Caltrain increasing Stadler EMU order
Caltrain is acquiring 37 additional Stadler double-deck EMU cars for the San Francisco – San Jose electrification project.
Breaking News
NJ short line operator expanding with Norfolk Southern lease
A new short line railroad operator has filed to lease track in northern New Jersey from Norfolk Southern as it continues to expand its footprint in the Garden State.
Reading & Northern bolsters senior management
Reading & Northern has selected Chris Goetz to serve as the regional railroad’s vice president, Maintenance of Way, and Erik Yoder as assistant vice president, Real Estate.
NJT: PTC 95%, new comms under way, more multi-levels
New Jersey Transit announced Dec. 5 that Positive Train Control is “95% complete” toward meeting compliance with the Dec. 3, 2018 interim deadline. Concurrently, the agency launched “a new comprehensive communications initiative aimed at improving the customer experience” and announced a procurement for new multi-level railcars.
Tomlin joins Byford at NYCT
Long-time colleagues and fellow Englishmen Andy Byford and Pete Tomlin, who worked together on the London Underground and Toronto Transit Commission, will once again join forces, this time at MTA New York City Transit.
Texas Central trailblazing privately funded HSR
Despite producing more than one-third of U.S. crude oil output, urbanization, rapid economic growth and congestion mean Texans could be getting out of their cars and on to high-speed trains much sooner than most other Americans, if Texas Central Railway’s plan to link Dallas and Houston without one penny of public funding is successful.
BUILD grant to shore up Coos Bay railroad bridges
The Oregon International Port of Coos Bay was awarded a $20 million federal grant to rehabilitate 15 bridges along its Coos Bay Rail Line.
Study: Legal weed could soothe NYC subway funding ills
Don’t bogart that money from legalized marijuana, New York – pass it over to the subway to help pay for the system’s repairs and upgrades.
FRA green-lights PATH PTC
The Federal Railroad Administration has certified a system-wide signals upgrade by the Port Authority Trans Hudson (PATH) transit system as meeting all the requirements for Positive Train Control (PTC). The move comes several weeks before the Dec. 31 federal deadline.
Rail freight sees first decline in months
After a mostly steady climb through this year, rail freight volumes on Class I railroads are on a downgrade, and uncertainty in 2019 is looming like a blind curve in the dark.
Opinion
In Congress, it’s Hail Mary time
In the people’s company town of Washington, D.C., the most popular refrain during lame duck sessions of Congress—the fewer than 60 days between congressional elections and adjournment—is the catchphrase from Mariah Carey’s iconic tune, “All I Want for Christmas Is You.”
Cal Icahn knows rail investing
Financial Edge, December 2018 Railway Age: On Oct. 22, American Railcar Industries Inc. (ARI) announced that it was being acquired by a subsidiary of ITE Rail Fund L.P. (ITE). The acquisition price was $70 per share, for a total purchase price (including debt) of $1.7 billion. That price represented a 51% premium to the previous day’s close (Oct. 19) of $46.29 per share. As ITE is privately held, ARI will become a private company at acquisition.
STB: Nothing’s the something it does best
Watching Washington, December 2018 Railway Age: New leadership arrives at railroad-focused congressional committees in January, and unless Surface Transportation Board (STB) Chairman Ann Begeman ingests breakfast Wheaties and gains courage to produce decisions, Congress may prescribe more than a potent laxative.
Getting the next generation on track
What happens when you retire? I’m sure there are few things on everyone’s minds: that extra free time to look forward to, those hobbies you will now have time for, and all the places to visit. For a company, however, losing long-standing employees to retirement can be a difficult moment. Not only do they lose a valued colleague; a firm loses valuable institutional knowledge, experience and wisdom. The gap that is left behind is tangible and can really hurt business stability and growth.
Mind the widening gap, Amtrak
In its former high-flying days, GE’s business model was praised in most MBA programs for its skills in planned, self-destructive obsolescence to cannibalize its operations; to reinvent itself to always stay ahead of the competition by pushing competitors back on their heels. Today, Sir Richard Branson evidences that business acumen quality sorely lacking at Amtrak between the political appointees indifferent to stewardship on the Board of Directors and the ranks of “cardboard senior and executive management” dutifully towing the party line.