Watco

Trinity, NS, GATX, G&W, Watco Form RailPulse JV

Five major rail industry companies—Trinity Industries, Norfolk Southern, GATX, Genesee & Wyoming and Watco Cos.—have entered into a joint venture called RailPulse that is “expected to accelerate rail modal transformation through the advancement of GPS technology and other telematics across the North American railcar fleet.”

The Rail Pulse platform will help shippers, car owners/lessors and railroads better manage consists, incidents and maintenance.

Monitoring North America’s Rail Pulse

Norfolk Southern, Genesee & Wyoming, Watco Companies, GATX Corp. and TrinityRail are developing a telematics platform for railcars to provide real-time car location and condition/health monitoring data. Called “Rail Pulse,” it will help shippers, car owners/lessors and railroads better manage consists, incidents and maintenance. Rollout is expected by year-end 2022.

Through the Rail-Ready Sites program, OmniTRAX and Tiffin-Seneca Economic Partnership are marketing three initial sites to shippers along the Northern Ohio & Western Railway (NOW).

Small Road News: OmniTRAX, Watco, Anacostia Launch Growth Initiatives

Denver-based OmniTRAX is linking rail-served properties along its 25-mile Northern Ohio & Western Railway (NOW) with customers interested in locating there, in coordination with the Tiffin-Seneca Economic Partnership, which serves the counties of Tiffin and Seneca, Ohio. Additionally, Watco Companies, LLC, will lease and operate a line from CN subsidiary Wisconsin Central Ltd. in Illinois. Previously known as the Phoenix Line, Watco’s new subsidiary is now called the Elwood Joliet & Southern Railroad (EJSR). The Jeffersonville RiverRail Terminal in Indiana is set to open early next year, to be served by Louisville & Indiana Railroad (LIRC), an Anacostia Rail Holdings Co. subsidiary, and American Commercial Barge Line.

Staggers Act Lessons Remain Relevant in 2020

ASLRRA PERSPECTIVE, RAILWAY AGE OCTOBER 2020 ISSUE: This month marks the 40th anniversary of the passage of the 1980 Staggers Rail Act. It is an anniversary well worth emphasizing to the growing number of people who were not then in the industry and have little connection to that history. This landmark legislation literally saved the nation’s railroads from near total collapse. By the mid-1970s, many Class I railroads were in or near bankruptcy. Deferred maintenance was growing exponentially, and the “standing derailment” phenomenon had come to symbolize the sad state of the industry.

LOAD MORE