Railroad News

Canadian Pacific's board yesterday elected Isabelle Courville as its new chair to succeed Andrew Reardon, who announced last year he is retiring.

At the company's annual shareholders meeting in Calgary, Alberta, the board also reelected Courville as a director. She is the first woman to hold the position at CP, as well as among other North American Class Is, said CP President and Chief Executive Officer Keith Creel in a press release.

MTA New York City Transit (NYCT) has created a community outreach program as part of an analysis of public transit options on Staten Island’s West Shore and to explore potential improvements.

The NYCT study will examine West Shore residents' transportation needs and patterns, as well as identify transit improvements to bring better mass transit options and connections between key locations on Staten Island and Manhattan. 

OneRail Coalition has hired Devon Barnhart to serve as deputy director effective May 13.

A lawyer and civil engineer focused on transportation policy, Barnhart understands both freight and passenger rail. Most recently, she served as the subcommittee staff director for the Transportation and Safety Subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, according to a OneRail press release.

Denton County Transportation Authority’s (DCTA) board last month approved a new suite of on-call contracts that will enable the agency to allocate up to $2.4 million of its annual operating budget to mobility services in Denton County, Texas.

DCTA’s "Mobility as a Service" (MaaS) contract model utilizes on-demand, real-time, platform-based services that can include a combination of mobility options such as car and bike sharing, taxis and driverless vehicles.

Watco Cos. LLC has entered into a joint venture with SCH Services LLC to create an inland bulk terminal network in the four rivers area of Illinois and Kentucky.

The SCH terminal network will consist of Watco's Cora Terminal, located on the Mississippi River in Rockwood, Illinois; the SCH's Calvert City Terminal on the Tennessee River in Calvert City, Kentucky; and Four Rivers Terminal on the Ohio River in West Paducah, Kentucky.

The Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit (SMART) agency in California last week released a report examining the feasibility of implementing passenger-rail service in the corridor between Marin, Sonoma, Napa, and Solano counties. The agency found that the link would be possible.

Requested and funded by the California State Transportation Agency, the study found that an east-west connection would expand transit connectivity in northern California and could be completed “relatively quickly,” SMART General Manager Farhad Mansourian wrote in the report. 

Allegheny Valley Railroad Co. (AVR) has filed a notice of exemption with the Surface Transportation Board (STB) to acquire from CSX 47.5 miles of rail lines that AVR has leased and operated since 2003 in and around Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

AVR stated in its application that it expects to execute a purchase and sale agreement with CSX shortly, according to the notice. AVR's leasehold interest in the lines will then be converted to an ownership interest.

The MTA New York City Transit (NYCT) announced that this month it will begin construction on the Canarsie-Rockaway Parkway subway terminal to increase the station’s accessibility for people with disabilities.

The Rockaway Parkway station in Brooklyn is one of the few street-level stations in the subway system with integrated bus stops. Due to its intermodal nature, improving the station’s existing accessibility features was prioritized, according to a Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) press release.

The Regional Transportation District (RTD) in Denver last week reached the 20 million passenger mark on the University of Colorado A Line.

The line, which operates between downtown Denver and the Denver International Airport, has consistently exceeded ridership projections since opening in 2016, according to an RTD press release. 

The Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) last week began construction on a new $60 million station that will service the Green Line at Damen Avenue and Lake Street.

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, Alderman Walter Burnett and Chicago Department of Transportation (CDOT) and CTA officials held a groundbreaking ceremony May 3 to mark the start of construction on the station's foundation. 

Milwaukee officials plan to extend the city's streetcar route to the Wisconsin Center District convention hall in time for the 2020 Democratic National Convention, Mayor Tom Barrett announced last week.

Barrett also announced engineering plans for two streetcar additional extensions to Milwaukee neighborhoods known as Bronzeville and Walker's Point, according to a press release.

Charah Solutions Inc. recently opened a new rail-served distribution terminal for fly ash in Hopedale, Massachusetts.

The terminal will serve customers in New England, where demand for quality fly ash is growing, Charah Solutions officials said in a press release. The fly ash sales and marketing company provides environmental and maintenance services to the power generation industry.

The California High-Speed Rail Authority last week released a draft supplemental environmental impact report (EIR) on the Central Valley Wye portion of the Merced-to-Fresno section of the high-speed rail (HSR) system. 

The draft will be available for review and public comment through June 20, according to the authority’s press release.

Union Pacific Railroad is investing $20 million to build an additional block swap yard at its Santa Teresa intermodal terminal and refueling station in New Mexico.

The additional block swap yard will allow the Class I to add container blocks to passing trains faster and more efficiently, according to a press release issued by the New Mexico Economic Development Department.

Canadian Pacific moved a record amount of Canadian grain and grain products last month, the Class I announced last week.

CP moved a best-ever 2.6 million metric tons of grain and grain products, beating a previous record set in October 2018, CP officials said in a press release.

Wi-Tronix LLC announced recent orders for its Violet Edge software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform have pushed total orders to more than 2,000 since the platform was introduced in 2016. The Violet Edge connected event recorder, PTC event recorder and digital video recorder are based on an Internet of Things platform designed for the rail industry. The SaaS platform with hardware and software packages provide the specific services needed for any locomotive type or specific type of service, Wi-Tronix officials said in a press release. The Violet Edge breaks the traditional event recorder paradigm by combining data, video and audio from all sources on a locomotive into one synchronized solution, they said.

360 Rail Services has selected Ardenna's rail defect detection software-as-a-service for integration with its new drone-based rail yard inspection service offering. 360 Rail Services offers engineering, construction, operations and maintenance services to the rail industry, while Ardenna provides artificial intelligence-based defect detection software. Ardenna will process all of 360 Rail’s rail yard imagery captured by drones to more quickly identify anomalies and defects compared with traditional inspection methods, according to a Ardenna press release. Ardenna also will work with 360 Rail to refine and introduce drone-based data collection and automated defect detection to the rail sector.

New Jersey Transit throughout the month of May will solicit public feedback on a commitment to provide nearly 22 percent of its federally funded contracting opportunities to disadvantaged business enterprises (DBEs) from fiscal year 2020 through 2022. 

NJ Transit is required to develop three-year goals for contracting with DBEs as a condition for receiving federal funds from the Federal Transit Administration (FTA). Each year, the agency is evaluated how it performs against those goals, NJ Transit officials said in a press release.

The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) earlier this week announced that two-thirds of its tunnels are wired for cellular and data service. 

Following installation work, riders onboard trains between Rosslyn and Van Dorn Street/Eisenhower Avenue now can access cellular service coverage from AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon Wireless. 

Canadian Transport Minister Marc Garneau yesterday announced amendments to hazardous materials transportation regulations that impact tank cars and emergency response assistance plans.

Hazmat shippers now are required to move toxic inhalation-hazard substances in tank cars constructed of normalized steel that undergoes a heat treatment process to increase durability and resistance to cracking at low temperatures. Toxic inhalation hazard substances include chlorine, anhydrous ammonia and certain fertilizers.