Railroad News

Last week, Amtrak began taking steps to officially rename the 30th Street Station in Philadelphia in honor of the late William Gray III, a former U.S. congressman who died six years ago.

Legislation calling for the name change was passed in 2014. Gray represented Pennsylvania's Second District in Congress from 1979 to 1991. He later served as president and chief executive officer of the United Negro College Fund.

The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) will resume two-car train service on its Siemens S200 light-rail vehicles after retrofitting all single panel rear-doors with additional sensors.

Between November 2017 and April 2019, passengers were injured in three incidents involving the vehicles' rear doors. In the most recent incident, a passenger tried to hold open the rear door and fell into the trackway at Embarcadero Station in San Francisco.

Levine Leichtman Capital Partners (LLCP), a Los Angeles-based private equity firm, announced today that it has completed the sale of short-line operator Regional Rail LLC to 3i Group plc.

Based in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania, Regional Rail operates short lines and rail-related businesses in the U.S. Mid-Atlantic region with more than 155 miles of track. The company was formed in 2007.

A Government Accountability Office (GAO) study on train lengths showed that while the average train length has increased by 25 percent, there is little to no data being collected to measure the impact of longer trains on communities, U.S. Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) announced last week.

DeFazio, who chairs the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, and others asked for the study in 2017 in response to an increase in constituent complaints about trains blocking grade crossings in their communities.

The South Florida Regional Transportation Authority (SFRTA) board earlier this week unanimously elected Broward County Commissioner Tim Ryan as chair. 

He previously served as SFRTA chair from July 2016 to June 2017. Ryan was mayor of Broward County in 2014 and served in the Florida House of Representatives until 2006. 

Amtrak and the Wisconsin Department of Transportation (WisDOT) on July 1 began offering a new Green Bay-Milwaukee bus service that provides connections to and from the Amtrak Hiawatha rail route between Milwaukee and Chicago.

An Amtrak Thruway bus now provides two daily round-trip services between Green Bay and Milwaukee, with stops in Fond du Lac, Oshkosh and Appleton, Wisconsin. The service enables travelers to complete a same-day round trip between those cities and Chicago, as well access Amtrak stations in Milwaukee (Mitchell International Airport), Sturtevant, Wisconsin, and Glenview, Illinois.

The Valley Metro Regional Public Transportation Authority (RPTA) and Valley Metro Rail boards earlier this week elected new officers to serve a one-year term ending June 30, 2020. 

Kevin Hartke, mayor of Chandler, Arizona, was elected chair of the RPTA board, which governs multi-modal transit services in the greater Phoenix area. Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego was elected vice chair and Peoria Councilmember Jon Edwards was elected treasurer. 

MTA Metro-North Railroad last month hosted its third annual Safety Excellence Awards to highlight company-wide initiatives and recognize groups and individuals for their safety efforts.

The railroad’s maintenance-of-way “housekeeping initiative” on the North White Plains section of the Harlem Line earned a safety excellence award in the company-wide initiatives category. As part of the program, employees found more than 200 ways to enhance the railroad’s safety and productivity. Due to the success of the initiative, similar endeavors are now being rolled out throughout the railroad, Metro-North officials said in a press release. 

The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) earlier this week began adding more service at some Red and Yellow Line stations.

Red Line trains will now run end to end between the Glenmont and Shady Grove stations in Maryland instead of some trains turning back at Silver Spring Station. 

The Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority's (GCRTA) board on Wednesday approved a measure to enter negotiations with large transit system veteran India Birdsong to become the authority's next chief executive officer and general manager.

If appointed, she would succeed Joseph Calabrese, who stepped down as CEO in September 2018 after 18 years in the top post. Interim CEO Floun'say Caver then would return to his prior role as chief operating officer and deputy GM of operations.

U.S. railroads remained in a rut last month. June was the fifth-straight month that their carloads and intermodal traffic declined on a year-over-year basis.

U.S. roads last month originated 1,023,394 carloads, down 5.3 percent, and 1,075,974 containers and trailers, down 7.2 percent compared with June 2018 figures, according to Association of American Railroads (AAR) data.

Wabtec Corp. announced that Rafael Santana will succeed retiree Ray Belter as president and chief executive officer. Santana joined Wabtec earlier this year as president and CEO of the company’s freight segment following the merger of Wabtec and GE Transportation, where he served as president and CEO. Santana has 25 years of commercial, product management and executive leadership experience, including more than 10 years in the transportation industry.

The Greenbrier Cos. reported net earnings of $15.2 million, or 46 cents per diluted share, and revenue of $856.2 million in its third fiscal quarter, which ended May 31. Greenbrier received orders for about 6,500 new rail cars valued at $730 million in the quarter. The orders span a range of car types from diverse customers, Greenbrier officials said in a press release. Greenbrier's backlog of 26,100 units valued at $2.7 billion provides cash flow into fiscal-year 2020, they said.

Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) earlier this week announced plans to build two new traction power substations in downtown San Francisco. 

A combination of the upgraded power system, installation of a new train control system and the addition of more rail cars will allow the agency to increase the number of trains from 23 to 30 that travel between San Francisco and Oakland, California, through the Transbay Tube during peak hours, BART officials said in a press release.

Representatives from Port Freeport, Union Pacific Railroad and other organizations held a ribbon cutting ceremony June 28 to mark the first-phase completion of the $21 million Parcel 14 Rail Development project at the Houston-area port.

On a 250-acre site adjacent to State Highway 36, the port broke ground in August 2017 on the project, which involved the construction of about 21,000 linear feet of track. The work included building a 6,000-foot lead track from a UP mainline that crosses the highway to three, 5,000-foot ladder tracks.

The National Mediation Board (NMB) has installed Linda Puchala as chairman. She will lead the board through June 30, 2020, with Gerald Fauth and Kyle Fortson continuing to serve as members.

Puchala was confirmed as an NMB member in May 2009 and previously served as chairman from May 2009 through June 2009; July 2011 through June 2012; July 2013 through June 2014; and July 2016 through June 2017. She received her most recent Senate confirmation in November 2017.

Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker, Massachusetts Department of Transportation (MassDOT) Secretary and Chief Executive Officer Stephanie Pollack, Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) General Manager Steve Poftak and other dignitaries attended a groundbreaking ceremony yesterday for the South Coast Rail project's first phase.

The more than $3 billion project calls for restoring commuter-rail service between Boston and Massachusetts' South Coast, with stops in New Bedford, Fall River and Taunton. The $1 billion first phase includes extending Middleborough Line service to New Bedford and Fall River; reconstructing 17.3 miles of the New Bedford mainline and 11.7 miles of the Fall River secondary; upgrading the Middleborough secondary track from Pilgrim Junction to Cotley Junction covering 7.1 miles; building two new layover facilities; and constructing six new stations.

The Northern Indiana Commuter Transportation District (NICTD) has requested entry into the engineering phase of the Federal Transit Administration's (FTA) Capital Investment Grant (CIG) program for its double-track project along the South Shore Line in northwest Indiana. 

NICTD has already completed the development phase of CIG, which includes an environmental review and an analysis of project alternatives for installing a second mainline track from Gary to Michigan City, Indiana.

The Alberta Petroleum Marketing Commission has contracted CIBC Capital Markets to help oversee the divestment of the province's crude-by-rail program and the transition of that business to the private sector.

Although the future of crude by rail in Alberta is "very bright," that business will continue to grow without government interference, said Alberta Minister of Energy Sonya Savage in a statement issued late last week.