Federal and Amtrak officials and state officials from New York and New Jersey announced Nov. 11, 2015 that they have reached an agreement on funding commitments and a governance structure that will allow the long-awaited, critically important $20 billion Gateway Tunnel Project to construct two new rail tunnels under the Hudson River to move forward.
California, Illinois and Maryland have ordered a combined 34 Charger diesel-electric passenger locomotives from Siemens Mobility, bringing the number of state Departments of Transportation procuring these units to six and the total number of units to 69. The locomotives will be built at the Siemens rail manufacturing plant in Sacramento, Calif.
In this series published in Railway Age‘s September, October and November 2015 issues, Contributing Editor Alfred E. Fazio examines the possibilities and engineering requirements for high- or higher-speed rail in the U.S., with emphasis on Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor, including an improvement project in New Jersey.
Amtrak President & CEO Joe Boardman joined a panel of industry experts Oct. 26, 2015 at the National Press Club to highlight the need to make infrastructure planning and investment a national priority.
As part of ongoing work to improve Chicago Union Station, Amtrak, Metra and the Regional Transportation Authority (RTA) have launched several initiatives aimed at advancing iconic station’s master redevelopment plan.
Amtrak has obtained $275 million of insurance protection from PennUnion Re Ltd., an independent special-purpose insurer based in Bermuda.
It’s Friday afternoon, before Columbus Day weekend. I’ve just spent most of the day posting a lot of useful news on our website (well, at least I think it’s useful). At 4:30 pm, a press release invades my email inbox. It’s from Amtrak. It has to do with expansion of Amtrak’s Pets on Trains program to Northeast Corridor Regional trains. Okay, I say, I’ll give it a look. It’s not earth shattering news, and our business-to-business publication won’t suffer for not running it. So I give it a look.
Back by popular demand, the Amtrak Autumn Express will operate this year on October 24 and 25 through parts of New York, Vermont and Massachusetts. “This unique excursion is an opportunity to see parts of southern New England not visible by car on a route not traversed by passenger trains in decades,” Amtrak says.
First State Manufacturing has been awarded its first 5-year contract with Amtrak to provide textile support for the railroad service’s interior fleet renovation projects, the company announced Sept. 30, 2015.
U.S. Senator Charles “Hold That Pose” Schumer (D-N.Y.), everybody’s favorite publicity-seeking, TV-camera-loving narcissistic politician, has been saying publicly that Amtrak’s board of directors has selected Alstom Transport to supply a fleet of new high-speed trainsets for the Boston-New York-Washington D.C. Northeast Corridor, to succeed aging Acela Express equipment. Schumer, according to reliable sources with whom I’ve spoken at Amtrak, has opened his big mouth way, way too soon.
