Medina, Ohio, will upgrade
several railroad crossing signals and surfaces within city limits in order to
meet recently changed state and federal safety regulations. In addition,
officials have discussed the possibility of transforming the area, which is in
the city’s southern portion, into a railroad quiet zone, the Medina Sun
reports.
BART has received FTA
Administrator Peter Rogoff’s letter stating that the FTA has rejected BART’s
plan to meet the FTA’s standards of full compliance with Title VI of the Civil
Rights Act. This letter cites no substantive deficiencies in BART’s latest
draft action plan to correct Title VI deficiencies identified in a December
2009 audit. Instead, the basis of the FTA Administrator’s rejection rests
solely on the fact that BART’s plan contains a timetable with an end date
beyond September 30, 2010-the deadline for awarding stimulus fund grants.
TriMet in Portland, Ore., is
hosting two open houses to provide an update on the status of project planning,
funding and design of the Portland-Milwaukie Light Rail Project.
It’s gotten a little
quieter for residents living along the Canadian National Railway in three western
suburbs, the Chicago Tribune reports. A long-anticipated quiet zone in Berwyn,
Riverside and North Riverside, Ill., went into effect Jan. 28, preventing
trains from sounding their horns at nine crossings except in emergencies.
A consortium of
Invensys Rail Corp. (formerly Safetran Systems Corp.), Siemens Mobility and D/A
Builders, LLC, will install ATC utilizing advanced Communications Based Train
Control technology plus a back-up conventional signaling system on the entire
PATH main line network including all central office, wayside and car borne
equipment locations.
Property owners in
Whitefish’s Railroad District and east of the middle school received good news
last week – lab results from 25 soil-borings revealed little or no
contamination from underground diesel fuel plumes originating in the BNSF Superfund
site, the Whitefish Pilot reports.
The UTU, BLET, the
Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employes Division, the Brotherhood of
Railroad Signalmen and the American Train Dispatchers Association have asked
the FRA to deny an Amtrak request to waive permanently the existing mandatory
and safety-critical functions governing passenger-platform snow removal outside
the Northeast Corridor.
U.S. Transportation
Secretary Ray LaHood and Federal Railroad Administration Administrator Joseph
Szabo announced historic safety regulations requiring that Positive Train
Control technology be installed on the nation’s major rail lines, as well as
commuter and intercity passenger rail routes. PTC is an integrated set of
technologies that will help avert train-to-train collisions, derailments caused
by excessive speed, accidents caused by human error or misaligned switches and
harm to roadway workers.
The
Kansas City District Corps of Engineers with cooperation from the United States
Environmental Protection Agency, Region 7, has concluded review of the proposed
BNSF Railway Company’s Intermodal Facility in Johnson County, Kansas. The Corps
determined that the project is in the public interest, is the least
environmentally damaging practicable alternative and will not significantly
impact the human environment.
The Finger Lakes Railway
may be able to help settle the issue of trucks hauling trash from the New York
metropolitan area through the Finger Lakes to the private Seneca Meadows
landfill in the town of Seneca Falls, N.Y., The Syracuse Post-Standard reports.
Railway President Mike Smith said his Geneva-based company has already been
talking with the landfill and Seneca County officials about building a rail
line to the landfill to deliver trash to Seneca Meadows. "It’s a good business
opportunity," Smith said.
U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood called on Congress to pass the Obama Administration’s Public Transportation Safety Program Act of 2009, a new transit safety bill to ensure a high and standard level of safety across all rail transit systems. The measure would effectively eliminate the statutory prohibition against imposing such broad safety standards that has been in place since 1965.
BNSF has agreed to fund a
significant amount of the cost of closing eight railroad crossings in Galesburg,
Ill., to develop quiet zones, according to city engineer Wayne Carl,
The
Register-Mail reports.
A $10-billion unfunded
mandate regarding "positive train control" — wherein trains will
need to be outfitted with GPS technology that’ll detect when trains are near
each other — may hamper the railroad industry as a whole, but as far as
Canadian National’s plans for Northwest Indiana go, it’s full steam ahead, the Gary
Post-Tribune reports.
After allegedly failing
to follow environmental regulations for a construction site in Ayer, Mass., Pan
Am Railways was found to be in compliance at a Suffolk Superior Court hearing, the
Worcester Telegram reports.
Prisco R. Morella expects
a delivery every day. On Wednesday, it came at 1:45 in the afternoon – 126,000
gallons of vegetable oil, The Telegram and Gazette in Worcester, Mass., reports.
Good towers make good
neighbors, the Palm Beach, Fla., Post reports. Neighborhood opposition was
sparked when Florida East Coast Railway said it planned a 200-foot-tall
communications tower – twice as high as the Jupiter Lighthouse – just west of
the tracks off the Loxahatchee River.
Lynda Frost, a
spokeswoman for Montana Rail Link, said trains traveling through downtown
Billings, Mont., were supposed to stop sounding their horns Sept. 18, one
minute after midnight, according to The Gazette. And those are some big horns,
emitting blasts of 96 to 110 decibels, as per federal regulations. A subway
train, at a distance of 200 feet, registers at about 95 decibels, while 110
decibels is comparable to a power saw three feet away.
The village of Park Forest,
Ill., and Canadian National Railway have reached an agreement on mitigation
measures related to CN’s recent acquisition of the old EJ&E Railroad, but
not all residents are happy with the deal, the Southtown Star reports.The Park Forest Village
Board approved the agreement, under which CN will give the village more than $7
million to help with traffic congestion, noise, and other issues stemming from
the EJ&E deal.
One year after 25 people
died in a violent head-on collision between a Los Angeles Metrolink passenger
train and freight train, officials have cobbled together more than $74 million
to pay for an automatic train-stopping system along Southern California tracks
to keep it from happening again, The Riverside, Calif., Press-Enterprise
reports. Though they are pleased with the progress, a lot of ground remains to
be covered to meet a self-imposed 2012 deadline to install such a system on
passenger train routes.
Standing trackside outside
Metra’s 80th Avenue Station in Tinley Park, Ill., recently, Tom Britt wasn’t
happy, the Chicago Tribune reports. "This station needs to
be improved," said the Frankfort, Ill., resident, "desperately."
