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Rail News Home Mechanical January 2017 Rail News: Mechanical

Photo – Road & Rail Services By Michael PopkeIn November 2016, Patriot Rail Co. LLC acquired United Transportation Group (UTG) in East Chicago, Ind., which owns a 34-acre rail tank car and tanker truck cleaning and mechanical repair facility 30 miles southeast of downtown Chicago. The acquisition is the most recent example of Patriot Rail’s long-term strategy to provide an integrated suite of rail-related services.In 2013, Patriot Rail — which owns 12 short lines operating in 14 states — also added Blue Ridge Railcar Repair Services in Keysville, Va., to its portfolio.“The UTG acquisition ... allows us to bundle our services and simplify the process for our customers by providing them a comprehensive plan for all their rail needs,” says John Fenton, Patriot Rail’s president and chief executive officer, adding that UTG has been renamed Lakeshore Railcar Services LLC. “Chicago is the Fifth Avenue of railroad locations, and we’re looking to grow this piece of our business.”So are other players in the freight-car repair space. Although marketplace uncertainty continued to reign as 2016 drew to a close, a sampling of officials at freight-car repair firms believe an uptick in business could be in the offing for certain car types in 2017.“With our recent expansions at several of our repair facilities, our capacity expectations remain steady with a slight increase in 2017,” said Dean Sawyer, director of sales for rail-car services and products for American Railcar Industries Inc. (ARI), in an email. “There are a lot of tank cars in storage due to the low demand of oil. Therefore, most are not expected to be put back in service this year. The key is finding the right mix of work to optimize our resources and capabilities.”The mix is the messageFinding such a mix has been the objective in a few repair circles for some time now. Witness the tank-car segment.When the U.S. Department of Transportation in 2015 issued a new set of standards for tank cars transporting flammable liquids, freight-car repair companies began prepping for what they expected would be a surge of retrofit work to older DOT-111 tank cars. Anticipating major retrofit orders, numerous repair shops announced plans to build new facilities dedicated to remanufacturing work on DOT-111 and newer CPC-1232 cars.For the most part, though, the major orders didn’t come. Railroads and other tank-car owners proceeded cautiously, given the cost of updating older tank cars as well as plummeting oil prices — wrinkles that lowered retrofit demand and resulted in market uncertainties that some repair firm officials suggest could carry over into 2017.“Due to the slowdown caused by lower oil prices, lower shipment volumes caused many car owners to park their 111s and defer decisions on their retrofits until later in the cycle deadline,” said Marty Haycraft, senior vice president and chief marketing officer of Progress Rail, a Caterpillar subsidiary, in an email.Progress Rail provides a range of freight-car repair, reconditioning and retrofitting services at shops in the United States, Canada and Mexico.Meanwhile, many larger fleet owners already have replaced the cars in question with “more compliant classifications” or performed the necessary modifications in-house, Haycraft said.“While there will likely be some contract shop retrofit activity, the number of retrofits in 2017 remains uncertain due to energy market fluctuations,” he added.Sawyer at ARI — which two years ago invested $10.5 million in buildings and equipment at its tank-car retrofit facility in Marmaduke, Ark. — still believes there are reasons for optimism, though, calling 2016 a “steady year” for maintenance around requalification and project work despite the retrofit delays and ever-tightening railroad budgets.“This year is expected to be steady with a slight increase in general maintenance and tank-car requalification,” he said.Meanwhile, automobile racks, which must be certified to meet specifications for individual carmakers, have provided some repair firms with a steady stream of business in recent years, and should continue to for at least the near term, some car-repair company execs believe.“The automotive sector has been [in] growth mode for the past seven years,” said Dennis Manns, chief commercial officer for Road & Rail Services, in an email. “There has been a tremendous number of new plants created in Mexico over the past five to seven years, and several scheduled for production over the next 24 to 36 months. Mexico’s automotive production will have tripled from 10 years ago. This shift in production has had a dramatic impact on the automotive fleet with empty car supply.”Plenty of upswing potentialA potential wild card for every link in the rail chain is the new administration in Washington, D.C. Early indications suggest that President-elect Donald Trump and his administration won’t create additional obstacles on the regulatory front, rail industry observers believe.“We are hopeful, with the new administration, that there will be changes to improve the economy and overall rail-car and infrastructure needs,” Sawyer said.Meanwhile, Progress Rail officials expect the first half of 2017 to be “challenging,” but they also see signs that “the second half could be more favorable,” Haycraft added.“For instance, there is some optimism developing around the new administration and what that could mean for energy prices and infrastructure spending, which could in turn spike demand for certain types of rail cars,” he said. “An overall economic improvement driving demand across multiple car types would obviously be welcome.”There are other factors, of course, that likely will affect the repair market — from the price of oil to weather patterns to the potential relaxing of U.S. Environmental Protection Agency rules that could affect coal shipments, Haycraft said.Amid the uncertainty, Patriot Rail’s Fenton remains convinced there is plenty of upswing potential, even in a down market.“There’s still a need in this country for good, quality rail-car repair,” he said. Michael Popke is a Madison, Wis.-based freelance writer. Email comments or questions to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
Keywords Browse articles on Freight-car repair Patriot Rail Lakeshore Railcar Services American Railcar Industries tank cars DOT-111 Progress Rail Road & Rail Services Contact Progressive Railroading editorial staff.

1/17/2017    

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Rail News Home Passenger Rail January 2017 Rail News: Passenger Rail

In summer, SEPTA pulled a third of its commuter-rail fleet from service due to a defect.Photo – SEPTA By This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., Associate EditorThe past few months have been particularly trying for the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA). Since July, the Philadelphia transit agency has dealt with everything from a downsized commuter-rail fleet and overcrowding to a worker strike that halted subway, trolley and bus service.But SEPTA leaders are hoping to alter course and get things moving in a more positive direction in the new year — at least as far as the agency’s commuter-rail operations are concerned. Last month, they released a multipronged Regional Rail improvement program, which includes plans for fleet updates and increased on-time performance."We got hit with a tidal wave of problems starting in July, but that doesn’t matter to riders," says Jeffrey Knueppel, SEPTA’s general manager. "They don't want to hear about the problems. They want good service, and that's what we're determined to provide."In July, the agency pulled all 120 Silverliner V cars from service due to a defect with their suspension systems; those cars account for about a third of SEPTA's fleet.But the agency's on-time performance began to slip before the Silverliner V incident, Knueppel says."The problem of worsening on-time performance isn't as much of a recent phenomenon," he says. "We've been working on this program and how to address these issues for a while — even before the Silverliner V problem."As far back as 2014, severe weather began increasing delays for SEPTA's commuter-rail system. On-time performance continued to suffer into 2015.The improvement plan targets nine areas total, such as communications, safety and infrastructure. To boost on-time performance and capacity, the agency has ordered 15 locomotives from Siemens and plans to purchase 45 bilevel cars, although the agency hadn’t settled on a provider for those as of mid-December.The new vehicles will "significantly boost" reliability, adds Ron Hopkins, SEPTA's assistant general manager, operations.Part of the service improvement program also involves bolstering the agency’s working relationship with Amtrak. Forty-seven percent of SEPTA’s Regional Rail trains are directly controlled by Amtrak dispatchers at some point on their journey.So, SEPTA managers have pledged to hold biweekly meetings with officials from the national passenger railroad to discuss current issues and evaluate long-term options for better coordination of each entity’s services."They're going through the same kind of issues that we're having," Knueppel says of Amtrak. "We're working to improve coordination levels."Communication with riders is another key element of the improvement plan. To that end, SEPTA plans to provide real-time information for all Regional Rail cars on its website and mobile apps. The agency also placed social media staff in its control center to facilitate information delivery.In addition, SEPTA created a "microsite" to keep riders up to date on the improvement plan.Still, agency officials acknowledge that they've got a long way to go to restore riders' confidence in the system's performance."Certainly one day isn't going to change people's minds," Knueppel says. "It's going to take months of consistency for people to feel good again."
Keywords Browse articles on SEPTA Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority Jeffrey Knueppel Ron Hopkins Silveliner V commuter rail SEPTA Regional Rail SEPTA commuter-rail problems Siemens bi-level coaches Contact Progressive Railroading editorial staff.

1/16/2017    

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Rail News Home Safety January 2017 Rail News: Safety

By This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., Senior Associate EditorSarah Feinberg had been serving as the acting administrator of the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) for less than a month when a deadly collision occurred Feb. 3, 2015, between an MTA Metro-North Railroad train and an SUV at a grade crossing in Valhalla, N.Y. The SUV stopped on the track after the warning gates lowered to signal the approaching train, which ultimately slammed into the vehicle. The collision led to a fire that engulfed the SUV and the train’s first rail car; the motorist and five train passengers died.While Feinberg and other FRA administrators often speak of the need to improve safety statistics in all aspects of railroading, Feinberg has been particularly passionate about grade-crossing safety since President Obama officially nominated her to the FRA post in spring 2015. Incidents at crossings and trespassing on rail rights-of-way remain the No. 1 cause of death and injury in rail transportation; more than 200 people are killed every year in crossing accidents in the United States, according to Feinberg.Her passion comes from the belief that all grade-crossing deaths are preventable. Feinberg has spent the better part of her FRA tenure calling on states, communities, law-enforcement agencies railroads and, more recently, technology companies to step up safety measures to prevent fatalities at crossings.Although crossing safety progress has been made over the past two years, work remains on several fronts, Feinberg said in a recent interview."Our fatality numbers in 2015 were down from the grim numbers of 2014, but we don't know yet if we will sustain that progress through 2016," she told the Railroad Safety Advisory Committee during a September 2016 meeting in Washington, D.C., according to a text of her remarks. "And I can tell you that there have already been far too many incidents at crossings this year — incidents which have killed children and parents, and sometimes entire families."Event recorders, more inspectionsAs FRA administrator, Feinberg has urged state departments of transportation to help railroads investigate 5,000 crossings with interconnected traffic lights to make sure they’re synced to sufficiently warn drivers and pedestrians to stop prior to a train’s approach. FRA regulators also have asked states to install event recorders at traffic lights connected to crossing systems so that information obtained during inspections can be used to improve safety.Moreover, federal regulators at Feinberg's urging have worked with local police departments to step up enforcement around crossings. That effort was in response to an uptick in crossing fatalities in 2014, when 267 people died in incidents involving trains and vehicles — up from 244 fatalities in 2015, according to FRA data.In spring 2015, the FRA launched a campaign to partner with tech companies like Google to use federal data that pinpoints the nation’s 200,000 crossings to add visual and audio alerts to GPS map applications. Last month, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) echoed that call in a report on the board's investigation of a fatal Metrolink crash in Oxnard, Calif. In February 2015, a Metrolink commuter train collided with a truck that was abandoned on the track after the driver got lost and mistakenly turned at a crossing onto the railroad’s right of way. The train engineer later died of his injuries. Data from the truck driver’s cell phone indicated he had been using a mapping app when he made the wrong turn.The NTSB now recommends that Google, Apple, Garmin, HERE, TomTom, INRIX, MapQuest, Microsoft Corp., Omnitracs, OpenStreetMap US, Sensys Networks Inc., StreetLight Data, Teletrac and UPS of America incorporate crossing-related GIS data, such as those being prepared by the FRA, into their navigation applications to provide drivers with additional safety cues to reduce the likelihood of crashes at or near public and private crossings."I'm very hopeful that having another safety-expert voice saying this is the right thing to do will spur these tech companies to put this issue at the top of their priority list," Feinberg says, adding that she has been frustrated they have not moved faster to do so.At the state level, some state transportation departments have done a better job than others at tackling crossing safety, she believes. New York is one example. After the Valhalla incident, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, Metropolitan Transportation Authority Chairman Thomas Prendergast and Metro-North officials were in regular contact with the FRA about how the state could improve rail safety.In November 2016, Cuomo signed two bills aimed at reducing train-motor vehicle incidents at crossings. One law will require coordinated, frequent inspections of traffic control devices at crossings; the other will require the New York State Department of Transportation (NYSDOT) to study each crossing and make improvement recommendations by April 1. The stricter measures also increase fines against drivers who disobey signs at crossings, raise penalties against railroads for neglecting to report to the state when crossing accidents occur, and require the state to align its regulations with federal reporting requirements.Also last year, the FRA awarded the NYSDOT $5.15 million in grant funds to make crossing improvements. The awards included $1.34 million to add highway traffic signal preemption to seven crossings on MTA Metro-North’s Harlem and Port Jervis lines, which would activate signals at the intersections and allow queued traffic to exit onto the highway before the railroad warning systems are activated. Another grant — for $1.91 million — will be used to cover the cost of installing CCTV cameras to record movements at 43 crossings within Metro-North territory to investigate specific incidents and analyze potential safety improvements.Those FRA grants were among $25 million the agency doled out as part of the Railroad Safety Infrastructure Improvement Grants in 2016. In total, 23 projects in 14 states and the District of Columbia received funding for crossing improvement or separation projects.If only more states were as aggressive as the Empire State, Feinberg says."Until states realize that their DOT and highway office are as accountable for highway grade-crossing accidents as my office is, we're just not going to see the improvements that we need to," she says.An overpass to safetyNot that there hasn’t been progress elsewhere. One major crossing project completed late last year was a $41 million grade separation at 25th Avenue in Bellwood, Ill. Begun in 2014, the project was designed to eliminate a conflict point between trains and regular vehicle traffic, reduce congestion, improve safety and ensure better response times for emergency vehicles.The overpass project was part of the Chicago Region Environmental and Transportation Efficiency (CREATE) Program, a $4 billion public-private effort launched in 2003 to separate freight and passenger trains at six key junctions; eliminate about two dozen crossings; and increase rail capacity, speed and reliability in the Chicago area.The 25th Avenue overpass now accommodates two lanes of traffic in each direction over Union Pacific Railroad tracks. Each day, up to 59 Metra trains and 52 freight trains pass through this location, according to CREATE officials. On average, 19,000 vehicles travel that stretch of 25th Avenue daily, with 3,500 of them getting stopped by trains before the overpass was built, resulting in 28,400 annual hours of motorist delays.In North Carolina, the state Department of Transportation (NCDOT) will wrap up this year the multi-year Piedmont Program, which calls for improving the 174-mile North Carolina Railroad Co. corridor’s safety and capacity for freight and passenger trains between Raleigh and Charlotte.Launched in 2010, the program has been funded using $546.5 million in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funding. Work featured the closure of 36 crossings and construction of 12 grade separations, says NCDOT Rail Division Director Paul Worley. The last of the Piedmont crossing projects concluded in 2016, including four that allowed for the closure of six street-level crossings in Harrisburg alone, according to NCDOT.Those are examples of crossing improvement efforts that Feinberg would label as progress. As a regulator, Feinberg has focused on measures she believes would have the greatest impact on saving lives and preventing injuries."Luckily, rail is a safe mode of transportation across the board — and it’s improving all the time," she says. "If you look at where my priorities have been, they’ve followed where we can have a significant impact. Grade-crossing incidents and trespassing continue to be the leading cause of injury and death in the rail industry. So, clearly, we can have an impact there."[Editor's note: To read examples of Class Is' crossing safety efforts, read this feature.]As her time as FRA's top regulator winds down — she officially leaves office on Jan. 20 when Donald Trump is inaugurated the 45th president — Feinberg believes she helped raise awareness of crossing safety."A lot of the steps we’ve taken will show us results over time," she says. "So, for example, the integration of the grade-crossing data into mapping applications: We're still waiting for the tech companies to integrate that data. Once they do that, we can start to measure the impact."She's also pleased with local police departments that have increased their presence to enforce laws prohibiting motorists from driving through crossings when gates are lowered and warning lights are flashing."But look, I'll never be satisfied until we’re at the point where there are zero fatalities and zero injuries," Feinberg adds. "Rail-crossing safety really is a challenge that has been with us for a very long time. So, part of the challenge is finding potential solutions that approach the problem in different ways that will allow us to have more success."Looking to the futureFinding new solutions to old safety problems is something she hopes the industry, working with the next FRA administrator, will continue to address. Railroads should invest even more in making improvements at crossings, closing them where they can, and working with state DOTs and local communities in addressing safety problems they’ve identified, Feinberg believes."My successor will have to continue a lot of this work or we won’t see the improvements that we need to see," she says.She also hopes more answers will be found through creative applications of technology."For now, the best solution we have is integrating the data into mapping applications," Feinberg says.But as technology in motor vehicles evolves, she envisions a day when locomotives and motor vehicles will communicate with each other to automatically prevent vehicles from moving into crossings when trains are approaching."We're not at that point yet, but I think that’s something that we could be seeing in the next couple of years," she says.Email comments or questions to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Keywords Browse articles on grade-crossing safety Sarah Feinberg Federal Railroad Administration MTA Metro-North Railroad National Transportation Safety Board Metrolink CREATE Google Metropolitan Transportation Authority New York State Department of Transportation North Carolina DOT Contact Progressive Railroading editorial staff.