For the week ending Sept. 26, 2020, total U.S. weekly rail traffic was 518,290 carloads and intermodal units, down 2.1% compared with the same week last year. Total carloads for the week, at 224,146 carloads and down 10.5% compared with the same week in 2019, were offset by U.S. weekly intermodal volume, at 294,144 containers and trailers, up 5.5% compared to 2019.
Class II Reading & Northern Railroad (RBMN) has named Eric Peters as Vice President Transportation and Safety. Reporting to Executive Vice President Operations Tyler Glass, Peters will succeed Thomas Cook, who retires later this year.
Canadian Pacific inaugurated its Holiday Train in 1999, and every year since it has traveled across Canada and the northern U.S., raising money, collecting food and drawing attention to the important work of local food banks. In its first 21 years, the train raised $17.8 million and collected 4.8 million pounds of food for local food banks in communities along CP’s network. This year, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, CP won’t operate the Holiday Train, but it will instead donate to food banks and host a virtual concert.
CN Police Constable André LeBreux is the recipient of Operation Lifesaver Canada’s 2019 Roger Cyr Award, which is presented annually to an OL Rail Safety Ambassador “who goes above and beyond in promoting rail safety.”
Navis Rail (formerly Biarri Rail) on Oct. 7 will present a webinar, “Leveraging Advanced Planning Tools to Determine Optimal Asset Acquisition Strategies,” focused on reducing operational rolling stock requirements and future capital acquisitions.
Dennis H. “Denny” Miller, Vice Chairman of Railroad Development Corp. (RDC) affiliate Iowa Interstate Railroad (IAIS), will retire effective Sept. 30, 2020, after a 47-year railroading career. Miller held various positions within IAIS, among them Vice President Customer Services, VP Operations, Executive VP-CEO, President, and most recently Vice Chairman. He also served on several committees with the American Short Line and Regional Railroad Association (ASLRRA) and was a 15-year board member with the Association of American Railroads (AAR).
Bay Area Rapid Transit District (BART) has awarded Parsons Corp. a $45 million engineering services contract for the agency’s Train Control Modernization Project to implement CBTC (communications-based train control). CBTC is part of BART’s $3.5 billion Transbay Corridor Core Capacity Program, which includes five new traction power substations, 306 new rail vehicles and development of a maintenance complex.
Intermodal gains mostly offset carload declines for U.S. and North American freight rail traffic for the week ending Sept. 19, 2020, reducing the weekly decline to less than 2%, the Association of American Railroads (AAR) reported on Sept. 23. Traffic for the year’s first 38 weeks was still down significantly compared to 2019, however.
In the two weeks following Cowen and Company’s mid-September Transportation and Sustainable Mobility Conference, analyst Matt Elkott, with input from colleagues Adam Kramer and Jason Seidl (Managing Director and Railway Age Wall Street Contributing Editor), noted that railcar inquiries “have ticked up. While translation into orders may not yet be commensurate with inquiries due to election and pandemic uncertainty, there appears to be an improvement in underlying demand” that should carry forward into a recovery in 2021.
New green, yellow and red color-coded icons on New Jersey Transit’s mobile app indicate, respectively, light, medium and heavy ridership conditions on the agency’s trains and buses. NJT said it has launched this new feature in a pilot program “that allows rail and bus customers to see how full their ride is before they step on board, making a better-informed personal decision that optimizes their comfort level as they return to the system.”