Britain’s Department of Transport announced Thursday that it has selected Agility Trains, a British-led group that includes Hitachi of Japan, as the preferred bidder for a $10.7 billion contract to build and maintain a fleet of new Super Express trains for the Great Western and East Coast main lines. John Laing and Barclays are also members of the winning consortium.
House Democrats Thursday demanded time to review the $789 billion economic stimulus bill crafted by congressional conference committee, but most political analysts still expected both the House of Representatives and theSenate to approve the measure. Should the package hold until President Obama signs it into law, freight and passenger railroads could benefit significantly.
Railway Age is collecting entries for its annual ShortLine/Regional Railroad of the Year competition, but applicants still have time to enter. Short lines and regionals—and there are more than 500 of them—are invited to submit entries describing outstanding achievement in one or acombination of areas. The entry deadline is Friday, Feb. 27, 2009.
Freight traffic on U.S. railroads during the week ended February 7 was off again in comparison with last year, although “up slightly” from the previous week ending Jan. 31, according to the Association of American Railroads. Total volume of 28.2 billion ton-miles was 15.1% lower than the comparable week in 2008.
H.R. 1, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, contains billions of investment dollars for rail projects, passenger and freight.
Calgary, Alberta’s C-Train light rail service, which opened in 1981, officially recorded its 1 billionth passenger Wednesday, as officials also noted the system now carries 280,000 riders per weekday.
One week is left for nominations to be submitted for Railway Age’s annual Short Line/Regional Railroad of the Year competition.
Balfour Beatty Rail, Inc.’s Transit division says it has successfully negotiated the first two work orders in its systems on-call services contract with the Denver Regional Transportation District (RTD), with a combined value in excess of $16 million. Both work orders have a completion date of Oct. 31, 2010.
10East Corp. says Montana Rail Link, Inc. has chosen to use the RailDOCS™ Preventive Maintenance Management System (PMMS) in support of preventive maintenance and government compliance activities in its signal department.
Add Phoenix to the growing list of cities with a successful light rail launch. The 20-mile LRT line, which debuted late last December, averaged 30,600 riders per weekday, significantly above the 26,000 boardings per weekday anticipated by Metro.