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.
Alabama State Port
Authority officials plan to meet this week with Norfolk Southern senior
executives to discuss linking the railroad’s proposed $112-million intermodal
facility in McCalla, Ala., to the newly opened $300 million container terminal
in Mobile, according to the Birmingham Business Journal.
(This article appeared the
July-August 2009 St. Croix Chronicle, a publication of the St. Croix Economic
Development Corp.)
Even in the current
economic downturn, it’s been several years of full steam ahead for Twin City
Signal in Hudson, Wis. In order to meet immediate demands for its services, the
railroad signal engineering and design company, founded in Hudson in 1996, has
expanded into an additional facility across from its 7,200-square-foot
headquarters on Livingstone Road. The move nearly doubles its space, and
founder and company president Lee Kisling sees rails and more rails in the future.
The Regional Answer to
Canadian National (TRAC) is petitioning the Surface Transportation Board to
take a careful look at a recent request by Canadian National to increase its
trackage rights on its rail lines throughout the City of Chicago and suburbs.
In a move that went virtually undetected, on August 5, 2009, CN filed 17
simultaneous Trackage Rights Exemption requests with the STB asking that it be
allowed to change the flow of train traffic on its Chicago area railroad subsidiaries,
Elgin, Joliet & Eastern Railway, Illinois Central Railroad Company,
Wisconsin Central, Grand Trunk Western Railroad and Chicago, Central &
Pacific Railroad. This request could allow CN the ability to significantly
increase the number of trains that operate along the EJ&E line and its
subsidiaries in dozens of towns including Chicago, Mundelein, Schiller Park,
Broadview, Joliet, Frankfort, Markham, Buffalo Grove and parts of Indiana.
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."
BNSF is pushing Congress to
scale back a requirement for carriers to install automatic-braking systems on
most of their tracks, reports Bloomberg News. "Heavy-handed" legislation
enacted last year would cost Fort Worth, Texas-based BNSF almost $2 billion,
Chief Executive Officer Matt Rose said.
Virginia has submitted
its first high speed rail application for the Arkendale to Powell’s Creek
project along the I-95 High Speed Rail Corridor, local media report. The project,
with a construction cost of $74.8 million, would build 11.4 miles of third
track in Stafford and Prince William Counties.
Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn
says Illinois must do what it can to attract jobs to the state, so he signed a
measure encouraging business development along freight rail systems, the
Chicago Tribune reports. A new rail transportation hub is intended for the
Chicago suburb of Joliet and the measure will set aside some state taxes
connected to new jobs created at the facility. The company operating the hub,
CenterPoint Properties, can then get some of that money for infrastructure
improvement, according to the governor’s office.
Peter Burling, chairman of
the Rail Transit Authority in New Hampshire, envisions a rail line running
between Boston and Concord, N.H., at speeds of up to 90 mph, the Concord
Monitor reports. The rail would carry Massachusetts shoppers to Nashua and
travelers to Manchester Airport. It would take sports fans to Celtics games and
workers to their jobs in Boston.
The Federal Highway
Administration, Illinois Department of Transportation, Chicago Department of
Transportation and Association of American Railroads have agreed to
modifications to the CREATE Program in response to changing needs. In
particular, the full Central Corridor, as defined in the original CREATE
Feasibility Plan & Preliminary Screening is no longer required. Major
portions of the southern half of the Central Corridor are being retained,
however, to provide a new direct route (over the NS Chicago Line) for Amtrak
trains from New Orleans and Carbondale into Chicago Union Station, while
minimizing impacts to Amtrak and freight service already using this line. These
improvements are now part of the P4 project.
John Lanigan, BNSF’s
executive vice president and chief marketing officer, was a keynote speaker at
the groundbreaking of a new rail project to support Vancouver’s Port Terminal 5
expansion in the state of Washington, according to the company newsletter. A
crowd of more than 250 people made up of state and local officials, port and
transportation personnel and area residents attended the official
groundbreaking.
The San Luis and Rio
Grande Railway will become a major mover of goods and people in the San Luis
Valley if a proposal for stimulus money gets approved, local newspapers report. Valley leaders and
representatives of Iowa Pacific, owner of the San Luis and Rio Grande Railway,
met with Colorado Department of Transportation Commissioner Steve Parker
yesterday for advice on how to successfully proceed with a proposal for
Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) grant.
Commuters on the Virginia
Railway Express Fredericksburg Line can see that construction has begun on
laying a third track over Franconia Hill, according to Fredericksburg.com. As
hills go, it’s not terribly high: 225 feet above sea level. Franconia Road is
near the crest of the hill in Fairfax County, and the Capital Beltway passes
along the side of the hill a mile farther north.
Southwest Washington’s
three-member congressional delegation gathered at the Port of Vancouver to
celebrate the opening of a new marine terminal on the former Alcoa-Evergreen
aluminum site, The Columbian reported. Alcoa this spring finished environmental
cleanup of the 218-acre site, making way for the port to complete its purchase
of the two properties in March for a total of $48.25 million. The port is now
ready to develop the site, zoned for heavy industrial use.
The Montreal, Maine &
Atlantic Railway said that it is taking steps to sell or abandon its tracks
between Millinocket and Madawaska, Maine, because they are no longer profitable
to maintain, according to the Bangor Daily News. The company is asking the
state to consider buying the tracks and maintaining them. If that were to
happen, the Maine Department of Transportation and the railway could work out a
deal so the company’s trains would use the rail lines without an interruption
in service.
Pennsylvania Governor Ed
Rendell is trying to land $47 million in federal aid to upgrade Harrisburg rail
freight facilities, the Harrisburg Patriot News reports. The money would help
Norfolk Southern add a third unloading track and install additional parking
spaces for trailers at the terminal along Industrial Road.
Where are all the trains? When
Canadian National Railway won federal approval to buy the EJ&E line for
$300 million in December, suburbs worried about the effects of heavy freight
traffic, the Plainfield, Ill., Sun reports.
The Association of
American Railroads urged the Federal Railroad Administration to faithfully
follow the Congressional statutory mandate requiring railroads to implement
positive train control technologies across certain portions of the national
freight rail network. In 2008, Congress passed a law requiring the nation’s
freight railroads by Dec. 31, 2015 to implement PTC on certain main line tracks
used for transporting passengers or toxic chemicals. However, AAR notes that
FRA’s proposed rule would impose a financial burden above and beyond what Congress
intended, potentially adding hundreds of millions of dollars in additional cost
to the railroads as they face using private capital to pay for the federal PTC
mandate.
Major U.S. freight
railroads and their advocates have argued for years that government investment
is needed in the country’s rail system to take freight off congested highways
and keep the economy moving, Reuters reports. But supporters say rail
investments have been largely ignored by Congress, suggesting political support
is lacking, despite warnings action must be taken sooner rather than later.
Sullivan City, Texas, Mayor
Rosendo Benavides traces his finger along a line on the map leading from Monterrey
to South Texas, The Monitor of McAllen, Texas, reports Abruptly, right before
it crosses the Rio Grande near his small town of 4,000, it jags straight east –
running near the river before heading into the United States near Brownsville. That
line – a Kansas City Southern railroad track that stops just across the river
from Sullivan City – offers the best chance his city has to secure an
international bridge, he said.
