Virginia’s Commonwealth Transportation Board (CTB) recently approved a Rail Industrial Access Grant for Norfolk Terminal LP, and adopted the framework to advance the state’s Transit Ridership Incentive Program (TRIP).
The Chicago (Ill.) Department of Transportation (CDOT) has released a strategic transportation plan that it’s calling “the nation’s first” urban plan developed in the wake of the pandemic, economic and racial justice crises of 2020. Also, the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) is now accepting applications for its Outstanding Achievement Award for Excellence in Environmental Document Preparation.
Anshooman Aga will take over as Harsco Corp. Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer on Aug. 16, succeeding Peter Minan; he becomes a member of the Harsco Executive Leadership Team.
Trinity Industries, Inc., is “very pleased to build on the momentum growing in our business as railcar demand and the overall U.S. economy continue to recover,” President and CEO Jean Savage said during a second-quarter 2021 earnings announcement on July 22.
Total U.S. weekly rail traffic for the week ending July 17, 2021, reached 513,255 carloads and intermodal units, a 6.6% boost from the prior-year period, according to a July 21 Association of American Railroads (AAR) report.
I spent about a half-decade of my railway career working with several intermodal freight logistics luminaries: Marvin Manheim of Northwestern University’s Transportation Center, Penn State Professor of Logistics Kant Rao and Bryan Stone of Intercontainer, with contributions from Rick Hill and Dick Andino, pioneers of ship-to-rail intermodal at APL. These folks and others helped shape my view of moving containers along complex links and nodes among different modes and terminals.
Alstom will receive a $3.4 million federal grant to expand its Hornell, N.Y., manufacturing facility. In addition, Grignard Pure LLC’s antimicrobial air treatment solution has received EPA approval for use in intrastate transit and transportation applications, and Nexxiot has teamed with TransRail Innovation Group (TRIG) to provide freight car monitoring.
Cargo owners, terminal operators, railroads and truckers can now gauge the movement of containers—imports, exports and empties—at the Port of Los Angeles up to six months in advance.
The House Appropriations Committee on July 16 approved the Fiscal Year 2022 Transportation, and Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies (THUD) funding bill of $84.1 billion, a more than 11% boost over 2021.
We hosted our second call with a noted transportation attorney to discuss the Executive Order signed by President Biden on July 9. It appears to be much more measured than early reporting initially indicated. The tone surrounding the railroads implied recognized independence of the Surface Transportation Board, and is likely in line with the thinking of the Marty Oberman-led organization. Longer term, we will monitor bottleneck implications.
