More Tuesday morning rail news:
— The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority has awarded a $159 million contract for two new stations and other work related to its South Coast Rail project, which will extend the existing Middleborough/Lakeville commuter line and create lines to Fall River and New Bedford. Boston.com reports the contract, to Skanska DW White JV for stations in Freetown and Fall River, is part of Phase 1 of the project, which is to be complete by fall 2023 at a cost of $1.047 billion. Up next for bids is a $400 million contract to build four new stations, a layover facility, and 24 miles of track.
— BNSF Railway will cut 95 jobs in Nebraska — 83 in Alliance and 12 in Lincoln — because of “our customers’ changing business conditions and projected lower demand for rail cars to ship commodities,” a spokesman told the Lincoln Journal-Star. The cuts are part of more than 300 jobs being eliminated in seven states [see “BNSF closing two facilities in Wyoming, cutting 122 jobs,” News Wire Digest, May 7]; other previously reported cuts have been in Montana, North Dakota, and Kansas.
— San Juan County, N.M., commissioners have voted to apply for a federal grant to help plan a freight rail line which would connect the county to BNSF Railway’s southern Transcon line paralleling Interstate 40 via the Navajo Nation. The Cortez Journal reports the county and Navajo Nation signed a memorandum of understanding to pursue construction of the possible rail line, with hopes it would diversify the area’s economy and attract new manufacturing. No specific route has been determined. The county is seeking $2 million from the U.S. Department of Transportation’s BUILD (Better Utilizing Investments to Leverage Development) program.
