Communities lining Ontario’s North Shore are racing to beat an Aug. 15 deadline to preserve freight rail service on the Huron Central Railway, linking Sault Ste. Marie and Sudbury. A committee formed to implement a rescue plan says any measure would require infrastructure investment by senior levels of the provincial government.

Sault Ste. Marie, Ont.-based Huron Central has said the short line needs more than C$33 million (US$30.3 million) in upgrades to make it feasible. The company, a subsidiary of Greenwich, Conn.-based Genesee & Wyoming Inc., also said it could not continue to operate the line at a loss.

New Democrat Tony Martin, minister of parliament (MP) for Sault Ste. Marie, said, “This rail corridor is vital to all communities in northern Ontario,” adding that Ontario needs “the kind of rail transportation plans that the other provinces have are where the province and Ottawa are directly involved.”

The plan at present requires a “buy-in” from municipalities and rail customers, but Martin insisted the region also needs a commitment from the provincial and federal governments to establish … such a plan.”

But the Ontario Northland General Chairperson's Association believes a better solution, both for the short and long term, is to have Ontario Northland Transportation Commission assume control of the rail line. 

Communities lining Ontario’s North Shore are racing to beat an Aug. 15 deadline to preserve freight rail service on the Huron Central Railway, linking Sault Ste. Marie and Sudbury. A committee formed to implement a rescue plan says any measure would require infrastructure investment by senior levels of the provincial government.

Montana House Bill 422, advanced by those seeking to weigh down short line Tongue River Railroad’s efforts to extend its right-of-way to coal deposits, has stalled. The bill, backed by some state landowners and by environmentalists, seeks to make eminent domain procedures more difficult.

--> Montana House Bill 422, advanced by those seeking to weigh down short line Tongue River Railroad’s efforts to extend its right-of-way to coal deposits, has stalled. The bill, backed by…

The Northeast States for Coordinated Air Use Management (NESCAUM), in partnership with the Providence & Worcester (P&W) Railroad, will install auxiliary power units on 17 locomotives built between 1969 and 1988. Designed to reduce unnecessary idling, the new units will cut  the amount of particulate matter (PM) and nitrogen oxides (NOx) released into the air. Reducing fuel consumption will also reduce carbon dioxide emissions by approximately 1,700 tons per year.

Manhattan’s redesigned and repositioned South Ferry subway station, the recipient of $530million in rehabilitation, will open March 16, New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority says.

The upgraded station, served by the No. 1 (ex-IRT) line, will offer more streamline and sheltered connections with the Staten Island Ferry terminal at Battery Park. It also now will offer free transfers to the R and W lines at nearby Whitehall St. Station.

The new terminus can accommodate 10-car trains, eliminating the need for subway conductors to urge riders to reposition themselves in the first five cars of a train due to platform constraints.

A projected January opening was postponed after contractors and the MTA discovered the gap between the new platforms and train doors were wider than specified by the Americans with Disabilities Act.

The project, part of MTA’s $15 billion capital construction program, originally was expected to cost $490 million.

Gov. David A. Paterson Monday released the 2009 New York State Rail Plan with a "comprehensive strategy forsupporting freight and intercity passenger rail service."