DNA swab kits to help MTA bus drivers bust spitters

The MTA is about to get a little more CSI. City bus drivers will soon be armed with DNA swabs to gather evidence in the all-too-common event of an unhinged passenger spitting on them. Transit workers catch a loogie 14 times a month, the MTA estimated in 2011. Read more from t [...]

SMART TD, UTUIA offices closed

The offices of the SMART Transportation Division and the UTU Insurance Association are closed Friday, April 18, in observance of the Good Friday holiday. The offices will reopen on Monday, April 21.

AAR: FCC policies delaying PTC

WASHINGTON – In a new report updating the industry’s progress on installing positive train control, the nation’s freight railroads said that a year-long moratorium on installing 20,000 communication antennas imposed by the Federal Communications Commission, followed by a leng [...]

Ex-NJT rail chief lands job with N.Y. MTA

NJ Transit’s former railroad chief, who was pushed out in March following two tumultuous years that included the flooding of nearly 400 rail cars and locomotives during Superstorm Sandy, has landed a job within New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority. Kevin O’Connor, [...]

Hazardous cargo rides rails in secret

Jodi Ross, town manager in Westford, Mass., did not expect she would be threatened with arrest after she and her fire chief went onto the railroad tracks to find out why a train carrying liquid petroleum gas derailed on a bridge in February. But as they reached the accident s [...]

Oil traffic may delay fertilizer shipments, farmers warn

Increasing use of railroads to ship crude oil could disrupt fertilizer cargo this spring as Midwest farmers prepare for planting, U.S. agriculture leaders warn, even as one railroad said on Monday (April 14) it will take steps to ensure timely deliveries. The planting season [...]

OSHA orders WC to pay $350,000 to conductor

CHICAGO – The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration has found Wisconsin Central Limited railway in violation of the Federal Railroad Safety Act for terminating a conductor following the reporting of a workplace injury that occurred in [...]