Amtrak on Tuesday renamed its operations center in Chicago to honor Joseph Szabo, a fifth-generation railroader who headed the Federal Railroad Administration for 51/2 years of the Obama administration. Szabo, 56, left the administration in December to return to Chicago, wher [...]
RALEIGH, N.C. – A truck with an oversized load and a state trooper escort was stuck in a railroad crossing with time enough to alert approaching trains, but there’s no indication Amtrak was warned before a crash that injured 55 people, officials said. An eyewitness told [...]
The following release was issued by the Environmental Law & Policy Center: WASHINGTON – The U.S. Supreme Court’s March 9 decision affirming Amtrak’s power to create on-time performance standards could get slumping Midwest arrival times back on track. “This is a good Supre [...]
HALIFAX, N.C. – An Amtrak train hit a tractor-trailer that stalled on railroad tracks in North Carolina, toppling the engine onto its side and injuring several people, officials said Monday. Halifax County Sheriff’s Chief Deputy Bruce Temple said the accident happened a [...]
U.S. Sens. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) and John Thune (R-S.D.) yesterday introduced a bill (S. 650) that proposes to extend the federally mandated deadline for positive train control (PTC) implementation by five years from 2015’s en [...]
Edward Wytkind, president of the Transportation Trades Department, AFL-CIO, issued the following statement about the U.S. House Representatives passage of the Passenger Rail Reform and Investment Act of 2015 (PRRIA): “Today the House of Representatives took an important step [...]
The United States House of Representatives March 4 overwhelmingly passed bipartisan legislation that will provide critical investments in our nation’s passenger rail system. H.R. 749, the Passenger Rail Reform and Investment Act of 2015 (PRRIA) will ensure that our national p [...]
SMART Transportation Division National Legislative Director John Risch has sent a message to every member of the U.S. House of Representatives seeking their support of a “clean” Passenger Rail Reform and Investment Act of 2015 (PRRIA) bill, which would authorize and fund Amtr [...]
LOS ANGELES – One week after being gravely injured in a collision between a Metrolink train and a pickup truck, the train’s engineer has died. Glenn Steele, 62, died early Tuesday of injuries suffered in the Feb. 24 crash in Oxnard, the Los Angeles County coroner said. [...]
The Federal Railroad Administration is considering a rule that would require Class I freight railroads and railroads with poor safety performances to develop and implement formal risk reduction programs. A risk reduction program would involve employees working together to ide [...]
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