Railroad News

The Connecticut Department of Transportation (CTDOT) has chosen a joint venture of TransitAmerica Services and Alternate Concepts Inc. to operate and manage service on the CTrail Hartford Line, a passenger-rail route that will run between New Haven, Conn., and Springfield, Mass.

Currently under construction, the Hartford Line is scheduled to launch in May 2018, according to a press release issued by Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy's office.

Joshua Engel-Yan, 38

Job description: Engel-Yan has worked in railroading at Metrolinx for eight years. He provides the evidence and analysis to inform the agency’s transportation planning and investment decisions. He leads teams of technical experts who specialize in ridership forecasting, mapping and economic modeling. In addition, Engel-Yan is responsible for the Metrolinx business case framework, which is aimed at ensuring that project assessments consider benefits and costs from a range of angles.

Education: Bachelor’s of applied science in systems design engineering, University of Waterloo; master's of applied science in civil engineering, University of Toronto

Alstom has inaugurated its first locomotive repair center in Astana, Kazakhstan. At the more than 28,000-square-foot facility, the company will perform overhauls of the Prima T8 and Prima M4 locomotives over the next 25 years. The facility includes a repair and testing shop, warehouse, spare parts shop and office space. The center also will be able to maintain products built by other companies, such as pantographs, transformers and braking systems. The Kazakh rail network spans about 8,700 miles and represents a "substantial market for maintenance activities," Alstom officials said in a press release. 

GCT Global Container Terminals Inc. has appointed Doron Grosman president and chief executive officer. He will be responsible for the company's operations in both Canada and the United States. Grosman succeeds Stephen Edwards, who held the position since 2012. Most recently, Grosman was an operating partner at Court Square Capital Partners. Before that, he was president for Hexcel Corp., a company specializing in advanced composites technology. Grosman also spent 11 years in various senior executive roles at GE and GE Plastics.

Union Pacific Railroad's rail safety programs contributed to a 5 percent decline in vehicle-train collisions at grade crossings in the first half of 2017 compared with the same period in 2016, the Class I announced late last week.

UP logged a 2.27 crossing accident rate across its 23-state network compared to a 2.40 rate during 2016's first half, UP officials said in a press release. The rates are calculated by the number of Federal Railroad Administration reportable crossing accidents per million train miles.

On July 22, the Sun Link streetcar system in Tucson, Arizona, marked its third anniversary.

Since its launch, the system has provided approximately 2.93 million rides, Sun Link officials said in a press release.

Last month, Metra logged an on-time performance rate of 95.3 percent.

The figure exceeded the commuter railroad's goal of operating at least 95 percent of trains on time, Metra officials said in a press release. The agency considers a train to be on time if it reaches its final destination within five minutes and 59 seconds of the scheduled arrival.

CSX has designated the South Alabama Mega Site in Bay Minette as a Select Site.

The site is located between Mobile, Alabama, and Pensacola, Florida, on CSX's mainline.

Class Is employed 148,627 workers in the United States as of mid-June, down 0.27 percent since mid-May's employment figure and down 2.49 percent compared with mid-June 2016's level, according to Surface Transportation Board data.

Four out of six employment categories reflected workforce decreases in mid-June compared with mid-May levels. Those categories were executives, officials and staff assistants, down 0.53 percent to 8,699 employees; maintenance of way and structures, down 0.34 percent to 34,042; maintenance of equipment and stores, down 1.54 percent to 27,300; and transportation (other than train and engine), down 0.34 percent to 5,805.

California Gov. Jerry Brown and several other elected officials, business leaders and transportation advocates gathered late last week for a groundbreaking ceremony for Caltrain's electrification project.

As part of the project, the commuter railroad will electrify its corridor between San Francisco and San Jose, California. Caltrain also will acquire new high-performance electric trains to deliver faster, more frequent service.

Caltrain is seeking public input on the look of seats for its new electric multiple unit trains.

The railroad will conduct public outreach and polling July 24, 25 and 28. Riders also can complete the polls online through July 28.

Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) this week began testing the first batch of its "Fleet of the Future" trains on mainline track during business hours.

The testing marks the first time the units will run during those hours on the mainline, although no passengers will be onboard, BART officials said in a press release.

[Editor's update, 3:56 p.m.: Dates for the public meetings have been changed since an earlier version of this story was posted. The Minnesota Department of Transportation informed us this afternoon that yesterday it inadvertently sent out the incorrect dates.]

A "purpose and need" statement has been completed for a proposed expansion of daily passenger-rail service between the Twin Cities, Milwaukee and Chicago, the Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT) announced yesterday.

The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority's (Metro) board has selected a seven-member panel to oversee the implementation of the Measure M ballot initiative.

The panel's job is to ensure the initiative is implemented as specified on the ballot, Metro officials said in a press release.

CSX and North Carolina Ports this month will begin a daily intermodal service between Wilmington and Charlotte.

Dubbed the Queen City Express, the double-stacked train service will launch on July 28, marking the return of intermodal rail to North Carolina Ports, North Carolina Ports Authority officials said in a press release.

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey's (PANYNJ) board yesterday approved a $134.5 million plan to replace two aging substations on the Port Authority Trans-Hudson (PATH) rail system.

Located in Jersey City and Harrison, New Jersey, the nearly 50-year-old substations sustained extensive damage during Hurricane Sandy in 2012.

A 6 percent increase in carload volumes helped drive Kansas City Southern to a record second-quarter revenue of $656 million, up 15 percent over the same period a year ago, the Class I reported today.

KCS posted an all-time record quarterly operating income of $239 million, an increase of 9 percent from second-quarter 2016, according to a KCS press release. Diluted earnings per share increased 14 percent to $1.27 compared to a year ago.

Winnie Chang, 31

Job description: Chang began her railroading career in August 2014 as a leadership fellow in the rotational management program at the PANYNJ. In April 2016, she applied for a permanent position in the Port Authority-Trans Hudson’s (PATH) rail planning and logistics group, where she now manages the impact of external real estate developments on the PATH system.

Education: New York University, Tisch School of Arts, Bachelor of Fine Arts degree; Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Master of Science in Transportation and Master of City Planning