Railroad News

The Westmoreland County Industrial Development Corp. (WCIDC) last month approved a $2.4 million contract with Frontier Railroad Services to replace more than 4 miles of rail for the Southwest Pennsylvania Railroad as part of regular infrastructure upgrades.

The railroad, which operates along 33 miles in Pennsylvania, is owned by the WCIDC but operated by Carload Express Inc.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) yesterday announced it will close the New York City Transit subway system daily between 1 a.m. and 5 a.m. to perform deep cleaning of rail cars and stations, and test new cleaning solutions.

About 11,000 riders on average use the subway during this overnight period, MTA officials said in a press release. 

R. J. Corman Railroad Group LLC today announced Senior Vice President Noel Rush will retire after serving the company for more than 23 years.

Since he joined the company in 1997, Rush has held many integral positions at the company, including president of the derailment services company, VP of risk management and SVP of commercial development before taking on the role of SVP.

First-quarter 2020 intermodal volumes fell 6.7 percent to 4,177,989 units compared with the same quarter last year, according to Intermodal Association of North America (IANA) data.

Year over year, international intermodal volume (2,057,685 containers) dropped 11.3 percent, while domestic volume (1,862,499 containers) climbed 2.2 percent and trailers (257,805) plunged 23.3 percent, IANA officials said in the association's Intermodal Quarterly report.

Bombardier Transportation signed a six-year integrated logistics service contract with Trenitalia to support its Frecciarossa fleet of ETR500 high-speed electric trains in Italy. The contract will ensure continuous availability of consumable spare parts and repairable components for the fleet, including critical components like traction cooling equipment and transformers, Bombardier officials said in a press release. 

Trinity Industries Inc. reported first-quarter revenue of $615.2 million, a $10.4 million increase compared with Q1 2019. Trinity attributed the increase to a higher volume of rail cars sold from the company's lease fleet, according to Trinity's financial report. Net income attributable to Trinity was $161.9 million, or $1.33 per common diluted share, an increase of $1.09 per share year-over-year. “We expect COVID-19 to have a negative impact on demand for our products and services, clouding our forecasting abilities and limiting visibility into our financial performance for 2020,” Trinity Chief Executive Officer and President Jean Savage said in a press release.

Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) and the North Central Texas Council of Governments (NCTCOG) yesterday reached an agreement to extend DART’s GoLink on-demand shuttle service to the west Carrollton area. 

In May, the service will provide first- and last-mile connections from the Valwood Industrial Business Park area in west Carrollton to DART’s Green Line at the downtown Carrollton light-rail station. 

The Las Vegas Monorail Co. has suspended construction of two monorail stops on the Las Vegas Strip due to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a local news report. 

All monorail activities related to the company’s Mandalay Bay extension and Sands Avenue Station project, which include construction of a monorail stop at the future MSG Sphere entertainment venue, have been put on hold, a monorail spokesperson told the Las Vegas Review-Journal.  

CN yesterday announced Robert Pace was re-elected chairman during the annual shareholders meeting held April 28.

Pace is president and chief executive officer of The Pace Group Ltd. in Halifax, Nova Scotia. He has served as CN's chairman since 2014.

U.S. freight-rail traffic continued to decline during the week ending April 25, as most of the country remained locked down due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Association of American Railroads (AAR) announced yesterday.

Total traffic hauled by U.S. railroads fell 22.4 percent to 414,123 carloads and intermodal units during the week compared with the same period in 2019. Railroads logged a combined 192,100 carloads, down 28.2 percent, and 222,013 intermodal containers and trailers, down 16.5 percent.

The American Short Line and Regional Railroad Association (ASLRRA) announced 295 winners of the 2019 Jake Awards, which recognize the safety efforts of regionals and short lines.

To win a Jake Award, an ASLRRA member railroad must perform better than the Class II and III industry average for injury frequency rate, as reported by the Federal Railroad Administration during a calendar year.

Capital Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Cap Metro) officials in Austin, Texas, yesterday announced the agency will provide a $150 weekly salary bonus to rail employees who help deliver essential service during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Full-time staff receiving the payment include rail operators and engineers, maintenance personnel and staff working in public facilities, the operations control center, customer experience and quality assurance departments.

Metra contract crews next week will begin putting up steel support beams for a new Union Pacific North Line rail bridge over Irving Park Road in Chicago. 

In May, Judlau Contracting Inc. will begin to construct the bridge over the road’s eastbound lanes.

The MTA Metro-North Railroad today closed the 120-year-old Third Avenue Bridge in Mount Vernon, New York, in preparation for demolition next week.  

The $10.4 million bridge replacement project will take 18 months to complete, MTA officials said in a press release.

The California High-Speed Rail Authority (CHSRA) has partnered with the city of Selma to open a workforce development center that will offer pre-apprenticeship classes and hands-on construction training for Central Valley residents interested in working on the state's high-speed rail project.

Scheduled to open this summer, the center and its programs are aimed at serving military veterans, at-risk young adults, minority and low-income populations in the California counties of Fresno, Kings, Tulare, Kern, Madera and Merced, CHSRA officials said in a press release.