Railroad News

Metrolinx's board has appointed Phil Verster as the agency's new president and chief executive officer.

He'll begin his duties Oct. 1. Verster succeeds Bruce McCuaig, who earlier this year stepped down to serve in the Privy Council Office in support of the Canada Infrastructure Bank.

COFCO International Ltd. (CIL) and grain cooperative Growmark Inc. have formed a new partnership that includes joint ownership and operation of a rail, barge and truck terminal on the Mississippi River in Cahokia, Illinois.

The pact includes a grain origination agreement. Additionally, Growmark will staff a grain merchandiser in CIL's St. Louis office to originate grain and service patron accounts, company officials said in a joint press release.

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan and U.S. Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao today will participate in a ceremonial groundbreaking for the Purple Line light-rail route.

The event will take place in Hyattsville, Maryland, according to a media advisory issued by Hogan's office.

Cargill announced last week its investment of $18 million to upgrade a grain facility on Union Pacific Railroad's line in Gibbon, Nebraska.

Once completed, the expansion will add 2 million of upright grain storage space and increase unload capacity of 65,000 bushels per hour, Cargill officials said in a press release.

The Quebec government has pledged CA$330 million to build an underground garage for trains at the Cote-Vertu Station on the Societe de transport de Montreal's (STM) subway network.

Class Is, Amtrak and Houston METRO suspended service and the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) declared an emergency event this past weekend due to Hurricane Harvey's impact on the Texas Gulf region.

The FRA declared the emergency Aug. 24, noting that the storm's threat of flooding rains, power outages and flash flooding conditions.

U.S. Rep. Tim Walz (D-Minn.) earlier this week met with Miller Ingenuity staff for a product demonstration of ZoneGuard, the company's roadway worker protection system.

Walz also joined representatives from Operational Lifesaver Inc. and local railroads to tour Miller's manufacturing plant in Winona, Minnesota.

Florida East Coast Railway outranked other rail-intermodal service providers for outstanding performance in Logistic Management's annual Quest for Quality survey, the railroad announced earlier this month.

The Quest for Quality poll examines key criteria used when evaluating and using transportation and logistics service providers. The survey then ranks the providers based on evaluation and purchase criteria, according to a press release issued by the railroad.

The Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) has begun installing the final wave of new PRESTO fare gates at 25 remaining subway stations that have decades-old turnstiles.

A key part of the TTC's overall modernization plan, the new "paddle-style" gates are designed to provide an unobstructed path into and out of stations, agency officials said in a press release.

Lower gasoline prices and discounted airline fares have weakened demand for Amtrak and intercity express bus service over the past three years, according to a study released this week by DePaul University.

The study by the university's Chaddick Institute for Metropolitan Development found that despite a recent increase in traffic, new service offerings have lagged and not kept pace with the nation's population growth.

Infrastructure Ontario (IO) and Metrolinx have issued a request for qualifications (RFQ) for firms interested in building and financing the GO Transit Lakeshore East-Central Corridor Expansion project.

The chosen firm will build all supporting infrastructure, including retaining walls along the central segment of the corridor, IO and Metrolinx officials said in a press release.

Vista Proppants & Logistics recently received its first unit train at a new terminal in Pecos, Texas, that will be used for rail-to-truck frac sand transloading services, the company announced this week.

The terminal is located on 200 acres, features 21,000 feet of track and is the first unit train-capable facility in the southern Delaware Basin that is served directly by Union Pacific Railroad, Vista Proppants officials said in a press release.

Ridership on Sound Transit's Link light-rail system rose 14.5 percent in the second quarter compared with the same period a year ago.

The system averaged 73,907 riders each weekday from April 1 through June 30, up from an average of 63,732 riders each weekday second-quarter 2016. Link served 5,997,005 riders in this year's second quarter, according to Sound Transit's most recent ridership report.

The Surface Transportation Board (STB) will hold a public listening session Sept. 12 to hear from CSX about its recent rail service problems and efforts at recovery, the board announced yesterday.

The hearing also will allow rail shippers and other stakeholders to report on the repercussions of CSX's rail service problems and their experience with the railroad's actions to restore service to acceptable levels, STB officials said in a press release.

Wi-Tronix LLC has equipped Iowa Interstate Railroad Ltd.'s (IAIS) locomotive fleet with the  Violet™ streaming event recorder and video analytics system. The technology enables the railroad to connect its assets to a digital network, Wi-Tronix officials said in a press release. IAIS has used Violet's artificial intelligence-based video analytics to complete video surveys of its mileposts. Violet aggregates petabytes of video data in an Internet of Things approach to create actionable information. The platform consists of an event recorder, digital video recorder, locomotive data acquisition recording system and crash-hardened memory module.

Knoxville Locomotive Works (KLW) has been awarded the Environmental Protection Agency's Tier 4 emissions certification for its SE Series four- and six-axle locomotive designs. The company is the only freight locomotive manufacturer to have achieved Tier 4 certifications for switch and line haul duty cycles, KLW officials said in a press release. The certifications include the switch duty cycle for KLW models rated at 2,000, 2,200 and 2,300 brake horsepower (bhp), as well as the line-haul duty cycle for models rated at 2,400 through 3,200 bhp. The company's locomotives are designed to deliver improved fuel savings and tractive effort compared to their conventional locomotive counterparts, said KLW Chairman Pete Claussen.

The Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA) has added Wi-Fi and other digital services to its Suburban Station commuter-rail hub in Philadelphia.

In addition to high-speed Wi-Fi, the station now offers 10 interactive kiosks that provide real-time transit information, wayfinding and maps. SEPTA also plans to install two device charging stations at the station, agency officials said in a press release.

Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) has added four new members to its board.

The new board members are:
• Ray Jackson, who serves as managing partner of the Jackson Law Firm;
• Jon-Bertrell Killen, a solution architect at Slalom Consulting;
• Dominique Torres, who operates the Torres Law Office where she handles personal injury, immigration and family law cases; and
• Catherine Cuellar, director of partnerships for RefillWise, a free pharmacy discount and rewards program.

U.S. intermodal rail traffic rose 8.2 percent and carloads held steady at an 0.8 percent increase for the week ending Aug. 19 compared with a year ago, according to Association of American Railroads (AAR) data.

For the week, total U.S. weekly rail traffic was 554,021 carloads and intermodal units, up 4.4 percent compared with the same week last year, AAR officials said in a press release.