Author: amyr

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Amtrak LogoAmtrak’s CEO says passenger rail service in Southeastern Colorado is more important than some other amenities such as chocolates on the pillows for long-distance travelers.

“Our most essential goal is to ensure Amtrak continues to serve small town America that is being abandoned by airlines and bus companies, and keep communities such as Trinidad and La Junta . . . connected by rail to the rest of the nation,” CEO Joe Boardman said in a news release.

Read the complete story at The Pueblo Chieftain.

oil-train-railST. PAUL – Improved crude oil safety measures should be funded by charging 1 cent per 100 gallons on all crude transported in Minnesota, the state Legislature’s transportation finance chairmen said Wednesday.

“This particular oil is especially volatile and as we have seen through recent catastrophic accidents in North Dakota and Quebec, our communities and neighborhoods are at increased risk,” Rep. Frank Hornstein, D-Minneapolis, said in announcing the initiative on the edge of a St. Paul railyard along with Sen. Scott Dibble, D-Minneapolis.

Read the complete story at InForum.

The United Auto Workers are trying to organize a Volkswagen plant in Tennessee, and opposition is building. But it’s not management fighting the union, it’s Republican politicians.

The Chattanooga factory, which opened in 2011 to build the Passat, employs about 1,550 hourly workers. On Wednesday they begin a three-day vote on whether to join the union.

Read the complete story at CNN Money.

Amtrak LogoWASHINGTON – Amtrak is suspending some trains as a winter storm threatens the South and the Northeast.

Amtrak says the suspensions Wednesday are meant to reduce the exposure of passengers, crews and equipment to extreme weather.

Read the complete story at the Associated Press.

A preliminary feasibility study for a proposed1,600-mile rail link from British Columbia to Alaska will be completed in March, officials with G7G Railway Corp., a Vancouver, B.C-based company, told state legislators in Juneau Jan. 30.

G7G hopes to ship Alberta oil by rail from Fort McMurray, Alberta, to Delta for export through the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System and the Valdez Marine Terminal, said its president, Matt Vickers.

Read the complete story at the Alaska Journal of Commerce.

BOSTON – Homeland Security in Washington DC has awarded the MBTA about $7 million to outfit buses with the latest in live video technology.

Sophisticated new 360-degree lenses embedded in the ceilings and walls of the buses will now capture everything. And on some buses, there will even be flat screens for passengers to see what is going on.

Read the complete story at CBS Boston.

The loser in the battle for a $2.68 billion contract to run Massachusetts commuter rail trains is not going away quietly, vowing that it will appeal to state officials Friday to change their minds.

Executives from the Massachusetts Bay Commuter Railroad Co. said they intend to argue that the newcomer chosen to run the trains, Keolis Commuter Services, failed to provide crucial information to the state during the selection process. Massachusetts Bay, known widely by the acronym MBCR, said it will assert that state transportation officials turned a blind eye to those omissions.

Read the complete story at The Boston Globe.

fontes_boardman_weldon
Amtrak President and CEO Joseph Boardman, center, joins engineer Arthur Fontes, left, and conductor and Vice Local Chairperson Chris Weldon (262) on the platform of Boston’s South Station for the first revenue trip of one of Amtrak’s 70 new electric advanced technology locomotives. Weldon and Fontes were the first crew members out of Boston on the new ACS-64, which will operate on the passenger carrier’s Northeast Corridor.

Amtrak will launch the first of a fleet of new locomotives out of Boston’s South Station on Friday, officials said.

The 70 new locomotives have advanced technology and modern equipment that company officials hope will provide more reliable service.

Read the complete story at the Boston Globe.

Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton on Thursday (Feb. 6) proposed initiatives to enhance railroad safety on the same day that rail workers protested Canadian Pacific’s safety practices by picketing its U.S. headquarters in Minneapolis.
The governor announced through his press secretary that he will urge legislative leaders to hold hearings on the United Transportation Union’s reports of deteriorating safety conditions at Canadian Pacific – allegations the company flatly denied.
Read the complete story at the Star Tribune.

union_pacific_logoUnion Pacific Corp. named Lance M. Fritz as president and chief operating officer of its Omaha-based railroad Thursday and said Jim Young has retired from his executive duties.

Young took a leave of absence in March 2012 to undergo treatments for pancreatic cancer. Union Pacific said he retired Jan. 31 but will continue as non-executive chairman of the parent corporation. He had been president, chairman and chief executive officer of Union Pacific since 2007.

Read the complete story at the Omaha World Herald.