FORT WORTH, TEXAS, MARCH 20, 2018: In nine weeks’ time, the GE Manufacturing Solutions (GEMS) one-million-square-foot, 71-acre, 500-employee facility in Fort Worth, Tex., part of the GE Transportation supply chain, can take an aging locomotive and, through a modernization program, upgrade it to state-of-the-art technology.
Characterizing progress on Positive Train Control as “uneven,” Federal Railroad Administrator Ron Batory pledged that the agency he now officially leads “is taking a proactive approach to ensure railroads acquire, install, test and fully implement certified PTC systems in time to meet the congressional interim deadline of Dec. 31, 2018.”
The Surface Transportation Board is making staff available for “informal meetings with interested persons to discuss and gather feedback on the adequacy of the Board’s current regulations regarding emergency service and service inadequacies.”
Genesee & Wyoming Inc. Chairman, President and CEO John C. “Jack” Hellmann, the 55th recipient of Railway Age’s Railroader of the Year Award, was honored on March 13 at the traditional annual dinner of the Western Railway Club at the Union League Club of Chicago.
Canadian Pacific Railway has selected Thermo King SLXi-DRC refrigeration units for a large purchase of DRCs (domestic refrigerated containers). CP is the first Thermo King customer to purchase the SLXi-DRC unit in North America.
Shanxi Jingshen Railway Company Ltd., China, has awarded Pandrol a contract for FASTCLIP FC-16 fastening systems for a major national infrastructure project.
At the Rail Equipment Finance 2018 conference in early March, a session on autonomous trucking with Cowen and Company analysts Matt Elkott, Jeff Osborne and Matthew Frankel, moderated by Railway Age Editor-in-Chief William C. Vantuono, examined the implications for railroads—both real and perceived—of this emerging transportation technology.
Cowen and Company analysts Matt Elkott and Matthew Frankel are projecting a 20% sequential jump in freight car orders in the first quarter to 10,200 units (up 20% from the fourth quarter’s 8,500 units), since “buyers may preempt an acceleration in the steel price rally.”
Bentley Systems, Inc., a global provider of comprehensive software solutions for advancing infrastructure, is calling for submissions to its Year in Infrastructure 2018 Awards program.
The New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) on March 9 announced eight winners of the MTA Genius Transit Challenge, including two that “plan to immediately reinvest their cash awards from the competition and contribute seed money to advance their ideas in conjunction with the MTA.”