May - 2019

High-speed rail in the U.S. has new promise, and new pitfalls

During a press conference last month to announce that his multifaceted Virgin brand would be taking over a U.S. train line in Florida, British billionaire Richard Branson pointedly criticized the current state of rail service in this country. “People in America have not had the good fortune to experience good train travel for a while,” he told reporters. Branson’s company announcement that it’s collaborating with the Brightline, a privately funded effort to create a higher-sp

Freight Rail Trade Group Pans Elements Of Surface Transportation Board Report

A staff report by the Surface Transportation Board (STB) recommending how board members should modify existing rate review methodologies got a mixed reaction from the Association of American Railroads (AAR), a trade group representing the Class I railroads, Amtrak and other carriers. The STB staff report recommended changes to its rate review methodologies that appear more shipper-friendly at first glance. The changes are related to ongoing proceedings between the Class I rai

US Department Of Transportation Launches Rail Crossing Safety Campaign

WASHINGTON D.C. (KDKA) — The U.S. Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and Federal Railroad Administration relaunched a $5.6 million public safety awareness campaign “Stop. Trains Can’t.” Urging Americans to take greater care at highway-rail grade crossings. “So many fatalities at highway-railway crossings are preventable and this campaign is key to raising public awareness and saving lives,” said U.S. Secretary of Transportation Elain

Dallas and Houston Are Now Fourth and Fifth Most Populous in the Nation

Two of the top three largest gaining metropolitan statistical areas from 2010 to 2018 were in the state of Texas. The Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington and Houston-The Woodlands-Sugar Land metro areas each gained over 1,000,000 people, according to July 1, 2018, population estimates released today. With estimated populations of 7,539,711 and 6,997,384, respectively, Dallas and Houston are positioned as the fourth and fifth most populous metro areas in 2018. Typically, metropolitan

Trump, Pelosi infrastructure talks invite skepticism

K Street sees Tuesday’s meeting between Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and President Trump as a last-chance bid to move on a bipartisan infrastructure deal this year. At the beginning of the Congress, advocates expressed hope that infrastructure was one of the few issues where House Democrats were likely to work with Trump. But there has been frustration that both sides have made little public progress toward a deal. Those who spoke to The Hill hoped the Tuesday meeting woul

In Texas, One Word Could Decide the Future of High-Speed Rail – CityLab

A private company plans to break ground on a bullet train between Houston and Dallas in 2019. But opponents of the project have a new argument. For rail fans who cling to the dream that the United States will someday boast the high-speed rail systems that much of the rest of the world enjoys, the plan to bring bullet trains to Texas has been something of a ray of hope. Texas Central Railway, the private company helming the effort to connect Dallas and Houston in a zippy 90 mi

Bullet Train Construction Delays Put State Funding for Other Infrastructure Projects in Jeopardy

Several top administrators working on the bullet train tell NBC Bay Area that the state is on the verge of potentially losing billions in federal grants for unrelated infrastructure projects like pothole maintenance and public transit upgrades due to mismanagement of high speed rail. When the state accepted $3.5 billion in federal grants to start construction in the Central Valley, that money came with a catch. The High Speed Rail Authority must make significant progress by D

Railroads continue to tap drone technology to inspect track, bridges

Nearly 140,000 miles of rail network and over 61,000 Class I bridges are manually inspected for defects and structural integrity in the United States, according to the Association of American Railroads. With an extensive network of main tracks and sidings inspected weekly and bridges inspected yearly — or more often as determined by the Federal Railroad Administration’s track and bridge safety standards — railroads have been slowly adopting and testing drone technology to sup