Railroad News

Western Forest Products Inc., a Canadian forest products company, announced this week that it would close its Englewood logging train on Northern Vancouver Island, British Columbia.

The company will shut down its train operation and ship logs by truck to save money and increase competitiveness, according to a Western press release.

The Foothill Gold Line Construction Authority earlier this week issued a request for qualifications (RFQ) seeking a design-build team for the alignment of its light-rail project between Glendora and Montclair, California.

The $1.5 billion project involves extending the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority's (Metro) Gold Line through communities in the San Gabriel Valley and into San Bernardino County.

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (PANYNJ) on Wednesday released its proposed $3.4 billion capital budget for 2018, which includes funds to advance LaGuardia Airport's "AirTrain" project.

The proposal also allocates money for planning activities for an extension of the Port Authority Trans-Hudson (PATH) system to the Newark Liberty International Airport Station, PANYNJ officials said in a press release.

Hallador Energy subsidiary Sunrise Coal LLC has signed a side-track agreement with Norfolk Southern Railway to construct a truck-to-rail coal loading facility.

Known as the Princeton Loop, the facility will be located 6 miles west of Princeton, Indiana, on Highway 64. When completed in spring 2018, the facility will primarily serve utility coal plants that NS serves, according to a Hallador press release.

The California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) announced this week that Sumitomo Corp. of Americas will work with Siemens to fulfill a $371 million multi-state contract to supply 137 single-level passenger rail cars.

Caltrans' contract amendment replaces Nippon Sharyo with Siemens to fulfill the delayed order. Under the contract's original terms, Sumitomo subcontracted with Nippon Sharyo of Japan to build the cars in Rochelle, Illinois.

By Simon Hughes

The construction industry is one of the oldest in the United States and can chart its history to the creation of the earliest skyscrapers and railroads. Despite this longevity, it’s constantly evolving. Every year there are new developments and technologies in the industry that spawn new acronyms; in recent years, CAD, BIM and P3, to name a few, have surfaced.

Transport Canada officials will address fatigue management in the rail industry, Transport Minister Marc Garneau announced this week.

A notice of intent will be published in the Canada Gazette for the first part of a proposed approach to incorporate up-to-date fatigue science in current requirements, Transport Canada officials said in a press release.

Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) officials are considering potential changes to three rail stations to improve access to the Maryland Transit Administration's future Purple Line light-rail route.

WMATA is mulling the changes at the request of Maryland state officials, agency officials said in a press release. At WMATA's station in Bethesda, Maryland, the agency would build a new south entrance that will connect with street level and the Bethesda Purple Line station.

Amazon will open a new distribution facility at the Tradepoint Atlantic multimodal industrial park near Baltimore.

The new fulfillment facility — Amazon's fourth in Maryland — will be located in Sparrows Point at Tradepoint Atlantic, the site of a former steel mill that closed in 2012.

Bay Area Rapid Transit's (BART) new "Fleet of the Future" rail cars failed to perform in a recent test run conducted by the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC).

U.S. railroads handled 538,739 carloads and intermodal units for the week ending Nov. 4., marking a 0.8 percent decrease compared with traffic in the same week last year.

Total carloads for the week were down 1.7 percent to 266,652, while intermodal volume inched up 0.01 percent to 272,087 containers and trailers, the Association of American Railroads (AAR) reported yesterday.

The Port Authority of Allegheny County has appointed Katharine Eagan Kelleman chief executive officer.

She succeeds interim CEO David Donahoe, who took over after Ellen McLean stepped down from the job in June. Kelleman, who most recently served as CEO of the Hillsborough Area Regional Transit Authority (HART) in Florida, will start the new job in January.

Wisconsin & Southern Railroad has been awarded over $5 million in state grant and loan funding for a bridge reconstruction project in Crawford County, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker announced last week.

The railroad will receive a $4.5 million grant from the Wisconsin Department of Transportation's (WisDOT) Freight Railroad Preservation Program to cover 80 percent of the cost to reconstruct a rail bridge located near Wauzeka in a slough of the Wisconsin River, state officials said in a WisDOT press release.

U.S. short lines operated a full year without experiencing a fatality, the American Short Line and Regional Railroad Association (ASLRRA) announced yesterday.

The achievement is a milestone for the industry and its 603 short lines, which focus on making every day a safe one, said ASLRRA President Linda Bauer Darr.

By This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., Associate Editor

MTA Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) this weekend will halt service between the Patchogue and Montauk stations to continue modernizing its signal system.

Between Nov. 10 and Nov. 13, crews will install a high-capacity electric signal system along that segment of LIRR's Montauk Branch.

The South Carolina Ports Authority (SCPA) has logged its strongest October on record, handling 184,804 20-foot equivalent units (TEU) for the month.

The volume represented a 10 percent increase from October 2016. The authority observed growth across several segments, with particular strength in export loaded containers, said SCPA President and Chief Executive Officer Jim Newsome in a press release.

Tom Lambert will serve at least two more years as president and chief executive officer of the Metropolitan Transit Authority of Harris County, Texas (METRO), the agency announced yesterday.

METRO's board approved a new contract for Lambert that went into effect Nov. 1.

The boards of the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach last week agreed to follow a new plan to reduce air pollution.

The 2017 Clean Air Action Plan (CAAP) will usher in a new era of aggressive clean air strategies for moving cargo through the port complex, port and local government officials said in a joint press release.