Author: Douglas John Bowen

LIRR eyes two tracks to Ronkonoma

MTA Long Island Rail Road Wednesday said its oft-delayed plans to increase track capacity on its Ronkonkoma Line is back in play. LIRR hopes to double-track 18 miles of the route between Ronkonkoma and Farmingdale, N.Y.

New technology planned for Alstom Citadis LRVs

Alstom and Williams Hybrid Power Thursday announced they have signed an agreement to apply Williams Hybrid Power’s energy storage technology to Alstom’s Citadis light rail transit (LRT) vehicles by 2014.

Twin Cities LRT helps system ridership increase

Driven by increases on its Hiawatha Line light rail transit option, Metro Transit ridership on both bus and LRT increased 0.2% in 2012, to more than 81 million riders, compared with a year earlier, the Twin Cities agency says.

Invensys lauded for PATH restoration efforts

In testimony before the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Surface Transportation and Merchant Marine Infrastructure, Port Authority of New York & New Jersey (PA) Executive Director Patrick J. Foye praised the work performed by Invensys Rail Corp. to restore PATH bistate rapid transit service, hard hit by Hurricane Sandy.

CN, Indiana Rail Road plan intermodal venture

CN and the Indiana Rail Road Co. on Wednesday announced plans to construct an intermodal terminal in Indianapolis, designed to offer Indiana importers and exporters an all-rail option for containerized products moving to and from Asia.

OSHA: BNSF signs employee practices accord

The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) on Tuesday said it has signed an accord with BNSF Railway Co., noting “BNSF’s voluntary revision of several personnel policies that OSHA alleged violated the whistleblower provisions of the Federal Railroad Safety Act [FRSA] and dissuaded workers from reporting on-the-job injuries.”

Manhattan ESA link seen boosting home values

A report released Monday says home values in parts of Long Island—a region which has suffered, sometimes dramatically, since the Great Recession—will be greatly aided by MTA Long Island Rail Road’s East Side Access (ESA) project, projected now to open in 2019.

Station sites adjusted for Waterloo region LRT

Officials from Ontario’s Waterloo-Kitchener-Cambridge metropolitan area, southwest of Toronto, say at least five station stops of the planned light rail transit system will be placed in the center of roadways and not along roadsides, similar to the approach taken in nearby Toronto.