Railroad News

The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) today will issue a request for proposals (RFP) to study current and future commuter-rail needs as part of the agency's "commuter-rail vision."

The study will examine topics that include the type of fleet needed to optimize the existing network and deliver new service, system upgrades and locations for future stations.

The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA), Maryland Department of Transportation (MDOT) and Amtrak have released a "finding of no significant impact" for the Susquehanna River rail bridge project, the agencies and railroad announced yesterday.

The study's purpose was to determine the best way to provide continued rail connectivity along Amtrak's Northeast Corridor, according to an MDOT press release.

The Canadian government will invest CA$1.3 billion to help build a new light-rail network in Montreal, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced yesterday.

The funds will make it possible to finalize the proposed project's financing and meet the construction schedule established by the Caisse de depot et placement du Quebec (CDPQ), according to a press release issued by Trudeau's office.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said yesterday that Amtrak should pay for "mitigation expenses" related to a summer of altered commuter-rail schedules as the railroad makes emergency repairs to Penn Station in New York City.

Although the amount of mitigation expenses is not yet known, the cost should not be paid for by commuters or New York state taxpayers, Cuomo said in a prepared statement.

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

The Pacific Harbor Line (PHL) has received the Patriotic Employer Award from the U.S. Department of Defense Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve program.

The award honors employers' efforts to support members of the National Guard and Reserve.

The probable cause of an Amtrak train derailment in Vermont in October 2015 was the train's collision with debris that had fallen on the track after a rock slide, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) announced last week.

The incident occurred the morning of Oct. 5, 2015, when Amtrak Train 55 hit a rock pile that fouled the track on the New England Central Railroad (NECR) Roxbury Subdivision near Northfield, Vt. The collision caused the locomotive and four coach cars to derail, injuring four crew members and three passengers, according to the NTSB's accident brief.

PortMiami yesterday welcomed the Maersk Shanghai container ship, the largest vessel to call on a Florida deep-water port, the port announced Wednesday.

At 1,063 feet long and 159 feet wide, the ship has a carrying capacity of 10,081 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs). The vessel started its journey in China and arrived in Miami through the Suez Canal.

U.S. railroads posted a 6.2 percent increase in rail traffic for the week ending June 10 compared with the same week a year ago, the Association of American Railroads (AAR) reported yesterday.

During Week 23, total U.S. carload and intermodal traffic was 545,317 units. Carload volume rose 7.1 percent to 265,717 units, while intermodal volume climbed 5.3 percent to 279,600 containers and trailers compared with the same week in 2016, according to an AAR press release.

The American Short Line and Regional Railroad Association (ASLRRA) yesterday announced the 308 railroad recipients of its annual Jake Awards, which recognize above-industry average safety performance in 2016.

To receive the award, an ASLRRA member railroad must perform better than the Class I and III industry average injury frequency rate as reported by the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) during the prior year.

New Jersey Transit late last week published new weekday rail schedules in advance of summer repairs to New York City's Penn Station.

To accommodate Amtrak's emergency repairs to the station, NJ Transit altered the service schedule for July 10 through Sept. 1.

The Atlantic and Western Railway, a subsidiary of Genesee & Wyoming Inc. (G&W), has opened a Choice Terminal bulk transload facility in Sanford, N.C.

Located on a 6-acre site, the terminal features a 20-car rail yard and truck-to-rail-car transloading equipment, according to a G&W press release.

Amtrak will build a $28 million locomotive service facility in Seattle, the railroad announced yesterday.

The announcement marks the third major investment in the Seattle facility that provides services for the Empire Builder and Coach Starlight long-distance trains, Amtrak Cascades-supported corridor service, and maintenance for Sound Transit and Sounder trains, Amtrak officials said in a press release.

By Keith Millhouse
Founder and Principal, Millhouse Strategies
 
Former Amtrak engineer Brandon Bostian was arraigned last month on charges of involuntary manslaughter in the 2015 Philadelphia Amtrak disaster that claimed eight lives and injured 200. This was Amtrak’s failure as much as Bostian’s; it didn’t have to happen.
 
“It’s widely understood that every person, no matter how conscientious and skilled, is fallible, which is why technology was developed to backstop human vulnerabilities,” said National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) Chairman Christopher Hart at a public meeting held in May 2016.
 
Amtrak failed to implement a decades-old safety technology that would have prevented the incident. Positive train control (PTC) combats human error by automatically stopping a train that’s on course to collide with another, on a track it shouldn’t be on or going too fast.
 
On May 12, 2015, Bostian had whipped the Amtrak 188 around a bend at 106 mph where the speed limit was 50. An investigation found that he was distracted.
 
The investigation of the 2008 Metrolink crash in Chatsworth, Calif., determined that the Connex engineer, Robert Sanchez, was texting when he ran through a red signal and collided head on with a freight train. Twenty-five people died and over 130 were injured. The tragedy was gruesome and preventable. Had PTC been in place, it would have stopped the train.
 
Amtrak’s long delay isn’t unique, but the crash in Philadelphia could have been prevented, if the company had followed Metrolink’s lead. I was elected chairman of Metrolink’s board shortly  after the 2008 train collision. The disaster rocked our community.
 
Under my leadership, Metrolink became the first commuter-rail operator to implement PTC. If Amtrak had moved with the speed Metrolink had, the Philadelphia accident wouldn’t have happened.
 
To prevent this type of tragedy elsewhere, Congress enacted the Rail Safety Improvement Act of 2008, which required many freight and commuter railroads to implement PTC by 2015’s end. In late 2015, Congress extended the deadline to Dec. 31, 2018 (and to Dec. 31, 2020, in certain cases) after the Government Accountability Office determined that Amtrak and some Class Is weren’t on schedule to meet the initial deadline.
 
There was no reason that Amtrak couldn’t have learned from the Chatsworth tragedy. The company shouldn’t have needed a tragedy of its own before it implemented the technology.
 
Railroads are now hustling to meet the end-of-2018 deadline. And in wake of the Amtrak crash, the company has implemented PTC on its Northeast Corridor.
 
Amtrak and other companies have also been sluggish to adopt another safety technology that could save lives: inward-facing cameras. Amtrak only moved to install the cameras two weeks after the Philadelphia accident. There are still Amtrak lines without the technology now. Metrolink’s inward-facing cameras have been operational since 2010; even a cursory following of the aftermath of Chatsworth should have forced every rail operator in the country to install these cameras immediately.
 
“Recorders are readily available, easily installed, and largely affordable,” according to the NTSB’s latest “Most Wanted List of Transportation Safety Improvements.” The NTSB recommends all controlling cabs have crash-proof, inward-facing cameras that “can verify that train crew actions are in accordance with essential safety rules and procedures…”

Yet, Amtrak’s train in the Philadelphia crash wasn’t equipped with an inward-facing video recorder. That information would no doubt have helped investigators determine exactly what happened in the accident; it may also have altered the conduct of the engineer and heightened his awareness; the key factor in the accident according to the NTSB.
 
Bostian said he “doesn’t remember” what happened prior to the accident. While this may be true, it’s an often-repeated phrase by engineers in accidents, and if there were inward-facing camera we would know if protocol had been followed. If an engineer is following protocol, but still causes an incident, the videos can help administrators implement policies so it doesn’t happen again.
 
Often companies don’t implement inward-facing cameras due to fierce resistance from unions, which want to protect their members from unfair snooping by rail administrators. After the Chatsworth collision, the unions challenged Metrolink’s right to implement inward-facing cameras. They lost in the United States District Court for the Central District of California, and then again in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. They didn’t pursue an appeal to the United States Supreme Court , which arguably would have opened up the cameras to nationwide use — which is what needs to happen immediately.
 
Companies can’t bend to the unions at the expense of safety. Besides, unions should embrace the technology. Oftentimes, engineers aren’t at fault for incidents and a video recording can absolve them from any undeserved consequences.
 
Amtrak and other companies need to be proactive rather than reactive in implementing safety technology that can save lives, and all railroads need to learn from the tragedies of others and not wait to have their own.
 
Keith Millhouse, the founder of Millhouse Strategies, is an attorney, government relations and transportation/infrastructure consultant based in Southern California. While chairman of Metrolink, he enacted what’s considered one of the strictest rail safety standards in the nation. Millhouse previously served as a member of the Ventura County Transportation Commission and was a regional council member at the Southern California Associate of Governments. He can be reached via email at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

When railroaders gather, interesting conversations happen. Sparking those conversations at Railway Interchange 2017 will be a wide range of insightful and inspirational keynote speakers and presenters, along with the exhibition and technical conference.

“We remember things that are different. We are attracted to things that are different. What are you willing to do today that is different than what you did yesterday for the guy who could put you out of business tomorrow?” That’s a quote from motivational speaker and former Harley-Davidson Motor Co. Director of Communications Ken Schmidt, who is presenting the keynote address at the joint opening General Session on Monday, September 18.

Vertex Railcar Corp. has received an order from Trinity Chemical for 350 coiled and insulated DOT-117 tank cars for use in the crude oil and chemical markets. By Jan. 31,  2018, Vertex will deliver 50 cars from its plant in Wilmington, N.C., with the remainder to be delivered within two years from that date. The order is Vertex's second in the past two months, according to a Vertex press release. The other order is for 100 DOT-117 ethanol tank cars, which will be built and delivered from the Wilmington plant later this year.

Trainyard Tech LLC obtained a contract from BNSF Railway Co. to install the Routemaster™ NX process control system at Cherokee Yard in Tulsa, Okla. The system comes with a custom graphical user interface that displays the real-time status of all yard devices. Multiple user workstations located throughout the terminal provide consistent data points and direct control for operators and supervisors, Trainyard Tech officials said in a press release. Meanwhile, the company is in the final stages of installing and testing the newest Classmaster™ system at CSX's Queensgate Yard in Cincinnati. The system uses bi-directional wheel detectors at all switch points to determine the direction and velocity of a rolling car, which provides more presence detection than is possible with track circuits, according to the company.

GO Transit later this month will begin providing all-day train service on the Stouffville Line, Ontario government officials announced last week.

Starting June 26, trains will run every hour in both directions during weekday midday and evening periods between Unionville GO Station and Toronto's Union Station.

CN this week posted its 2017 Investor Fact Book on the company's website.

Titled "Innovating Everywhere, Every Day," the book is a source of information about CN, its North American network, freight markets, strategic agenda and financial performance.

Jim Shell, former international vice president of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers (BLE), died June 1 at a hospital in Kansas City, Mo., the union announced yesterday. He was 83 years old.

Shell began his railroad career in 1954 as a switchman on the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad (CB&Q) in St. Joseph, Mo. In 1955, he left his railroad job to serve the U.S. Navy on the U.S.S. Bennington for two years.