The first annual Rail Insights conference, which kicks off June 17 at the Millenium Knickerbocker Hotel in Chicago, will feature several prominent people in rail industry leadership positions who, with Railway Age’s experienced team of editors, will engage in an interactive dialogue to explore the challenges, issues and trends affecting the North American rail market.
Following the June 2, 2015 oversight hearing of the House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee on Amtrak’s May 12 fatal derailment of Northeast Regional Train 188 (which according to many observers had very little to do with discussing the accident itself and its possible cause—see David Schanoes’ blog), Association of American Railroads President and CEO Ed Hamberger commended Amtrak President and CEO Joe Boardman “for reinforcing his passenger railroad’s firm commitment to safety.”
In the wake of the May 12, 2015 derailment in North Philadelphia of Amtrak Northeast Regional train 188, which claimed eight lives and caused more than 200 injuries, Amtrak will install inward-facing video cameras in its fleet of new Siemens ACS-64 locomotives in service on the Northeast Corridor by the end of 2015. All locomotives yet to be delivered under the 70-unit order will have the equipment installed before they go into service.
Raytheon Intelligence, Information and Services (IIS) has awarded a contract to Duos Technologies, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Information Systems Associates Inc. (ISA), to provide a railcar undercarriage screening system in accordance with a Task Order established by the Transportation Security Administration for conducting a series of pilot programs to improve intermodal security at a variety of transportation focal points within the United States and its territories.
CBS News legends Edward R. Murrow, Fred Friendly, Charles Kuralt and Walter Cronkite must be turning over and hurling in their graves.
Union Pacific has awarded a contract to RailComm to replace a legacy hardwired derail control system with an automated Domain Operations Controller® (DOC®) proprietary yard control application at its intermodal facility in Long Beach, Calif. The system will expand automation to all tracks in the facility.
Carolina Worrell has joined Railway Age as Managing Editor, based at Simmons-Boardman Publishing Corp.’s headquarters in New York City.
Dispatching, says Norfolk Southern Manager-Dispatch Planning Systems Charlie Turnipseed, “is like a game of chess.” Like chess players, train dispatchers are constantly thinking ahead, planning movements, moving “pieces”—trains—across the “board”—the railroad’s 22-state, 11-operating-division, 20,000-mile system—and dealing with “opponents”—the numerous types of events that can impact a train’s movement between origin and destination.
