Railroad News

Amtrak is offering limited onboard bicycle storage on three routes between Michigan and Chicago to accommodate requests, Great Lakes Echo reported yesterday. 

“We are receiving lots of requests from the cycling community, both the consumers and the advocacy community, and we’ve been wanting to be able to accommodate that,” Derrick James, Amtrak’s senior manager of state government affairs, told the news outlet.

The Riverside County Transportation Commission (RCTC) announced it will begin construction to expand the Metrolink train layover facility at the Riverside-Downtown Station in California in early April.

The expanded facility will allow seven trains to be housed at the station overnight, two more than the facility’s current capacity. 

Lower container volumes could further weigh on the intermodal business of North American railroads, as the transportation sector faces increasing pressure due to the coronavirus outbreak, according to a new report by Moody's Investors Service.

Transportation companies, including freight railroads, would need to contend with lower demand as supply chains are disrupted and economic activity slows, according to the report, which was issued last week.

California passenger-rail agencies are continuing operations for essential travel after several California counties issued stay-at-home orders.

Under the order, residents in San Francisco, Marin, Santa Clara, San Mateo, Alameda and Contra Costa counties and the city of Berkeley have been ordered not to leave their homes for three weeks except to meet “essential needs.” Transportation agencies are categorized as an “essential business” under the order and will remain open, according to the order summary.

Sound Transit's completion of its Connect 2020 project — to connect new East Link light-rail tracks to the existing light-rail system in downtown Seattle — will be delayed due to electrical issues.

While completing final systems testing for the project last weekend, Sound Transit crews discovered insufficient electrical resistance readings over a segment of newly installed track, Sound Transit officials said in a press release.

The Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) Police Department recorded a 7 percent drop in overall crime for the first two months of 2020 compared with the first two months of 2019. 

BART officials said the decline in the overall crime rate was partly due to a decrease in reported thefts of cellphones. There were 43 snatch-and-run cellphone thefts systemwide in February, marking the lowest monthly total for snatch-and-run electronic item thefts since May 2018, they said in a press release.

The Tri-County Metropolitan Transportation District of Oregon (TriMet) last week released its proposed budget for fiscal-year 2021, which allocates $607.3 million for operations and $397 million for capital improvements. 

The budget includes $25.8 million for continued design work and initial manufacturing on the next generation of MAX light-rail vehicles, TriMet officials said in a press release. The agency's 2021 fiscal year runs from July 1 through June 30, 2021.

Cenovus Energy Inc. announced last week it will temporarily halt its crude-by-rail program due to falling crude oil prices.

In addition, the Canadian oil and natural gas producer is reducing its 2020 capital spending by 32 percent and deferring final investment decisions on major growth projects, company officials said in a press release.

The Federal Transit Administration (FTA) last week announced expanded eligibility of federal assistance available under the FTA’s Emergency Relief Program to help transit agencies respond to the coronavirus.

The announcement allows transit providers in states where the governor has declared an emergency related to COVID-19 to use federal formula funds for emergency-related operating and capital expenses, FTA officials said in a press release. The declaration also raises the cap on the federal government’s share of those expenses to 80 percent from 50 percent. 

The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) has activated the agency's emergency relief docket in response to the COVID-19 outbreak, the agency announced late last week.

FRA Administrator Ronald Batory determined that the imminent threat and exposure to the disease constitutes an "emergency situation" as related to railroad operations.

Network Rail awarded Harsco Rail a three-year, $25 million contract to operate and maintain its fleet of eight mobile maintenance trains starting in April. The mobile maintenance trains enable the delivery of essential track-maintenance works throughout Network Rail’s rail system in the United Kingdom, Harsco officials said in a press release.

The Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority will complete deployment of the Wi-Tronix LLC’s Violet Edge IoT Platform on the agency’s diesel locomotive fleet. The deployment will equip the fleet with safety, fuel management, transportation, maintenance and video solutions, including in-cab mobile device detection and edge processing alerts, Wi-Tronix officials said in a press release.

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (PANYNJ) Police Department (PAPD) yesterday reached record staff levels following the graduation of 120 officers to the force.

The PAPD now totals 2,232 officers and employees. The new recruits include 89 college graduates and 20 military veterans, with 53 having prior law enforce experience, PANYNJ officials said in a press release.

The Port of Savannah received three neopanamax ship-to-shore cranes on Tuesday, bringing the port's total to 36 — the most of any single terminal in North America, the Georgia Ports Authority announced yesterday.

Designed by Konecranes of Finland, the new cranes will immediately undergo a commissioning process. The first new crane will enter service in about 12 weeks; all three will be loading and unloading vessels by the end of June, port officials said in a press release.

GoTriangle’s board on Wednesday named Charles Lattuca president and chief executive of the transit agency, which serves North Carolina's research triangle. 

Lattuca will start his new role in mid-April, GoTriangle officials said in a press release.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) has closed on its purchase of Grand Central Terminal in New York City from Midtown Trackage Ventures LLC.

The acquisition includes MTA Metro-North Railroad's Harlem and Hudson lines. The purchase ends MTA's 280-year lease of Grand Central and gives Metro-North control of its operating environment.

Norfolk Southern Railway yesterday provided its customers and supply chain partners an update on the Class I's efforts to address concerns about COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus.

NS's chief medical officer is closely monitoring guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and health officials across the railroad's network, wrote Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer Alan Shaw in a letter outlining the company's actions.