SEATTLE — Sound Transit is holding off on any cuts to projects or service that might result from passage of a recent state initiative, with the transit agency’s board option to wait until courts decide on the constitutionality of the new law. Initiative 976, which passed Nov. 5, would limit auto registration fees to $30. […]
Montana Rail Link president Stacy Posey has stepped down after just 11 months as head of the regional railroad. Justin Franz MISSOULA, Mont. — Montana Rail Link President Stacy Posey has resigned after less than 11 months on the job. On Wednesday, MRL announced Posey was leaving for “personal reasons” and had been replaced by […]
SEATTLE — The Port of Chehalis in southwestern Washington state plans to sell to the Chehalis-Centralia Railroad & Museum a 10.2-mile line the tourist-rail operation is already using. The port’s three commissioners unanimously approved a resolution authorizing the sale at an Oct. 24 meeting. The museum submitted the only bid for what is known as […]
SEATTLE — Sound Transit will drop the name “Red Line” for its light-rail corridor because of objections that the title evokes redlining, the former practice of denying home loans to non-white families in some areas of Seattle and other cities. The Seattle Times reports that CEO Peter Rogoff said during a meeting of the transit […]
A passenger on Amtrak Cascades train No. 501 has been awarded $4.5 million from a jury after being injured in the 2017 wreck. Steve Carter TACOMA, Wash. — A jury in Washington has awarded a woman $4.5 million nearly two years after she was injured in the derailment of an Amtrak Cascades train as it […]
SEATTLE — Seattle and King County, Wash., are saying they will sue to block a measure passed by Washington voters on Tuesday which will cut auto registration fees, the Seattle Times reports. Those fees help fund public transportation, and the measure’s passage will likely lead to cuts in light rail and bus service in the […]
SPOKANE, Wash. — Spokane International Airport has received an $11.3-million grant to build a rail transload facility with the goal of attracting aerospace and other industries. The BUILD Grant — for Better Utilizing Investments to Leverage Development — from the U.S. Department of Transportation will extend an BNSF Railway existing rail spur by 3 miles […]
REDMOND, Wash. — Microsoft Corp.’s corporate campus in the Seattle suburb of Redmond is miles from rail lines hosting regular passenger-train service. But that corporate campus will be, for three days beginning today [Nov. 6], the focal point of the high-speed passenger rail universe. The Cascadia Rail Summit convenes with U.S. High Speed Rail and Microsoft […]
TACOMA, Wash — The company which operates Rainer Rail plans to acquire a 4.4-mile segment of Tacoma Rail’s Mountain Division in Washington state. The track runs from Rainier in Thurston County to McKenna in Pierce County. That segment connects with a 34.6-mile line between Chehalis and Yelm that Rainier Rail bought from the city of Tacoma […]
PORTLAND, Ore. — The Portland Bureau of Transportation has begun repair work on a key roadway bridge damaged by a Union Pacific derailment, and Oregon Public Broadcasting reports another lane could be open by Thanksgiving. The North Going Street Bridge — the only route to and from the Swan Island industrial area, which includes United […]
WEST GLACIER, Mont. — A coalition of wildlife groups are threatening to sue BNSF Railway over the death of eight federally protected grizzly bears in the mountains of northwest Montana in 2019, the most killed in a single year. The groups allege that the railroad is not doing enough to protect the animals from being […]
SEATTLE — Sound Transit has launched construction of the $1.53-billion, 3.4-mile extension of its light rail Blue Line, also under construction, to southeast and downtown Redmond, Wash., on the eastside of Lake Washington in the Puget Sound region. The extension, using both ground-level and elevated tracks, will start from Redmond Technology Station, located near Microsoft’s […]
