Railroad News

MTA Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) last week opened an upgraded platform at its Hicksville Station in Nassau County, New York.

The 12-car concrete platform was demolished to make way for a new one with a translucent canopy. Crews installed energy-efficient lighting and signage, along with a new audio-visual paging system, which includes train time signs and speakers.

Chicago's Regional Transportation Authority (RTA) has unveiled updated signage at Chicago Union Station.

The 81 updated signs are designed to easily connect travelers to transportation options and amenities in the station, RTA officials said in a press release.

Amtrak will begin rail service today at a new regional multimodal transportation center in Alton, Illinois, the Illinois Department of Transportation announced.

Located at 1 Golf Road in Alton, the new facility will replace a train station on College Road that Amtrak has served for 89 years. The College Road station, which is owned by Union Pacific Railroad and leased by Amtrak, is slated for demolition.

The Port of Corpus Christi and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers have signed a partnership agreement for a project that would deepen and widen the Corpus Christi Ship Channel.

The project calls for widening the channel to 530 feet, plus additional barge shelves, to allow for two-way vessel and barge traffic. In addition, the project would deepen the channel to 54 feet to allow for safe passage of deep draft vessels, port officials said Monday in a press release.

Caltrain today will begin lowering horn noise from trains passing through certain stations in California.

The railroad chose the stations for horn-use reduction based on their configurations. For example, a train passing through the San Bruno, Belmont and San Carlos stations only needs to sound one short horn blast as it approaches because those stations have track and platforms that are separate from street level.

CSX Corp. has eliminated 2,700 jobs so far this year, as the Class I works through its transition to a more efficient operating plan, Chief Financial Officer Frank Lonegro told investors at a conference last week.

In addition to the 2,700 employees, CSX has eliminated 1,000 contractor and consultant positions, Lonegro said during a presentation at the Cowen & Co. Global Transportation Conference held in Boston.

CN and Conuma Coal Resources have resumed direct rail service to the Wolverine Mine in northern British Columbia, the Class I announced on its website.

The mine was closed in 2014 as commodity prices dropped. As the coal market began to rebound, Conuma purchased and reopened the mine in 2016.

MTA New York City Transit (NYCT) yesterday began a series of maintenance, cleaning and repair work on the Q line as part of the agency's FASTRACK program.

The program incorporates various elements of the ongoing Subway Action Plan, which addresses key delay-causing incidents involving signals, track and power.

Infrastructure Ontario (IO) has closed the request for proposals (RFP) stage for station improvements along GO Transit's Stouffville rail line.

In September 2016, the agency prequalified three teams to respond to the RFP. All three have submitted their proposals by the Sept. 8 deadline, IO officials said in a press release.

U.S. House Transportation and Infrastructure (T&I) Committee Chairman Bill Shuster (R-Pa.) announced last week that Denny Wirtz has been appointed staff director of the Subcommittee on Railroads, Pipelines and Hazardous Materials.

Wirtz has served as Shuster's legislative director since 2015, after joining the T&I Committee's staff when the congressman became chairman in January 2013, according to a committee press release.

Retail imports at the nation's major container ports hit a record in July, the National Retail Federation (NRF) and Hackett Associates announced late last week.

Ports covered by the Global Port Tracker handled 1.78 million 20-foot equivalent units (TEU) in July, a 5 percent increase from June and a 9.2 percent increase from July 2016, NRF officials said in a press release.

Metropolitan Council Chair Alene Tchourumoff has recommended rejecting all four civil construction bids for the Minneapolis area's Southwest light-rail project.

The submitted bids didn't meet the council's cost expectations and other requirements for the proposed $1.9 billion project, Met Council officials said in a press release.

The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) is making improvements in on-time performance, with fewer train offloads and unscheduled delays in its rail service, agency officials announced yesterday.

In August, 89 percent of trips taken on the rail system arrived on time, which marked an improvement since WMATA concluded its SafeTrack emergency maintenance program in June, agency officials said in a press release.

President Donald Trump has nominated CSX Corp. Vice President Howard "Skip" Elliott to serve as administrator of the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA).

A 40-year veteran of the U.S. freight-rail industry, Elliott is group vice president of public safety, health, environment and security for CSX. His responsibilities cover hazardous materials transportation safety, homeland security, railroad policing, crisis management, environmental compliance and operations, occupational health management, and continuity of business operations.

The Northern Virginia Transportation Commission (NVTC) late last week recommended shrinking the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority's (WMATA) board to 12 members from 16.

Under NVTC's proposal, three members would represent each of WMATA's three jurisdictions, along with three individuals to represent the federal government.

The California High-Speed Rail Authority (CHSRA) late last week appointed Thomas Post director of engineering.

In the role, Post will ensure that all engineering elements of the state's high-speed rail program are delivered within scope, quality standards, budget and schedule, CHSRA officials said in a press release.

The outlook for rail cars has "brightened considerably" due to strong gains in certain commodity groups in the first half of 2017, according to Economic Planning Associates Inc.'s (EPA) latest report.

Strong traffic is certain to lead to increased investments — including in rolling stock — by the railroads, the report stated.

MTA Metro-North Railroad today will begin a round of infrastructure improvements on the Port Jervis Line.

Crews will perform structural repairs at the Moodna and Woodbury viaducts, as well as remove a defunct overhead bridge at Day Road in Campbell Hall, New York.