Railway Market

CN will upgrade U.S. dispatching centers

Digital Concepts is supplying its Digital Traffic Control System™ to Canadian National's U.S. operations centers in Homewood, Ill., and Troy, Mich. The system will manage approximately 3,500 miles of CTC (centralized traffic control) and TWC (track warrant control) territory on the Illinois Central and Grand Trunk Western portions of CN's North American network. The area controlled will include IC lines between Chicago and New Orleans, GTW lines between Chicago and Port Huron, Mich., and former Chicago, Central & Pacific lines between Chicago and Sioux City, Iowa. The system includes 10 Dispatcher Workstations, 11 Management/Review Workstations, a Test/Training network, and DigiCon's TCoDE (Track Configuration and Database Editor) technology. Terms of the contract were not disclosed.

Equipment

Greenbrier Companies, Inc.: Announced new orders for 2,700 freight cars, primarily for intermodal service, valued at $110 million.

Houston MTA: Awarded a $117-million contract for 15 articulated LRVs and systems components, including traction power, to Siemens Transportation Systems, Inc. MTA also awarded construction contracts totaling $114.7 million following groundbreaking March 15 for a 7.5-mile starter line. A legal challenge had held up these actions.

MTA Long Island Rail Road: Awarded a contract to Union Switch & Signal for 92 sets of the MICROCAB® automatic train control system for installation on the railroad's M3 vehicles.

Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority: Has negotiated a reduced price for future LRV orders with KinkiSharyo, which is now delivering 30 units at a cost of $2.9 million each. The price per car was cut by $301,000 in exchange for an increase in the contract option from 20 cars to 70. VTA plans to sell its 50 UTDC-built LRVs as it converts to an all-low-floor fleet.

Facilities

New Jersey Transit: Awarded $11.6 million in design, engineering, and construction contracts for MOS-1 (Minimum Operable Segment 1) of the $207.7 million Newark-Elizabeth Rail Link. The joint venture of Frederic R. Harris, Inc., and STV, Inc., was awarded a $6 million extension to an existing contract for construction management, bringing their total to $7.2 million. The joint venture of BRW, Inc., and Parsons Brinckerhoff was awarded a $4.8 million extension for design support and construction assistance, bringing their total to $13 million. Underground Utilities Corp., Linden, N.J., was awarded a $785,000 contract for water and sewer relocations.

TransLink (Vancouver, B.C.): Awarded an $18 million contract to Cubic Transportation Systems for 160 touchscreen-enabled ticket vending machines.