WASHINGTON – Active cross-examination by Surface Transportation Board Chairman Martin Oberman and other board members marked almost eight hours of testimony Tuesday on the first of two days of public comment on the ramifications of two proposed daily Amtrak round trips between New Orleans and Mobile, Ala. Some 45 witnesses spoke Tuesday. While most repeated […]
MONTREAL — At approximately 5 p.m. on Saturday, Feb. 12, a loud impact called to the attention of those in the vicinity, including at least one rail enthusiast, that something had gone quite wrong with the delivery of a new bilevel commuter car for Montreal-area commuter operator EXO. The new car, built by China’s CRRC […]
ORLANDO, Fla. — Brightline has completed construction in the first of the four construction zones in its expansion from West Palm Beach to Orlando, Fla., finishing the small but complicated 3.5-mile Zone 2 in and around Orlando International Airport. “Our construction through OIA presented one of the most complex construction efforts of this entire project […]
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Passenger and freight railroad projects will benefit from federal surface transportation dollars made available in President Biden’s $1.2 trillion bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act signed into law in November. But freight railroads should also see residual value from increased carloads of construction-related materials as highway and infrastructure-heavy projects ramp up. This […]
WASHINGTON — The Cardinal, Sunset Limited, and Texas Eagle were the Amtrak trains experiencing the most delays in fiscal 2021’s fourth quarter, according to a report on Amtrak performance released Monday by the Federal Railroad Administration. The quarterly report on performance and service quality uses metrics defined by the rule issued in 2020 which requires […]
LOS ANGELES — Parallel Systems, the company seeking to build autonomous battery-powered intermodal rail vehicles, has received a $.4 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy for the development of its technology. The grant is part of the DOE’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy, or ARPA-E, program, developed to advance high-potential, high-impact energy technologies. It […]
NEW YORK — An Amtrak Acela train bound from Boston to New York was stalled on the Northeast Corridor for more than seven hours after losing power on Monday, the Associated Press reports. Train No. 2151 left Boston at 5:05 a.m. but lost power in the Hunter’s Point neighborhood of Queens at 8:37 a.m., 10 […]
Amtrak will square off against CSX Transportation, Norfolk Southern, and the Port of Mobile, Ala., during Surface Transportation Board hearings this month and next regarding proposed Gulf Coast passenger service. Technically, this is about Amtrak’s disagreement with the freight railroads over starting a pair of daily round trips between Mobile, Ala., and New Orleans. But […]
CHAMA, N.M. — We may yet see a Rio Grande K-37 climb Cumbres Pass once more. On Saturday, the two-state commission that oversees the Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad voted to restore a Rio Grande K-37 2-8-2, returning that model to the 64-mile narrow gauge railroad for the first time since 2002 when No. 497 […]
CORINTH, N.Y. — The newly formed Saratoga Corinth & Hudson Railway has announced plans to begin tourist operations this spring. Trains will operate on more than 11 miles of the southern end of the former Delaware & Hudson Railway Adirondack Branch, between Corinth and Greenfield, N.Y., just north of Saratoga Springs, N.Y. The locomotive will […]
PHILADELPHIA — The Pennsylvania Public Utilities Commission has turned down a request by CSX Transportation to remove a 60-year-old bridge in Southwest Philadelphia, siding with the city of Philadelphia’s recommendation to replace the structure at a cost of $5 million. The Philadelphia Inquirer reports that CSX filed the request to demolish the bridge on Cemetery […]
TRENTON, N.J. — The NJ Transit board of directors has approved a settlement for a crew member injured in the 2016 accident that saw a train crash through the end of track at its Hoboken, N.J., terminal. NorthJersey.com reports that the board unanimously approved the settlement for Mark Mari, a conductor on the train in […]
