TAUNTON, Mass. — Short line Mass Coastal Railroad is acquiring the assets of Bay Colony Railroad, which serves three customers on 35 miles of state-owned in southeastern Massachusetts, the Boston Globe reports. Mass Coastal currently operates 135 route-miles in Massachusetts and Rhode Island, including trackage rights on CSX Transportation, and interchanges with CSX in Taunton […]
ATLANTA – Norfolk Southern’s engineering team completed $1 billion in improvement projects last year, including installation of new wayside detectors as well as repairs and replacement of tracks, bridges, and grade crossings. “Our extensive infrastructure work is an important component of being a customer-centric, operations-driven railroad and represents an investment in the safety of our […]
WASHINGTON — NJ Transit will receive $75 million to support replace a 70-year-old facility damaged by Hurricane Ida in 2021, the Federal Transit Administration has announced. The money will go toward construction of a maintenance-of-way facility in Clifton, N.J., replacing what NJ Transit calls an obsolete and flood-prone facility in Wood-Ridge. “The new facility in […]
MIAMI — After four months of operation between Orlando and Miami, Brightline has dramatically increased patronage and revenue every month, especially for the component it designates as “long distance.” These are passengers who take the train to or from South Florida. A closer look at monthly data shows the company is actively managing the demand-influenced […]
SALT LAKE CITY — The Utah counties backing the proposed Uinta Basin Railway have asked the state to help fund an appeal of recent court decisions to the U.S. Supreme Court, the Salt Lake Tribune reports. The Seven County Infrastructure Coalition has asked for $750,000 from the state’s general fund, with Keith Heaton, the coalition’s […]
LINCOLN, Neb. — A filibuster has halted the Nebraska Legislature’s consideration of a proposal requiring two-person train crews within the state, the news site Nebraska Examiner reports. The filibuster, carried out over parts of three days, stalled the bill when a Friday vote was unable to obtain the 33 votes needed to invoke cloture, the […]
WASHINGTON — The parties involved in the agreement to allow the launch of Amtrak Gulf Coast service have filed a joint update on that agreement requested by the Surface Transportation Board, asking that the board scrap a hearing planned for Feb. 14 “as the Parties have no further information to offer.” The STB last month […]
NEW YORK — New York City Transit’s first R211T open-gangway subway cars entered service on Thursday, operating on the C line between Washington Heights and East New York, following an inaugural ride featuring Gov. Kathy Hochul and Metropolitan Transportation Authority and elected officials. Hochul also announced that 1,000 of the city’s subway cars are now […]
BOISE, Idaho — Idaho rail advocates were disappointed when a route linking Boise and Salt Lake City wasn’t included in the Federal Railroad Adminstration’s Corridor Identification and Development Program announced in December. But it turns out that effort to revive part of the route of Amtrak’s discontinued Pioneer was never even considered for the eventual […]
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — CSX Transportation today (Thursday, Feb. 1) announced it had reached agreement with four additional unions to provide paid sick leave to employees, extending that coverage to an additional 600 workers. Unions involved are SMART-TD conductors/trainmen (C&O); SMART-TD yardmasters; the International Brotherhood of Boilermakers, and Carrolton Road-Transportation Communications Union-represented engineers, yardmen, and maintenance […]
WASHINGTON — Surface Transportation Board Chairman Martin J. Oberman says he’s concerned about reports that an activist investor plans to launch a proxy fight to oust Norfolk Southern CEO Alan Shaw. “Is this an investor whose goal it is to reinstate the bad old days when the marching orders to the C-suite were to cut, […]
WASHINGTON – Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and the leaders of all 13 railroad labor unions today urged Congress to tighten rail safety regulations as the one-year anniversary of the disastrous derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, approaches. The Railway Safety Act, introduced in the Senate last spring in the aftermath of the Norfolk Southern hazardous materials […]
