Search Results for: norfolk southern

Jurisdictional Jumble

RAILWAY AGE, AUGUST 2023 ISSUE: WMATA operates under an overly complicated structure that intertwines it with politics far more than other transit providers. Fifty years ago, the streets of Washington, D.C. were

Forget H.R. 25, the Fair Tax Act. 45G Is What Counts

FINANCIAL EDGE, RAILWAY AGE, MARCH 2023 ISSUE: Oftentimes, “Financial Edge” gets an earful from readers—sometimes congratulatory like a Home Depotesque slogan: “You nailed it.” Other times there’s criticism, like being too much in the railroads’ pockets in supporting the industry’s safety record.

NCRR Offers ‘Build Ready Sites’

The North Carolina Railroad Co. (NCRR) has partnered with the state’s economic development community and railroads to offer “Build Ready Sites” that, among other initiatives “drive increased job creation, freight rail use and economic growth.”

Gulf Coast Battle, Rounds 7-8

The slugfest between Amtrak on one side and CSX, NS, and the Port of Mobile on the other, has been long. It has lasted for ten full days plus an afternoon so far, and reached its originally scheduled conclusion on Thursday, May 11. That was the half-day, following the morning appearance of Chair Martin J. Oberman and other members of the Surface Transportation Board (STB) before the House Transportation & Infrastructure (T&I) Committee.

Round 2 Over, Round 3 Under Way

The clock has run down on Round 2, and, as you read this, Round 3 at the Surface Transportation Board is in progress. This battle may decide railroad supremacy, at least on the passenger side, for the next decade and more.

Rail Freight: What’s in the Crystal Ball?

This column is focused on the U.S. rail freight economy, starting with the near term, 2022 into 2023, followed by an overview toward 2030. Near the beginning of the year this outlook task may be a fool’s errand.

Rail Transit and COVID-19, One Year Later

Friday the Thirteenth of March 2020 left its mark on millions of Americans as the last “normal” day that they might ever have. On that day and over the following weekend, states and localities ordered shut-downs of “non-essential” businesses and jobs. Many of the workers who still had a job started to work remotely from home, and a lot of them continue doing that. Transit ridership and revenue plummeted, as managers scrambled to save money by cutting service. It has begun to recover in some places, but will some of the changes become permanent?

Update: Amtrak in the Age of COVID-19

Since COVID-19 disrupted much of the world in March, Railway Age has followed developments, documenting transit’s decline in the spring and its slow recovery in October. Recent reports from Boston, New York, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., indicate that the slow recovery may soon wither and become a transit holocaust. What about intercity rail service?

  • M/W

Ties That Bind

RAILWAY AGE, MARCH 2020 ISSUE: Transferring loads to track ballast and subgrade and helping maintain track geometry and gauge, crossties are the foundation of a railroad.

Commentary

Two Tickets to Pittsburgh—And Back

How can the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania be freed from Amtrak’s abusive monopoly on intercity passenger rail service? This editorial is based on my Dec. 17, 2019 testimony before the Pennsylvania House of Representatives Transportation Committee, during which I spoke about creating viable rail passenger opportunities for Western Pennsylvania and the Philadelphia-Harrisburg corridor that could serve as a template for other states currently paying for Amtrak service under the bizarre federal legislation called PRIIA.

Commentary

AAR Luminary Dick Briggs Dead at 80

Richard Everett (Dick) Briggs, perhaps the most outsized personality in a railroad industry historically chock-a-block with outsized personalities, died Dec. 6, barely three weeks shy of his 81st birthday. He retired as Executive Vice President from the Association of American Railroads (AAR) in 1995.

Observations From NEARS Fall Conference: Cowen

After attending the North East Association of Rail Shippers (NEARS) Fall Conference in Burlington, Vt., Cowen and Company Managing Director and Railway Age Wall Street Contributing Editor Jason Seidl “came away with the view that while economic growth is sluggish, most do not expect a full-blown recession. In addition, several railroad executives admitted that the rails need to do a better job marketing to and servicing their customers. It was clear that Class I’s, short lines, and shippers need to do a better job of working together if rail wants to take share from the trucking space in the future.”

Commentary

Fix Amtrak? Fix its Board first

Apparently, only as a fortunate consequence of the partial federal government shutdown, the U.S. Senate returned to the Administration its three proposed appointees to Amtrak’s Board of Directors. Rather than an outright rejection, a fair question would be: Does the U.S. Senate operate in such a bubble that it acts like the House of Romanov that everything is fine with Amtrak? Is the Senate in such bi-partisan denial that it does not see Amtrak as a failing State-Owned Enterprise (SOE)?

  • PTC

Positive (steam) Train Control

The Emery Rail Heritage Trust has awarded $60,000 in grants to Friends of the 261 and the Fort Wayne Railroad Historical Society (FWRHS) to fund Positive Train Control (PTC) on two historic steam locomotives: Milwaukee Road 261 and Nickel Plate Road 765. Each organization will receive $30,000 to launch individual fundraising efforts to cover the estimated $120,000 cost per locomotive for PTC implementation.

Commentary

AAR to Trump Administration: “Proceed with caution”

I have stressed many times in this blog, and in my monthly magazine columns—at times in harsh terms that may have offended some people who, for reasons I can’t quite figure out, took my remarks personally—that the Trump Administration’s extremely nationalistic ideology, if it morphs into law, will critically injure the railroads and the railroad supply community.

2015 PASSENGER RAIL GUIDE

Railway Age’s roundup of significant North American projects in all modes of passenger rail—regional/commuter, rapid transit, light rail, intercity and high/higher-speed.