Railroad Facts – the premier industry reference book. Railroad Facts contains more than 80 pages of facts and statistics for 2008, as well as historical data on critical aspects of railroad business, including: finance, operations, plant and equipment, employment and compensation, fuel consumption and costs. Railroad Facts contains a profile of each Class I railroad, Amtrak, the two major Canadian railroads and the two largest Mexican railways.
Copies of the publication are available for non-AAR members for $20.00 for one copy; $17.00 per copy for two to ten copies; and $15.00 per copy for orders over 10 copies. The cost for AAR members is $5.00 per copy. To order copies of the book, visit the AAR web site at www.aar.org and go to Resources – Publications – Online catalog.
BNSF assumed switching and classification responsibilities
at the Dayton, Texas, Yard on Dec. 1.
Dayton Yard is about 40 miles east of Houston and functions
as part of the Houston Complex and consolidated terminal. Construction at the
yard started in 1996 with two tracks; the yard currently has 78
fully-operational tracks.
The additional switching and classification responsibilities
are a "big deal" for BNSF for a number of reasons.
"This really lets us establish a footprint in the
Houston area, more so than we have been able to in the past," said Marc
Stephens, BNSF’s general director, transportation. "In the longer-term,
this opens the door for possibilities of other business."
Dayton Yard’s role is to support the Gulf Coast chemical
network, to which BNSF gained access as a result of the Union Pacific/Southern
Pacific merger. Dayton currently operates manifest trains to Memphis, Tenn.;
Galesburg, Ill.; and New Orleans, where trains connect to eastern gateways.
BNSF now has 67 additional positions, a significant increase
from the yardmaster and 10 yard positions prior to Dec. 1. "We’re using
furloughed employees to fill the yard-related positions," Stephens said.
BNSF employment at Dayton now includes 12 lead jobs, three
utility positions, four industry assignments, one air test crew, six transfers,
seven relief assignments and extra board support, giving Dayton a total of
about 100 trainmen and engineers.
About 15 chemical company customers use BNSF in this area.
The yard also supports industry releases on Port Terminal Railroad; Bayport,
Texas; Beaumont, Texas; Bay City, Texas; Seadrift, Texas; and Lake Charles, La.
The yard operation breaks down into three components: classification
of intermediate connections, industry yard operations for the Dayton Branch and
storage for major chemical customers. The yard has capacity to store 3,000
carloads of plastics along with 1,000 cars in working inventory for the
classification and branch yards.
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.
Five years ago Nov. 23,
Metro, the District of Columbia and the New York Avenue partners opened the New
York Ave-Florida Ave-Gallaudet U Metrorail station on the Red Line. Since its
opening, ridership has climbed at the station each year and the station has
become a catalyst for economic development.
Residents were updated on
an ongoing transit study during a recent public workshop in Hallandale Beach, Fla.,
the South Florida Sun-Sentinel reports.
The workshop, at the Cultural
Community Center, is part of a series of meetings offered to residents to
gather input on the South Florida East Coast Corridor Transit Analysis Study.
The
study, managed by the Florida Department of Transportation, is exploring
options to mitigate roadway congestion in Broward, Miami-Dade and Palm Beach
counties.
It usually takes 20 to 30
minutes to drive to Carnegie Mellon University from the former LTV site in
Hazelwood. That commute could take six minutes by train. Pittsburgh Councilman
William Peduto has envisioned the train, and planners have deemed it feasible,
the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports.
The Chicago Region
Environmental and Transportation Efficiency Program partners said a $10.4-million
project (Project WA3) now under construction east of the Chicago Stockyards
Industrial District is the largest awarded to a contractor to date. It will
double the capacity of the rail corridor through the Stockyards by adding
additional tracks, enabling faster train speeds and utilizing modern signaling
technology. Construction is expected to be completed by late 2010 and will
rehabilitate the railroad viaducts over Halsted, Emerald, and Union Streets.
The city of Virginia
Beach, Va., has released the final draft of its comprehensive plan, which is a
blueprint for how the city will grow in the future, Inside Business reports. Included
in the plan is a section on light rail and how it could fit into the city’s
transportation master plan.
Standing with U.S.
Senator Arlen Specter, Congresswoman Allyson Schwartz, Philadelphia Mayor
Michael Nutter, Deputy Mayor for Transportation and Utilities Rina Cutler,
SEPTA General Manager Joe Casey, DRPA Board Chair John H. Estey, Board Vice
Chair Jeff Nash and others, DRPA CEO and PATCO President, John J. Matheussen,
announced an agreement that will result in Light Rail Service along Market
Street between City Hall and the Delaware River Waterfront initially serving
Pier 70 to the South and SEPTA’s Route 15 Trolley at Girard Avenue to the
North.
The National Gateway
initiative will spur thousands of employment opportunities throughout the
Midwest and East Coast, creating growth and building the nation’s economic
competitiveness. The National Gateway is an $842-million, multi-state
public-private infrastructure initiative that will create a more efficient
freight rail route between Mid-Atlantic ports and Midwestern markets. Planned
improvements that will create job opportunities include raising bridges,
increasing tunnel clearances and building new terminals along existing rail
corridors to support the movement of double-stacked containers on rail cars.
Connecticut Gov. M. Jodi
Rell said that she would push ahead with plans to borrow $100 million so that
the state can build a key part of the New Haven rail yard, the Hartford Courant
reports. One of Connecticut’s biggest contractors recently offered to build a
293,000-square-foot maintenance center for rail cars that was only about half
as expensive as transportation officials and a consultant had projected.
U.S. Secretary of
Transportation Ray LaHood talked Oct. 20 at Knox College n Galesburg, Ill.,
about the role of transportation in helping the local, state and national
economy recover, according to The Galesburg Register-Mail. LaHood said all
indicators show the country is coming out of the recession, but it won’t be
over until unemployment numbers drop.
The Los Angeles County
Metropolitan Transportation Authority will hold two community meetings/open
houses Tuesday, October 20 and Thursday, October 22 in Montebello and Pico
Rivera to update the public on transit alternatives being recommended to the
Metro Board of Directors for the environmental phase of the Eastside Transit
Corridor Phase 2 Project.
(Statement by APTA President
William Millar)
"The ‘Clean Energy Jobs and
American Power Act’ introduced by Senators Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and John
Kerry (D-Mass.) this week potentially offers important new funding to expand
access to public transportation and improve our daily travels while reducing
greenhouse gas emissions and oil consumption. APTA supports their efforts to
move our nation toward a vibrant clean energy economy while controlling global
warming.
The V&T Railway
Commission was told Monday that the latest section of tracks begins going down
within the week, according to the Nevada Appeal. Project Engineer Ken Dorr said
this extension takes the tracks into the canyon above the Carson River which,
when completed, will be the most scenic part of the 17-mile ride between
Virginia City and Carson City, Nev.
(The following opinion,
published Aug. 24, 2009, by the Boston Globe, was written by former
Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis [also a former vice chairman of Amtrak] and
Robert O’Brien, who is executive director of the Downtown North Association and
chairman of the North-South Rail Link Citizens Advisory Committee.)
