FRA

Commentary

New chiefs ID’d for FRA, AAR law department

As the White House considers candidates for Senate confirmation as the next Federal Railroad Administrator, Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx says he will name his Department of Transportation chief of staff Sarah Feinberg — a long-time Democratic operative with strong White House ties — as acting administrator upon the voluntary departure this week of FRA chief Joe Szabo.

Sarah Feinberg picked to head FRA

Sarah Feinberg, chief of staff for Secretary of Transportation Andrew Foxx, has been chosen to become Acting Federal Railroad Administrator, according to a Reuters report of an email sent by Foxx on Sunday, Jan. 11, 2015.

Commentary

NTSB, Metro-North, and politicians, Part 3

Let’s continue with my comments from Part 1 and Part 2 on the Oct. 28, 2014 National Transportation Safety Board press conference regarding NTSB’s determination of the causes of five accidents on Metro-North Railway (MNR). To reiterate, I’m going through the video second by second just so I can set the record straight, or at least correct some of the more egregious errors presented as facts by NSTB Acting Chairman Christopher A. Hart, and Senators Schumer, Blumenthal, and Murphy.
Commentary

Why NTSB got it wrong

I forced myself to review every miserable second of the Oct. 28, 2014 NTSB press conference regarding NTSB’s determination of the causes of five accidents on Metro-North Railway (MNR), for a couple of reasons: 1) I couldn’t believe what was being said; and  2) I couldn’t believe what was being said. I mean, come on: FRA as a “lawless, rogue agency”?

FTA move slows south Jersey rail proposal

The Federal Transit Administration has declined to sanction an environmental study of a proposed $1.6 billion rail transit line linking Glassboro and Camden, both in New Jersey’s Philadelphia suburbs, the latest setback to a service in flux for at least 18 years.

Commentary
  • News

Is FRA’s Szabo headed to the STB?

Joe Szabo, the former union boss and now embattled Federal Railroad Administrator, may be on his way out—to another federal railroad regulatory agency, actually, if rumors involving his former Chicago condo neighbor and friend, Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), are correct.
Commentary
  • News

Federal hazmat regulator AWOL from North Dakota oilfields

Whatever the unrevealed reasons for Cynthia Quarterman’s (pictured) Oct. 3, 2014 departure as head of the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA), a change at the top may reverse the federal regulator’s much-criticized lethargy in fixing the core cause of exploding oil trains.

North Dakota seizes initiative in CBR degasification

The vital other shoe in crude by rail reform will drop not in Ottawa or Washington, but in Bismark, N.Dak., where, in the void created by federal inaction, officials are preparing to use state jurisdiction over natural resources to order the degasification of petroleum at the wellhead.
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