The American Public Transportation Association said Monday Americans took 10.4 billion trips on public transportation (bus and rail) in 2011, the second-highest annual figure since 1957. “Only ridership in 2008, when gas rose to more than $4 a gallon, surpassed last year’s ridership,” APTA said.
U.S. travelers may be hard-pressed to incorporate high speed rail into their domestic travels, but apparently have few problems adding Eurostar as a component for their itineraries abroad. Eurostar said Monday U.S. passenger numbers rose 21% during 2011, contributing to an unaudited net profit of 20.8 million euros ($27 million) during the entity's first year as a standalone company.
Beleaguered by low ridership and an oft-criticized marketing effort, a public-private train for gamblers linking New York and Atlantic City was permanently canceled Friday.
Fairport, N.Y. based RailComm said Thursday it has provided a wireless remote control derail system at Amtrak's Maintenance Facility in Hialeah, Fla., outside Miami.
Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-Ohio) on Thursday suggested the House majority might consider the Senate version of a surface transportation bill, following the collapse of support (even among many Republicans) for the $260 billion House version.
U.S. freight carload traffic fell significantly for the week ending March 3, 2012, down 6.2%, measured against the comparable week in 2011, the Association of American Railroads said Thursday. Offsetting that decline, U.S. intermodal volume rose 6.0% for the same week compared with last year.
American negativists need to get out more, maybe. Too many people still bemoan the lack of can-do spirit, the absence of competitiveness, evil East Coast elitism, and listless Beltway bungling as signs of national decline. An election year can layer even more cynicism, a darker patina, on any picture. Woe be to us optimists who dare peer a bit deeper into the gloom, and find all is not as gloomy as one might suspect.
The Port of Stockton, Calif., said late Tuesday that, in a public-private partnership with Union Pacific Railroad and Metropolitan Stevedore Co., it has completed a project to add 5,828 feet of track to the East Port interchange Tracks.
Railway Age magazine has named Vermont Railway the 2012 Short Line Railroad of the Year, and the Indiana Rail Road Co. its 2012 Regional Railroad of the Year. The awards will be presented at the American Short Line and Regional Railroad Association's annual meeting in Indianapolis, Ind., Tuesday evening, April 24, 2012.
In a remarkable and continuing visible display of modal political strife, Toronto's City Council Monday removed five allies of Mayor Rob Ford from the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC), replacing them with new members likely to vote to reinstate a rail capital program largely driven by light rail transit.