Amtrak recently announced that Dennis Newman has been appointed Executive Vice President, Planning & Strategy, and he will be “responsible for corporate planning and strategy, schedule and consist planning, Amtrak’s services and host railroad groups, and the company’s participation in the Gateway Program.”
The Railway Supply Institute (RSI) announced April 23 that it is soliciting nominations for executives from member companies to fill three spots on its board of directors for a term beginning in January 2020.
Virgin Trains USA (formerly Brightline) has closed on $1.75 billion in private activity bonds (PABs) underwritten by Morgan Stanley and purchased by 67 different investors to help fund the company’s expansion from West Palm Beach, on the Florida East Coast Railway, to Orlando. Virgin described the closing as “one of the largest PAB transactions to date.”
As the San Diego Metropolitan Transit System (MTS) gets set to roll out the next generation of light rail vehicles (LRVs) for service on the UC San Diego Blue Line on April 20, MTS officials recently unveiled the first car of the new LRV series during a “Trolley Open House.”
STV, Inc. has elevated Senior Director Corporate Communications Jill Bonamusa to vice president.
Continuing on the heels of last week’s trend, three of the 10 carload commodity groups posted a year-over-year increase—and total carloads were slightly up—but all other traffic declined, according to figures released on April 17 by the Association of American Railroads (AAR) for the week ended April 13.
A. Stucki Company has named Sagar Sumant as Global Director of SAP (Systems, Applications and Products) to lead the company’s new SAP Global Center of Excellence.
RAILWAY AGE, APRIL 2019 ISSUE – On the West Coast, California is doing something different in Transit-Oriented Development.
LEGISLATIVE REPORT, APRIL 2019 – Knock, knock. Who’s there? If at the door are those laboring in official Washington, the answer is, “many new faces”—new congressional committee chairs, regulators, association chiefs, lobbyists and labor negotiators. Does not danger dwell where unfamiliarity and uncertainty lurk?
The Louisville & Indiana Railroad (LIRC) and the Rapid City Pierre & Eastern accepted Railway Age’s annual Short Line & Regional Railroads of the Year Awards at the American Short Line and Regional Railroad Association (ASLRRA) CONNECTIONS Convention in Orlando, Fla., on April 9.
Much is being made in the railroad industry and transportation media about the Precision Scheduled Railroading (PSR) wildfire sweeping from coast to coast. Proponents of PSR will tell you that it will prove to be the industry’s savior. But it also begs the following question: Just what does the industry need to be saved from?
Advancements in the logistics industry over the past ten years have been vast, especially in over-the-road shipping modes with shippers utilizing 3PLs at record levels for domestic transportation management. The move toward partnering with logistics service providers has allowed shippers to use the power of modern technology to increase visibility and track product movements throughout their supply chains with greater efficiency than ever before. Unfortunately, rail has not seen advancement at the same pace, leaving shippers with the perception that rail carriers are behind the times.
What’s the Good News? At least one large Class I freight railroad has finally codified some meaningful fatigue countermeasure provisions with its train operating employees, in an actual written agreement. And, yes, that is Good News, although it has been very slow in coming.
Amtrak CEO Richard Anderson and his chief deputy, Stephen Gardner, have proposed eliminating the company’s interregional trains in favor of a scattering of discontiguous, higher frequency short corridors connecting nearby city pairs. But this reflects a deep misapprehension of the performance of the company’s three primary business groups, and a surprising emphasis on minimizing the returns on investment of the company’s capital resources.
The original Access to the Region’s Core (ARC) Project started with a semblance of consensus but ended its 15-year life in controversy. Its replacement, Gateway, was proposed in February 2011, and has been surrounded by controversy for the entire eight years of its life, so far. The politicians and planners who are pushing the program consider it inevitable, just as they considered the now-defunct ARC Project inevitable almost until the day it was killed in 2010.
