An amalgamation of 390 railroads — some of which are more than a century old — BNSF will mark its 25th anniversary on Sept. 22.Photo – BNSF Railway Co.
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The Peninsula Corridor Joint Powers Board (JPB), Caltrain’s governing body, last week elected Dave Pint chair, and Dev Davis, vice chair.
Pine represents the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors, and Davis represents the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority (VTA).
The Regional Transportation District of Denver’s (RTD) board last week selected five finalists for interim general manager and chief executive officer.
The five candidates, who were chosen from 40 applicants from across the country and underwent preliminary interviews, are:
South Carolina Ports Authority (SCPA) handled 2.44 million 20-foot equivalent container units (TEUs) in calendar-year 2019, a 5 percent increase over 2018.
The 2019 TEU total resulted in the port authority achieving the best calendar year in its history, SCPA officials said last week in a press release.
Trinity Metro last week marked the first anniversary of the TEXRail commuter-rail line, which operates from downtown Fort Worth, Texas, to Dallas/Fort Worth (DFW) International Airport.
The line logged ridership of 545,345 people in its first year of operation, which launched Jan. 10, 2019. December was a record-setting month, with 51,217 passengers and trains on-schedule 99 percent of the time, Trinity Metro said in a press release. The previous record for paid ridership was 44,741 passengers in November.
After a year of fluctuations driven by uncertainty over trade with China, volume at U.S. major retail container ports is expected to return to its usual seasonal patterns during the first few months of 2020, the National Retail Federation (NRF) and Hackett Associates reported late last week.
NRF officials will be "more confident" after President Donald Trump signs a partial trade deal with China on Jan. 15, said Jonathan Gold, NRF's vice president for supply chain and customs policy, in a press release.
A new feasibility study by the GoTriangle transit agency estimates a commuter-rail system operating 40 trains each weekday between Garner and Durham, North Carolina, would cost $1.4 billion to $1.8 billion to construct and carry 7,500 to 10,000 riders per day.
The 37-mile commuter-rail line would connect the cities of Raleigh, Cary and Durham, as well as Research Triangle Park. The new study, called the Greater Triangle Commuter Rail Study, is evaluating infrastructure recommendations, cost estimates and ridership projects, according to a post on GoTriangle's website.
MTA New York City Transit has withdrawn 298 Bombardier R179 rail cars from service as a result of reported door problems that could indicate a systemic problem with the cars.
On Dec. 24, 2019, a train operating on the C Line reported door trouble and lost propulsion, as it is designed to do so. Crews resolved the issue by isolating and shutting down the door, then removing the train from service, NYCT President Andy Byford said, according to a published transcript from a press conference held on the fleet withdrawal.
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ASLRRA President Chuck Baker (at the lectern) discussed the status of the 45G tax credit Nov. 21 at RailTrends, which was held in New York City.Photo – Pat Foran
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The Greenbrier Companies Inc. reported $7.7 million, or 23 cents per diluted share, on revenue of $769.4 million in its first fiscal quarter, which ended Nov. 30, 2019. Quarterly results include $2.2 million of integration-related expenses from the American Railcar Industries acquisition. Greenbrier also received 4,500 rail car orders during the quarter, valued at $450 million. Based on current business trends and production schedules for fiscal-year 2020, company officials said in a press release that revenue will total about $3.5 billion and the company will deliver between 26,000 and 28,000 cars.
Cubic Transportation Systems and Moovit have entered into a definitive agreement to co-develop mobile solutions for public transit agencies. The partnership will allow integration of Moovit’s MaaS application programming interfaces with Cubic’s Traveler application to enable mobile ticketing, service alerts, multimodal trip planning and real-time arrival information in a single platform.
The Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation (DRPT) will hold a Rail Industry Day on Jan. 24 to educate contractors about the recently announced rail improvement program with CSX and related upcoming procurements.
Attendance is open to all members of the contractor community with an interest in the rail improvement program, DRPT officials said in a notice.
The North County Transit District (NCTD) posted a request for proposals (RFP) to redevelop its Oceanside Transit Center in California into a mixed-use, transit-oriented development (TOD), real estate consultant CBRE Group Inc. announced yesterday.
NCTD’s Oceanside Transit Center is served by NCTD’s Coaster and Sprinter, Amtrak and Metrolink, connecting riders to San Diego and Los Angeles.
The California High-Speed Rail Authority (CHSRA) will host a forum Jan. 22 for firms interested in working on the authority’s track and system design-build-maintain contract for a 119-mile high-speed rail segment between Madera and Popular Avenue in California’s Central Valley.
The forum will provide an opportunity for interested small businesses to meet the project's pre-qualified prime contractors and learn more about the procurement process, CHSRA officials said in a press release.
U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) this week urged the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) to approve Amtrak's permit application for a one-time movement of its just-built high-speed train from the Alstom plant in New York to the agency's test track in Colorado.
In 2016, Amtrak's board finalized negotiations with Alstom to provide new, next-generation high-speed trains for Amtrak's Acela service. In order for the project to stay on schedule, and production of the remainder of the fleet to begin, critical testing must occur on the just-constructed train at the test track in Pueblo, Colorado.
Bay Area Rapid Transit’s (BART) board yesterday awarded a $798 million contract to Hitachi Rail STS USA Inc. to replace the agency’s 47-year-old, fixed-block train control system with a modern communications-based train control system (CBTC).
CBTC will enable BART to more precisely detect train location, allowing the agency to run more trains closer together. Doing so will effectively add capacity and decrease travel times, BART officials said in a press release.
The Association of American Railroads (AAR) praised President Donald Trump's administration for its proposed National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) revisions aimed at speeding up the environmental review process for major infrastructure projects.
The White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) issued the notice of proposed rulemaking, which calls for modernizing NEPA. One proposed change would no longer require agencies to consider "cumulative" effects of infrastructure projects. Courts have interpreted that as meaning the study of how a project might contribute to the climate, such as by contributing to an increase in greenhouse gas emissions, The Hill reported.
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The Port Authority of Allegheny County yesterday closed portions of the Mount Washington Transit Tunnel in Pittsburgh due to continued landslides caused by stormwater runoff. The tunnel is used exclusively by the authority’s light-rail and bus network.
Due to debris from the runoff and an unstable hillside, no light-rail service will operate on the outbound tracks of the tunnel until further notice, authority officials said in a press release.
