Railroad News

The Rail Passengers Association next month will present its Golden Spike Award to U.S. Rep. Dan Lipinski (D-Ill.).

Lipinski — who chairs the House Subcommittee on Railroads, Pipelines and Hazardous Materials — is being honored for "his 15 years of work in Congress for a safer passenger-rail network, more reliable commuter-rail and transit service, and better relationships between railroads and the communities they serve," association officials said in a press release.

Milwaukee city officials entered into a 10-year contract with Smart City Media LLC to implement a digital kiosk system to support streetcar operations in downtown Milwaukee later this spring.

Thirty-five touch-screen kiosks, called CityPosts, will be installed along The Hop streetcar route, streetcar officials said in a press release.

Ontario Transportation Minister Caroline Mulroney has introduced the Building Transit Faster Act to help accelerate the completion of subway expansion projects.

The legislation would provide the province with the tools to expedite the planning, design and construction process of subway projects, including the all-new Ontario Line, the Yonge North Subway Extension, the three-stop Scarborough Subway Extension and the Eglinton Crosstown West Extension.

The Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority (MARTA) yesterday announced the agency will spend $250 million on transit improvements in DeKalb County, Georgia, including rail station rehabilitation and rail system maintenance.

MARTA will rehabilitate eight stations in the county by 2025, and complete state-of-good-repair maintenance projects on the rail, bus and paratransit system, agency officials said in a press release.

The Midwest Association of Rail Shippers (MARS) yesterday announced its 2020 slate of officers elected at the association’s annual winter meeting last month.

Elected as president is Stefan Loeb of Watco Cos. LLC, Downers Grove, Illinois; first vice president is Carrie Evans of Iowa Interstate Railroad Ltd., Cedar Rapids, Iowa; and second VP is Kathy Bathurst of CSX, Riverdale, Illinois.

Metro Transit officials last week announced plans to increase the number of law enforcement officers on the transit system to address growing security concerns on the agency's lines serving Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota.

The new security efforts include offering more than 20,000 hours of additional work to part- and full-time law enforcement officers in 2020, amounting to $1.8 million, as well as seeking personnel loans from regional police forces. 

Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) last month logged on-time performance improvements on the MTA New York City Transit (NYCT) subway, MTA Long Island Island Rail Road (LIRR) and MTA Metro-North Railroad, MTA officials announced Tuesday. 

In January, NYCT weekday subway on-time performance was 83 percent, the highest of any January since 2013, MTA officials said in a press release.

Last week, voters in all four jurisdictions in the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority's (MARTA) service area approved a 1-cent sales tax to fund MARTA rail and bus service in Atlanta as well as in Clayton, DeKalb and Fulton counties through 2057.

Voter approval of the amendment allows MARTA to extend its long-term bonding capacity. The extension was necessary for MARTA to maintain current service levels and capital expenditures, including the rehabilitation of 38 rail stations and the purchase of 254 new rail cars, MARTA officials said in a press release.

[Editor's note: The headline of this article originally posted on Feb. 20 was updated Feb. 21 at 9:39 p.m. CT]

Last week, county commissioners in all four jurisdictions in the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority's (MARTA) service area approved a 1-cent sales tax to fund MARTA rail and bus service in Atlanta as well as in Clayton, DeKalb and Fulton counties through 2057.

U.S. freight railroads hauled 479,137 carloads and intermodal units in the week ending Feb. 15, an 8.6 percent decrease in traffic compared with the same week in 2019, according to Association of American Railroads (AAR).

Total carloads for the week declined 9.1 percent to 227,447 units, while intermodal volume fell 8 percent to 251,690 containers and trailers.

U.S. Rep. Jim Costa (D-Calif.) tomorrow will announce legislation that calls for federal funding for the completion of California’s high-speed rail project, the California High-Speed Rail Authority (CHSRA) announced yesterday.

Costa is scheduled to hold a press conference where he will unveil the High-Speed Rail Corridor Development Act of 2020, which calls for providing $32 billion to fund projects in federally designated high-speed rail corridors. The bill would directly assist in funding needed to complete California's project to San Francisco to Los Angeles via the San Joaquin Valley.

VIA Rail Canada Inc. yesterday announced it will temporarily lay off about 1,000 employees because of ongoing protest blockades on CN's rail lines.

The passenger-rail company also said that a plan to resume VIA rail service today between Montreal and Quebec City has been scuttled due to a new protest blockade near St.-Lambert, Quebec.

The U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) yesterday announced $1 billion in fiscal-year 2020 discretionary grant funding is available under the Better Utilizing Investments to Leverage Development (BUILD) program.

The grants are used for planning and capital investments in surface transportation infrastructure and are to be awarded on a competitive basis for projects that will have a significant local or regional impact, USDOT officials said in a press release.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency granted OptiFuel Systems LLC a Tier 4 rail certification for its internal combustion engine that produces zero nitrogen oxide or particulate matter emissions. The rail engine can seamlessly operate on any combination of renewable and fossil natural gas in either compressed or liquefied form, OptiFuel officials said in a press release. OptiFuel’s rail engine is identical to the California Air Resources Board-certified Cummins ISX12N engine. The engine is the only U.S. EPA rail certified prime mover that exceeds all of California's proposed standards for Tier 5, OptiFuel officials said.

STV named David Isabelle vice president and operations director of the transportation and infrastructure division’s Northeast region. Isabelle will be responsible for that group’s project and financial performance in the region, as well as its resource management, quality and safety initiatives, STV officials said in a press release. He has more than 25 years of experience. Previously, Isabelle served as senior VP and Northeast regional team leader for another planning and engineering firm.

The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority’s (WMATA) Office of the Inspector General has partnered with the U.S. Department of Justice Procurement Collusion Strike Force in an effort to detect fraud, bid-rigging and other crimes. 

The Strike Force was created in 2019 to deter, detect and prosecute antitrust crimes that affect government procurement, grant and program funding.

Crimes committed on Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s (LA Metro) rail and bus systems declined 17 percent over the past five years, agency officials announced last week. 

Between 2015 and 2019, serious crimes fell nearly 23 percent and less serious crimes dropped nearly 11 percent across the system, LA Metro officials said in a press release.

TNW Corp., a short line and transportation logistics services operator, has acquired a multicommodity bulk material handling and storage facility in Harwood, Texas, the company announced yesterday.

Financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.