The Federal Railroad Administration’s (FRA) Railroad Safety Advisory Committee (RSAC) voted unanimously on implementing new crashworthiness performance standards for next-generation passenger high speed rail (HSR) equipment that will operate in the U.S.
The U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C. has turned aside a challenge by chemical makers to a Federal Railroad Administration regulation involving the safety of chemical shipments and by rail, including in relationship to implementing Positive Train Control (PTC).
The U.S. Department of Transportation, through the Federal Railroad Administration, has awarded a $7 million TIGER (Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery) grant to the State of Oregon to support a $9.4 million project that will rehabilitate and reopen a 296-mile stretch of the Central Oregon & Pacific Railroad (a Genesee & Wyoming property).
“Here’s looking at you, kid,” is a cherished line from the movie Casablanca,but when the looking is through a hidden camera lens in the locker room or even visibly trained on crewmembers inside a locomotive cab, well, you won’t hear the more famous line, “This could be the start of a beautiful friendship.”
Continuing to back up his political position established in his first term, President Obama Wednesday included considerable funding for rail and rail transit projects in his proposed fiscal year 2014 budget. Longer-term, the President also is advocating investment of $40 billion in passenger rail projects in the next five years. But the proposal, while a good placeholder and a rallying marker for pro-rail forces, is unlikely to survive intact.
