Has Amtrak abandoned its vision of 220-mile-per-hour bullet trains speeding up and down the Northeast Corridor? The railroad recently issued draft specifications for new trains to replace its existing Acelas that call for 160 m.p.h. trains, not the 220 mph versions Amtrak sai [...]
WASHINGTON – The National Transportation Safety Board’s go-team will leave New York City this week after completing the necessary on-scene investigative work into the cause of the derailment of a Metro-North passenger train on Dec. 1. The NTSB will continue to gather fa [...]
Following years of failed negotiations with the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s Long Island Rail Road, the official proceedings of Presidential Emergency Board 244 (PEB 244) began Dec. 2, 2013, at the New York Hilton in New York City. MTA had been seeking thr [...]
In competitive markets, vision and strategy are tested daily as consumers vote with their wallets, investors choose among opportunities, and competitors react – all creating greater efficiency. Conventional wisdom in passenger rail today is high speed trains. Amtrak, for exam [...]
NEW YORK (AP) – A week after four people died in a New York commuter train derailment, two federal lawmakers proposed Sunday that trains nationwide be outfitted with cameras pointed at engineers and at the tracks. “I know you’re going to hear from Metro-Nort [...]
Joseph H. Boardman, President and Chief Executive Officer of Amtrak, has been named 2014 Railroader of the Year by railroad industry trade journal Railway Age. “Joe Boardman, who came to Amtrak after his tenure as Federal Railroad Administrator, has been chief executive for t [...]
WASHINGTON – The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) Dec. 6 issued an Emergency Order (EO 29) to Metro-North Commuter Railroad (MNCW) to take specific, immediate steps to ensure its train crews do not exceed speed limitations. The EO requ [...]
U.S. Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (D-N.Y.) has proposed the Commuter Rail Passenger Safety Act to help commuter railroads, such as MTA Metro-North Railroad, fund and implement positive train control (PTC) systems. Maloney announced he would introduce the legislation earlier this [...]
NEW YORK – It’s sometimes called “highway hypnosis” or “white-line fever,” and it’s familiar to anyone who has ever driven long distances along a monotonous route. Drivers are lulled into a semitrance state and reach their destination with [...]
The Metro-North Railroad train that derailed on Sunday included a system designed to warn an operator of a potential accident. But such an “alerter,” which can automatically apply the brakes if an operator is unresponsive, was not in the cab where William Rockefeller apparent [...]
SMART Union