The Short Line Safety Institute (SLSI) can expand its freight railroad Safety Culture Assessments (SCA) to another industry sector: commuter rail. A recent study shows that its multimethod assessment process, which has been conducted across 90 short lines to date, is transferable.
RAILWAY AGE, SEPTEMBER 2020 ISSUE: Whether it’s the track structure or the equipment that operates on it, there are many things that the naked eye cannot readily see. Increasingly, machine vision technology is becoming the best way to identify potential flaws before they lead to failures.
Despite the dramatic nature of railroad accidents, conveying goods and passengers by rail is the safest form of ground transportation when compared to other modes. Railway owner-operators are continually finding and implementing new safety innovations that could help prevent accidents and disruptions to service.
OmniTRAX, Inc., an affiliate of The Broe Group, will connect rail-served properties along its 222-mile Georgia & Florida Railway (GFRR) with customers interested in locating there through its Rail-Ready Sites program.
New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) Chairman and CEO Patrick J. Foye sent warning letters to MTA’s 11 largest suppliers on Sept. 17. “The COVID-19 pandemic has exacted a horrific toll in human, social and economic terms across the nation,” he noted in the letters. “I am writing to alert you that because of this financial devastation, many current and all future contracts are in jeopardy without an injection of $12 billion in emergency federal aid.”
Denver’s Regional Transit District (RTD) will open the first 13 miles of N Line (North Metro Rail Line) commuter rail service Sept. 21. The electrified line links Denver’s Union Station with Commerce City, Thornton and Northglenn, and includes six new stations.
PART 1, THE CASE FOR SYSTEM SAFETY: Industry 4.0 (also known as the Fourth Industrial Revolution) is a reality. Railroads, including their partners in the transportation supply chain, are at the beginning of their journey to establishing true end-to-end digital continuity. For example, Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT): Positive Train Control and Enhanced Train Control; automation: autonomous inspection; AI-based automation: expanding autonomous inspection to include predictive analytics for track data. How do we know that these solutions and systems are safe and that there are no lurking issues? How do we know that the integration of multiple components from vendors, partners, and even from within meet safety objectives? How do we know if safety integrity is preserved after a change is made? How do we shift the paradigm where safety moves from a cost center to a value-added business driver? In Part I, we make the case for system safety as the necessary discipline for railroads to embed as they move forward in innovating and advancing in the 21st century.
New Jersey Transit (NJ Transit) is the first public transportation agency in the nation to be awarded ISO/IEC 27001:2013 certification for its corporate and customer data security efforts.
Amtrak has built a more disciplined process to plan and coordinate major track outages, including those along the Northeast Corridor, but more steps could be taken to reduce service disruptions and maximize the amount of time it has access to tracks, Amtrak’s Office of Inspector General found in a report released Sept. 16.
Midwest & Bluegrass Rail, LLC (MBRAIL) has acquired Camp Chase Railway (Ohio), Chesapeake & Indiana Railroad (Indiana), Vermilion Valley Railroad (Illinois), and Youngstown & Southeastern Railroad (Ohio and Pennsylvania) from Indiana Boxcar Corp. They are the first small roads for MBRAIL, which formed in 2019 with the mission of “creating a full-service rail company.” The company has offices in Kansas City, Mo., and Lexington, Ky. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
