The Surface Transportation Board Tuesday officially cleared the way for Michigan’s Department of Transportation to acquire two sections of rail right-of-way from Norfolk Southern Corp., totaling about 135 miles, for eventual upgrading to 110 mph passenger rail speeds.
Caltrans joined BNSF Railway and Amtrak Tuesday in the groundbreaking for a triple-track segment that will add 3.8 miles of track in the Los Angeles area at a cost of $38 million. It is part of a larger, $163 million, 15-mile main line track capacity expansion between the cities of Commerce and Fullerton that will add a hard track along two existing lines.
The U.S. Department of Transportation has issued a $551 million Request for Proposals (RFP) for 130 new “standardized” bilevel passenger railcars for use on Amtrak’s intercity routes in California, Illinois, Michigan, Indiana, Missouri, and potentially Iowa.
Far from being threatened by Florida East Coast Railway’s All Aboard Florida passenger rail proposal, Amtrak has signaled that the service would be welcomed, and even offer symbiotic benefits to the national rail passenger carrier.
The Surface Transportation Board says Michigan’s Department of Transportation has filed an Acquisition Exemption, requesting permission for MichDOT to acquire two sections of NS rights-of-way totaling about 135 miles.
Michigan’s Department of Transportation, Norfolk Southern Corp., and Amtrak reportedly have reached agreement on work designed to remove or reduce slow orders NS imposed last month on right-of-way between Kalamazoo, and Dearborn, Mich., the latter city just west of Detroit.
Amtrak Wednesday said it was on pace to “set another new annual ridership record, as passenger counts across its national network for the first six months of fiscal year 2012 (October 2011-March 2012) are up 3.7% over the same period last year, when the current record was established.”
Amtrak and the Michigan Department of Transportation late Thursday publicly protested a decision by Norfolk Southern enacting speed restrictions of 25 to 30 mph on NS track between Kalamazoo and Ann Arbor. The decisions slow Amtrak Wolverine Service trains linking Chicago and Detroit from previous speeds of 79 mph; Amtrak advised passengers to expect delays of 45 to 90 minutes more than scheduled running times.
Amtrak and Union Pacific reportedly have reached agreement to adjust schedules for Amtrak’s tri-weekly Sunset Limited, connecting New Orleans and Los Angeles, changing the train’s westbound departure from New Orleans from Friday to Saturday.
Fairport, N.Y. based RailComm said Thursday it has provided a wireless remote control derail system at Amtrak’s Maintenance Facility in Hialeah, Fla., outside Miami.