Seattle’s Sound Transit has awarded a multi-year, $24 million contract for rail grinding, polishing and engineering inspection services to Advanced Rail Management Corp. (ARM). The contract includes corrugation measurement and track geometry, ultrasonic and eddy current testing as part of the inspection and quality assurance requirements.
RAILWAY AGE, NOVEMBER 2020 ISSUE: Cindy Sanborn, a seasoned railroader who Norfolk Southern Chairman, President and CEO Jim Squires described as “one of the freight rail industry’s leading operations experts,” became the railroad’s Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer on Sept. 1, 2020. Mike Wheeler, Sanborn’s predecessor, retired on Oct. 1, 2020, after a 35-year career at the railroad.
The Federal Railroad Administration has published its Final Rule revising regulations governing minimum safety requirements for railroad track.
Plasser American says “a new era has begun” with signing of a contract to increase manufacturing capacities at its headquarters in Chesapeake, Va. The expansion, the company says, is its “commitment to the Chesapeake facility and products ‘Made in USA,’ as a big family and part of the railroad system” and that “shows our longstanding regional footprint.”
Focused Technology Solutions —a Marmon/Berkshire Hathaway Company—is releasing their third battery-operated product to the rail market; the LagEase battery-operated lag inserter.
Few will forget that horrific day, July 6, 2013, when a crewless, runaway Montreal, Maine & Atlantic crude oil train with five locomotives and 75 loaded DOT-111 tank cars carrying volatile Bakken crude rolled into Lac-Mégantic, Quebec and derailed. The resulting fireballs and explosions (contrary to popular belief, the derailed cars did not explode; their contents ignited after the tanks had been breached) killed 47 people, and a large section of the downtown area was destroyed. The tragedy’s aftermath, as well as accidents involving other CBR trains in the U.S. and Canada, led to a long regulatory process resulting in the stronger DOT 117 tank car as well as several changes to CBR operating regulations.
Canadian Pacific (CP) reported a record-setting month in the movement of Canadian grain and grain products. In April, CP moved a best-ever monthly total of 2.8 million metric tonnes (MMT) to market, bettering the previous record set in November 2019 by more than 100,000 metric tonnes (MT).
Union Pacific is furloughing the majority of workers at its Jenks Locomotive Facility in North Little Rock, Ark., and temporarily closing the facility. These actions are directly related to the drop in business brought about by the coronavirus pandemic.
After the derailment of several trains hauling hazardous materials, namely crude oil, Transport Canada has issued new orders around the speed of these trains, which are now classified as “key trains” and “higher-risk key trains.”
Most of us are aware of the heroic and dedicated work performed around the clock by health care workers and first responders in the daily battle against the coronavirus, which has had its grip on our planet for the past several months. Moreover, many have likely seen various tributes to these front-line workers in the form of neighborhoods around the world singing, playing music, banging pots and pans, and making noise to honor these professionals. The FDNY has even assembled fire trucks at various hospitals and medical centers with emergency lights flashing and sirens blaring.