Railroad News

OmniTRAX Inc. has sold the Hudson Bay Railway and Port of Churchill to the Arctic Gateway Group LP and a consortium of First Nations and communities in association with Missinippi Rail LP. The sale closed Aug. 31.

The Arctic Gateway Group consists of Fairfax Financial Holdings Ltd. and AGT Food and Ingredients Inc. The financial value of the acquisition was not disclosed.

U.S. Rep. Robin Kelly (D-Ill.) on Wednesday toured Ontario Trap Rock's Middle River Marine facility in Chicago.

The company produces durable rock suited for railroad applications, including ballast. Ontario Trap Rock is a member of the National Railroad Construction and Maintenance Association (NRC) and the Railway Engineering-Maintenance Suppliers Association (REMSA).

Sound Transit has tapped WSP USA to perform design-build project management services for its Link light-rail extension to downtown Redmond, Washington. The 3.4-mile, elevated line will run from the Redmond Technology Station near Microsoft's  headquarters to the Redmond Town Center. The extension is the final segment of Sound Transit's East Link light-rail corridor. WSP's preconstruction services will include preparation and review of the design-build contract request for proposals, company officials said in a press release. The contract's financial value was not disclosed.

Harsco Rail obtained a contract from Singapore's Land Transport Authority to deliver a 16-stone grinder. Designed to accommodate electric motors, the grinder will operate on Singapore's new Thomson-East Coast passenger-rail line. Harsco has had a "strong partnership" with LTA for the past 15 years, said Harsco Rail President Jeswant Gill in a press release. The contract's value was not disclosed.

R. J. Corman Railroad Services completed 17.2 miles of surfacing and performed rail adjustments on two curves during a recent 48-hour shutdown of the Charlotte Area Transit Systems (CATS) light-rail system.

The project was the first time the company performed such work on a light-rail system, R. J. Corman officials said in a press release.

VIA Rail Canada Inc. is following Amtrak's lead in allowing pets on trains.

This week, the Canadian passenger railroad updated its pet transportation policy to allow small cats and dogs on board trains operating along the Quebec City-Windsor corridor.

The North Carolina Department of Transportation (NCDOT) has identified 138 regional impact transportation projects that it anticipates funding and scheduling for construction over the next decade.

The projects include seven related to rail for a total of $96 million in state funding and three related to transit for a total of $191 million.

The Maryland Department of Transportation's Maryland Transit Administration (MDOT MTA) yesterday unveiled an organizational restructuring aimed at keeping the agency on track to complete more than $900 million in rail infrastructure upgrades.

The restructuring was initiated in response to feedback received through an American Public Transportation Association (APTA) peer review.

Vista Proppants and Logistics LLC has entered into a definitive agreement with JupiterMLP LLC for transloading crude oil from truck to rail at its facility in Pecos, Texas.

Vista and Jupiter plan to ship crude oil via Union Pacific Railroad through 2019 and potentially into 2020, depending on pipeline construction timelines and capacity availability, the companies announced earlier this week in a press release.

The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) on Tuesday introduced new "stopped-train" messaging on its countdown clocks along the Red, Orange and Blue heavy-rail lines, as well as at Mattapan Trolley stops.

When a train has spent two minutes or longer than predicted in an area of track, the clocks will notify passengers how many stations away it stopped. Previously, the countdown clocks became "stuck" and simply displayed the last estimated time of arrival for a train, according to an agency press release.

MTA New York City Transit's (NYCT) A and S rail service on Queens' Rockaway Peninsula will resume service Sept. 4 after completing the first two phases of a major flood protection project.

Crews installed foundations for a 20-foot-tall perimeter flood wall to surround the 3-acre site. Workers also installed steel sheet piles, extended a concrete retaining wall and began construction on a new building for compressor equipment, which provides compressed air to elevated tracks for signals.

U.S. railroads' combined intermodal volume continued to surpass carload traffic in the week ending Aug. 25, according to Association of American Railroads (AAR) data.

Total intermodal volume rose 6 percent to 290,372 units during the week, while carloads ticked up 1.8 percent to 275,334 units compared with the same week a year ago.

The Federal Transit Administration (FTA) has certified transit-rail state safety oversight (SSO) programs in Illinois and Tennessee, the agency announced yesterday.

States with transit-rail systems in operation or under construction must get their SSO programs certified by April 15, 2019. In total, 28 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico are required to obtain the certification.

The Florida Development Finance Corp. (FDFC) yesterday approved a $1.75 billion bond issue that will finance infrastructure for Brightline's passenger-rail service in five Florida counties.

The financing will pay for infrastructure in Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach, Brevard and Orange counties, Brightline officials said in a press release.

Union Pacific Railroad announced yesterday it will continue to "implement, test and refine" positive train control (PTC) technology in 2019-20.

The announcement was part of UP's regular quarterly updates of its PTC implementation progress.

More public transit usage can significantly lessen cities' traffic death rates, according to a recent American Public Transportation Association (APTA) analysis.

Conducted by APTA and advocacy group Vision Zero Network, the analysis showed that metro areas that log more than 40 annual transit trips per capita experience a traffic mortality rate that's 40 percent lower than in metro areas with 20 transit trips per capita.

The Sacramento Regional Transit District's (SacRT) board on Monday agreed to reduce fares in a bid to boost ridership.

The board approved staff recommendations to use funds from cost-cutting measures and operational savings to "invest back in the Sacramento community," agency officials said in a press release.

MTA New York City Transit's (NYCT) Cathedral Parkway-110th Street subway station in Manhattan will reopen over the Labor Day weekend following structural repairs.

The repair effort, which lasted less than five months, was completed on time and on budget, agency officials said in a press release. The project included functional improvements to the station's steel and concrete structure, mezzanine, walls, stairs and platforms.

The Jacksonville Port Authority (Jaxport) logged its best July ever in container volumes, with total container movements rising 17 percent over the same period last year, port officials announced yesterday.

Nearly 97,250 20-foot equivalent units (TEUs) moved through the port last month, according to a Jaxport press release.