BLUE ISLAND, Ill. — Metra has broken ground on a $3.8 million rehabilitation of the Vermont Avenue station in Blue Island, a structure dating to 1868 on Metra’s Rock Island District. A Thursday, July 28, ceremony including Metra CEO Jim Derwinski and other state and local officials marked the start of a project including a […]
CALGARY, Alberta — Canadian Pacific and Kansas City Southern continue to test interline moves linking Canada, the U.S., and Mexico as a prelude to eventual single-line service once their proposed merger is approved. The railroads have operated six or seven international intermodal trains from the Port of Lazaro Cardenas, on Mexico’s west coast, to Chicago, […]
CALGARY, Alberta — Canadian Pacific posted higher quarterly revenue and operating income despite a decline in volume that was largely driven by the small Canadian grain crop. Operating income rose 6%, to $868 million, as revenue rose 7%, to $2.1 billion, CP announced on Thursday morning. Earnings per share, adjusted for the impact of one-time items, […]
WASHINGTON — Canadian National calls an Amtrak proposal that would give it dispatching control over CN lines with poor passenger performance “an outrageously self-serving recipe” that would “cause profound harm to freight railroads, freight customers, American consumers, and the broader economy,” and urges the Surface Transportation Board to reject the concept “out of hand.” Amtrak, […]
MIDDLETOWN TOWNSHIP, Pa. — A new Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority Regional Rail station set to open next month has a new name. The Philadelphia Inquirer reports the location in the Delaware County’s Middletown Township will be named Wawa Station after dairy products company Wawa, which has its headquarters across U.S. Route 1 from the new […]
A second example of Union Pacific’s new paint scheme, the first on an EMD locomotive, is now roaming the railroad. Photographer James Hickey captured SD70ACe No. 8620 leading manifest MNPRO-26 at Buffalo Bend/Point of Rocks, Neb., near the town of Sidney, on July 27, 2022. The new standard paint scheme features a larger UP shield […]
NEW YORK — With post-pandemic ridership remaining below levels forecast in 2020, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority could face a “fiscal cliff” — the inability to balance its budgets — as soon as 2025, a year earlier than previously forecast, the MTA board was told Wednesday. Chief Financial Officer Kevin Willens told the board the agency […]
MELBOURNE, Fla. — In another small step forward for Brightline’s planned expansion of service north to Orlando, one of the passenger operator’s trains reached a top speed of 79 mph Wednesday afternoon on an approximately 20-mile stretch of Florida East Coast Railway track between Melbourne and Rockledge, Fla. Florida Today reports Brightline spokeswoman Katie Mitnzer […]
WASHINGTON — U.S. carload traffic moved back above 2021 levels for the week ending July 23, while overall traffic was down by a small margin, according to the latest statistics from the Association of American Railroads. Total volume was 498,901 carloads and intermodal units, a decrease of 0.8% compared to the corresponding week a year […]
FORT WORTH, Texas — BNSF Railway and J.B. Hunt will begin serving a new intermodal terminal at the Port of Tacoma, Wash., next month. BNSF and the Northwest Seaport Alliance said the terminal will meet increased demand for intermodal service in the Seattle region. The new terminal, on 16 acres leased from the port authority, […]
ATLANTA — Norfolk Southern has resumed hump operations at its classification yard in Macon, Ga., and will soon reopen the hump at Bellevue, Ohio, as part of the new operating plan it began rolling out last month. Both yards were converted to flat-switching facilities in 2020 after volume sank at the onset of the pandemic. […]
PARIS — A Quebec pension fund which has been active in Canadian rail infrastructure projects is reportedly the front-runner to purchase a Paris-based locomotive leasing firm. Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (CDPQ) and a possible alternative purchaser, U.S. investment bank J.P. Morgan, both outbid potential French purchasers for leasing firm Akiem. The transaction […]
