Railroad News

During the first nine months of 2017, the number of average weekday rides on TransLink's system increased 6.2 percent compared with ridership for the same period last year.

In September alone, ridership on the agency's Expo/Millennium SkyTrain line shot up 10.6 percent to 9.2 million boardings. SkyTrain's Canada Line logged 4 million boardings, marking a 4.6 percent increase.

The Port of Longview in Washington has entered into an agreement with International Raw Materials (IRM) to lease the port's Bridgeview Terminal, port officials announced yesterday.

IRM operated from the port between 1981 and 2001. Based in Philadelphia, IRM intends to use the terminal for the export of bulk minerals, fertilizers and grains.

Bay Area Rapid Transit's (BART) new reduced-contact wheel profile has helped cut down on interior noise in trains.

Carload and intermodal volumes rose for U.S. railroads during the week ending Oct. 14, according to data from the Association of American Railroads (AAR).

Total carloads for the week rose 0.5 percent to 264,161 units, while U.S. weekly intermodal volume increased 5.5 percent to 284,103 containers and trailers compared with the same week last year, AAR officials said in a press release.

The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) on Saturday will finish installing positive train control (PTC) infrastructure on the Needham commuter-rail line.

The work is wrapping up one month earlier than scheduled, MBTA officials said in a press release. Regular Saturday service on the line will resume Oct. 28.

Metra and Canadian Pacific have begun a project to upgrade signals and add several crossover tracks in Franklin Park, Illinois. The effort is the 34th project to begin under the Chicago Region Environmental and Transportation Efficiency Program (CREATE).

Crews will install five crossovers and associated signaling on Metra's track serving its Milwaukee District West Line and CP. The area is located between the grade crossings of Scott Street and Ruby Street.

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has determined that two Union Pacific Railroad trains collided in Texas in September 2015 because the crew of one train was likely asleep before the accident occurred, the agency announced this week.

Contributing to the incident near Texarkana, Texas, was the lack of a functioning positive train control system, according to the NTSB's accident brief.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao and acting Federal Transit Administrator K. Jane Williams last week met with Protran Technology founder Peter Bartek for a demonstration of the company's safety technology for pedestrians and track workers. Chao visited company officials at the American Public Transportation Association's (APTA) 2017 EXPO trade show, which ran Oct. 9-11. Protran provides track worker secondary warning systems to meet federal safety standards. The company has more than 13,000 warning systems in revenue service.

Amtrak has chosen dFuzion Inc.'s rMetrix®-A ride performance assessment systems for performing continuous vehicle/track interaction monitoring services on ACS-64 locomotives. The system enables operators to rapidly identify and prioritize locations for corrective and preventive maintenance, dFuzion officials said in a press release. The technology also helps detect vehicle and track abnormalities that may impact passenger comfort, equipment reliability and operational safety.

The Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority (GCRTA) yesterday marked the completion of a $1.7 million upgrade to its Lee-Shaker Station on the Green Line.

Schirmer Construction demolished the original platform and built a new one one with new waiting shelters. Crews also installed new lighting, signage, railings and a safety security system with cameras and emergency call boxes.

The Port of Savannah moved more than 1 million 20-foot-equivalent container units (TEUs) across the Garden City Terminal in first-quarter fiscal-year 2018, a 5.8 percent increase from the number of TEUs moved during first-quarter FY2017.

Container tons rose 8.1 percent to 7.23 million tons for the quarter ending Sept. 30 compared with the year-ago period, according to a press release issued by the Georgia Ports Authority.

GO Transit's new rail maintenance facility in Whitby, Ontario, is slated to be completed by the end of 2017, the Ontario Ministry of Transportation announced late last week.

The 500,000-square-foot facility will provide maintenance, repair, cleaning and storage  for 13 trains. The CA$859.2 million shop is being constructed to achieve Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design gold certification, officials from the ministry said in a press release.

Preferred Proppants LLC has reached a definitive agreement to sell a Wisconsin sand mine to Source Energy Services Ltd.

Also known as Preferred Sands, the company entered into a definitive agreement to sell the sand mine in Blair, Wisconsin, to Source Energy for $80 million, and entered into a production payment agreement with respect to certain exploration rights on more than 3,600 acres in the Peace River Valley of Alberta.

The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Metro) has chosen an STV-WSP USA joint venture to serve as its consultant on an acquisition of new heavy-rail vehicles and associated equipment.

MTA New York City Transit (NYCT) yesterday began an accelerated maintenance, cleaning and repair project along its Seventh Avenue Line, which is used by 1, 2, and 3 line trains.

The work is being carried out between 34th Street-Penn Station in Midtown Manhattan and the Atlantic Avenue-Barclays Center in Brooklyn. Crews are working on weeknights between Oct. 16-19 and Oct. 23-26.

The Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) will host a public meeting on Nov. 8 to discuss transit-oriented development plans near the Red Line.

The agency is working on redevelopment concepts for properties near the line after the first phase of the Red and Purple Line modernization program wraps up.

USD Partners LP on Oct. 1 began operations of its heavier-grade crude-oil destination terminal in Stroud, Oklahoma, the company announced yesterday.

Retrofit work necessary to handle heavier grades of crude oil at the terminal was completed on time and under budget, company officials said in a press release. The terminal now provides a destination point for rail-to-pipeline shipments of heavy crude oil from the company's Hardisty terminal in western Canada.