Railroad News

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.

The Regional Transportation District (RTD) of Denver, Uber and Masabi yesterday launched Uber Transit ticketing, enabling rail and bus riders to buy and access tickets within the Uber ride-hailing mobile app. 

Following a staggered rollout over the next few weeks, Uber Transit will allow riders in the Denver metro region to enter a destination in the Uber app, select the “Transit” option and purchase a ticket.  When boarding a train or bus, riders then activate the ticket, according to an RTD press release.

The San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG) last week unveiled a proposal to create a network of high-speed transit lines and mobility hubs. 

The proposal aims to connect communities to major destinations and employment centers while increasing mobility throughout the San Diego region, according to a SANDAG press release. 

Amtrak plans to suspend Hoosier State service starting July 1 because state of Indiana funding no longer will be provided for the route from that date forward.

A federal law requires states to pay a portion of the cost of certain Amtrak trains and Indiana's state budget does not include funding for Hoosier State trains starting July 1, railroad officials said in an online notice.

After an end-to-end analysis of the intermodal network through the Unified Plan 2020 initiative, Union Pacific Railroad identified three key changes it plans to implement in the months ahead, Executive Vice President of Marketing and Sales Kenny Rocker wrote in a customer announcement issued yesterday.

The first calls for simplifying the Class I's intermodal complex in Chicago, where the railroad operates six intermodal facilities: five active ramps and an equipment depot.

The Capitol Corridor Joint Powers Authority (CCJPA) in March logged a 5 percent increase in ridership and revenue versus the same period last year, marking an 18-month streak of consecutive year-over-year ridership growth.

Fiscal-year ridership continues to grow at a 5 percent clip and customer satisfaction has reached 91 percent, CCJPA officials said in a press release. 

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (PANYNJ) in March logged 58,877 containers by rail, a new all-time monthly high that bested the previous record set in March 2018 by 11 percent. 

The port in March also handled 585,083 20-foot equivalent units (TEUs), the most ever for that month, which represented a 4 percent increase over the previous record of 572,572 TEUs set in March 2018.