The TriMet (Portland, Ore.) Southwest Corridor Light Rail project steering committee has voted unanimously in favor of the routing option that will place the new extension on Southwest Barbur Boulevard rather than Naito Parkway.
The Conference of Minority Transportation Officials (COMTO) has elected WSP USA Vice President Community Relations and Diversity, Transportation and Infrastructure–Central Region Tanya Adams to its national board of directors. COMTO also recognized Adams’ contributions to diversity and the industry with the “President’s Excellence” award. She was previously honored as COMTO’s 2016 Corporate Executive of the Year.
An agreement on a project to improve commuter rail service on an historic route between Indiana and Chicago will have a follow-on economic benefit for a short line freight carrier, too.
FreightCar America, Inc. has named Dan Wallace as Vice President and General Manager, Leasing.
Houston, Tex.-based Stewart & Stevenson Manufacturing Technologies, a Kirby Corp. company, has entered into an agreement with Eastern Lift Truck Co., Inc. of Maple Shade, N.J. naming Eastern Lift as the sole authorized dealership to market, sell and service Rail King® railcar movers within the Mid-Atlantic region.
Railway supply industry veteran Bruce Wise has joined Georgetown Rail Equipment Company (GREX) as Director of Business Development. Wise “will focus on strategic accounts and new products as GREX continues to develop innovative track inspection and maintenance technologies for the rail industry,” the company said.
The American Public Transportation Association (APTA) provided a second-quarter 2018 update to progress the commuter rail industry has made toward implementing Positive Train Control (PTC).
Dan Elliott, who served as Chairman of the Surface Transportation Board from 2009 to 2017 and is now with Washington D.C. law firm Conner & Winters, is hosting the inaugural Railroads + Shippers = Solutions conference on Oct. 3 in Washington, D.C.
Union Pacific on Aug. 15 said it is “shifting its network planning and operations function to better align with its strategic vision” and has made four executive management appointments, as Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Cameron Scott relinquishes his post and moves toward a Feb 28, 2019 retirement. (He will serve as a vice president until then.)
Walead Atiyeh has joined HNTB Corp.’s national rail systems group as project manager. He is based in the firm’s Santa Ana office and currently supports the Crenshaw/LAX Transit Project for the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority.
It’s going to take a while for New Jersey Transit to dig itself out of the oversize trench that oversize-ego, oversize-mouthed “Bridgegate” Chris Christie gleefully dug for it during his eight interminably long, interminably loud and intrinsically corrupt years as governor of the Garden State. Meanwhile, NJT customers are enduring the effects of Christie’s transportation starvation diet—a locomotive engineer shortage, cancelled commuter trains, and a PTC implementation program that’s behind schedule.
Why don’t the railroads have comprehensive medical fitness-for-duty standards? Why does this persist, in spite of several train collisions and derailments attributed to medical issues like untreated obstructive sleep apnea (OSA)? This analysis of those questions considers the in-terests and relationships among the three primary interested parties: railroad management, railroad labor and the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA), the regulator.
If ever there were a human equivalent to liver and onions—hated or loved, but no in-between—it was the late Ewing Hunter Harrison III, a chief executive of four major North American railroads, personally synonymous with the term “Precision Scheduled Railroading,” and whose mention invokes often disquieting debate on theories of management and how best to deliver shareholder value in the short- and long-term.
You know what? I kind of like National Transportation Safety Board member Earl F. Weener, who has been an NTSB member since 2010.
I thought I’d chance watching the video recording of NTSB’s July 10-11, 2018 Investigative Hearing: Managing Safety on Passenger Railroads.
