Railroad News

Union Pacific Railroad is investing $20 million to build an additional block swap yard at its Santa Teresa intermodal terminal and refueling station in New Mexico.

The additional block swap yard will allow the Class I to add container blocks to passing trains faster and more efficiently, according to a press release issued by the New Mexico Economic Development Department.

Canadian Pacific moved a record amount of Canadian grain and grain products last month, the Class I announced last week.

CP moved a best-ever 2.6 million metric tons of grain and grain products, beating a previous record set in October 2018, CP officials said in a press release.

Wi-Tronix LLC announced recent orders for its Violet Edge software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform have pushed total orders to more than 2,000 since the platform was introduced in 2016. The Violet Edge connected event recorder, PTC event recorder and digital video recorder are based on an Internet of Things platform designed for the rail industry. The SaaS platform with hardware and software packages provide the specific services needed for any locomotive type or specific type of service, Wi-Tronix officials said in a press release. The Violet Edge breaks the traditional event recorder paradigm by combining data, video and audio from all sources on a locomotive into one synchronized solution, they said.

360 Rail Services has selected Ardenna's rail defect detection software-as-a-service for integration with its new drone-based rail yard inspection service offering. 360 Rail Services offers engineering, construction, operations and maintenance services to the rail industry, while Ardenna provides artificial intelligence-based defect detection software. Ardenna will process all of 360 Rail’s rail yard imagery captured by drones to more quickly identify anomalies and defects compared with traditional inspection methods, according to a Ardenna press release. Ardenna also will work with 360 Rail to refine and introduce drone-based data collection and automated defect detection to the rail sector.

New Jersey Transit throughout the month of May will solicit public feedback on a commitment to provide nearly 22 percent of its federally funded contracting opportunities to disadvantaged business enterprises (DBEs) from fiscal year 2020 through 2022. 

NJ Transit is required to develop three-year goals for contracting with DBEs as a condition for receiving federal funds from the Federal Transit Administration (FTA). Each year, the agency is evaluated how it performs against those goals, NJ Transit officials said in a press release.

The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) earlier this week announced that two-thirds of its tunnels are wired for cellular and data service. 

Following installation work, riders onboard trains between Rosslyn and Van Dorn Street/Eisenhower Avenue now can access cellular service coverage from AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon Wireless. 

Canadian Transport Minister Marc Garneau yesterday announced amendments to hazardous materials transportation regulations that impact tank cars and emergency response assistance plans.

Hazmat shippers now are required to move toxic inhalation-hazard substances in tank cars constructed of normalized steel that undergoes a heat treatment process to increase durability and resistance to cracking at low temperatures. Toxic inhalation hazard substances include chlorine, anhydrous ammonia and certain fertilizers.

The Regional Transportation District (RTD) of Denver, Uber and Masabi yesterday launched Uber Transit ticketing, enabling rail and bus riders to buy and access tickets within the Uber ride-hailing mobile app. 

Following a staggered rollout over the next few weeks, Uber Transit will allow riders in the Denver metro region to enter a destination in the Uber app, select the “Transit” option and purchase a ticket.  When boarding a train or bus, riders then activate the ticket, according to an RTD press release.

The San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG) last week unveiled a proposal to create a network of high-speed transit lines and mobility hubs. 

The proposal aims to connect communities to major destinations and employment centers while increasing mobility throughout the San Diego region, according to a SANDAG press release. 

Amtrak plans to suspend Hoosier State service starting July 1 because state of Indiana funding no longer will be provided for the route from that date forward.

A federal law requires states to pay a portion of the cost of certain Amtrak trains and Indiana's state budget does not include funding for Hoosier State trains starting July 1, railroad officials said in an online notice.

After an end-to-end analysis of the intermodal network through the Unified Plan 2020 initiative, Union Pacific Railroad identified three key changes it plans to implement in the months ahead, Executive Vice President of Marketing and Sales Kenny Rocker wrote in a customer announcement issued yesterday.

The first calls for simplifying the Class I's intermodal complex in Chicago, where the railroad operates six intermodal facilities: five active ramps and an equipment depot.

The Capitol Corridor Joint Powers Authority (CCJPA) in March logged a 5 percent increase in ridership and revenue versus the same period last year, marking an 18-month streak of consecutive year-over-year ridership growth.

Fiscal-year ridership continues to grow at a 5 percent clip and customer satisfaction has reached 91 percent, CCJPA officials said in a press release. 

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (PANYNJ) in March logged 58,877 containers by rail, a new all-time monthly high that bested the previous record set in March 2018 by 11 percent. 

The port in March also handled 585,083 20-foot equivalent units (TEUs), the most ever for that month, which represented a 4 percent increase over the previous record of 572,572 TEUs set in March 2018. 

Ontario government officials today will introduce a legislation that calls for finding efficiencies in subway expansion plans. 

Ontario Minister of Transportation Jeff Yurek announced yesterday the “Getting Ontario Moving Act,” which includes measures to “cut red tape” and work around “burdensome regulations” that have prevented subways from expanding or being build, according to a press release from the Ministry of Transportation’s office. 

Overtime payments to Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) employees have increased dramatically of late and warrant an investigation, MTA Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Patrick Foye announced yesterday.

Recent reports on excessive overtime payments throughout the system are "extremely concerning," he said in a statement.

U.S. rail traffic continued to swoon in April, but fared better than in March. U.S. railroads originated 1,041,544 carloads, down 0.9 percent, and 1,056,146 intermodal loads, down 3.9 percent compared with April 2018 volumes, according to Association of American Railroads (AAR) data.

Combined traffic totaling 2,097,690 units fell 2.4 percent. Only six of the 20 carload commodity categories tracked by the AAR posted gains, including petroleum and petroleum products (29.5 percent), metallic ores (5 percent) and coal (1.8 percent). Decliners included crushed stone, sand and gravel (10.1 percent), motor vehicles and parts (5.4 percent), and grain (4.7 percent).
 
"Rail traffic in April was significantly improved compared with March, in part because railroads affected by severe flooding in the Midwest were able to return their operations more toward normal," said AAR Senior Vice President of Policy and Economics John Gray in a press release. "It appears that some of the economic uncertainty that was prevalent earlier in the first quarter has dissipated, although concerns about trade issues may still be having an impact on rail volumes."
 
Through 2019's first four months, U.S. roads logged 8,769,756 carloads and intermodal units, down 1.9 percent year over year. Canadian railroads' cumulative volume rose 2.4 percent to 2,523,702 units and Mexican roads' total volume dropped 5.8 percent to 610,898 units.

Amtrak’s fiscal-year ridership is up 1.3 percent year over year through March and its operating earnings are heading toward breakeven by fiscal-year 2021. 

Those figures put the railroad on track for the best performing year in its 48 years of operation, Amtrak officials said in a press release.

CN yesterday announced Robert Pace was unanimously re-elected by its board as chairman.

He is president and chief executive officer of The Pace Group Ltd., a Halifax-based company that's engaged in radio broadcasting, real estate and environmental services. Pace, who became CN's chair in 2014, also is chairman of the Walter Gordon Foundation, and a board member for the Atlantic Salmon Federation and Asia Pacific Corp.

After strong growth in 2018, intermodal volume fell 1.5 percent in 2019’s first quarter to 4,477,728 units, according to the Intermodal Association of North America's (IANA) latest Intermodal Market Trends & Statistics report.

International intermodal volume rose 1.2 percent to 2,319,585 units, but domestic container counts dropped 4.1 percent to 1,821,916 units and domestic trailer traffic declined 5.4 percent to 336,227 units compared with first-quarter 2018 figures. Total domestic equipment volume decreased 4.3 percent to 2,158,143 units.

Fluor Corp. earlier this week announced the Eagle P3 commuter-rail project in Denver has been completed and the 11-mile Gold Line (G Line) now is open from Downtown Union Station to Wheat Ridge Station. The G Line is the third and final commuter-rail line to open for the Regional Transportation District (RTD), following the A and B lines, Fluor officials said in a press release. Part of RTD’s FasTracks program, the Eagle P3 project was developed through a public-private partnership between the district and Denver Transit Partners (DTP), which includes Fluor, John Laing plc and Aberdeen Infrastructure Investments USA LLC, Balfour Beatty Infrastructure Inc., Alternative Concepts Inc. and Ames Construction. The DTP consortium will operate the A, B and G lines for 29 years per an agreement.

Icertis recently announced that Norfolk Southern Corp. has selected the Icertis Contract Management (ICM) platform to serve as its enterprise-wide contract management system. The ICM platform will help NS modernize its contract management processes to accelerate contract velocity, protect against risk and better optimize commercial relationships, Icertis officials said in a press release. The platform will standardize contracting for several thousand enterprise users in all contracting scenarios across the railroad. ICM is designed to automatically create contract amendments when business conditions change, enabling NS to respond to market fluctuations. The platform can integrate with other enterprise systems and automatically update contracts based on pre-defined business rules.

The Jacksonville Port Authority (JAXPORT) recently unveiled a new logo and website, and updated social media applications. 

The new logo reflects JAXPORT’s trade lanes, which include connections with Asia, Africa, the Caribbean, Europe, Middle East and South America, as well as Jacksonville’s strategic location "at the crossroads of the nation's rail and highway network," port officials said in a press release.