Transportation News

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Bus driver attacked with brick in Cleveland

CLEVELAND – An RTA bus driver was attacked with a brick in a sock early Sunday (Nov. 30) morning. The attack happened at around 12:43 a.m. on the 11 bus line near East 40th Street and Community College Avenue in Cleveland. Read the complete story at Newsnet5.com.

Member from Los Angeles Metro attacked Nov. 17

On the night of Nov. 17, a member of the SMART Transportation Division employed by Los Angeles Metro was brutally assaulted while operating a bus in the West San Fernando Valley. On Nov. 24, Los Angeles Metro and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department held a joint press [...]

FRA issues advisory on roadway worker authority

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) Nov. 25 issued a safety advisory to the rail industry to better protect rail employees working on active tracks, or right-of-ways, under the supervision of a dispatcher. “Clear communic [...]

Amtrak delivers strong FY 2014 financial results

Amtrak Nov. 25 reported unaudited record revenue totaling approximately $3.2 billion for the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 2014, representing the fifth consecutive year of revenue growth, and the eighth out of the past nine years. In FY 2014, America’s Railroad® covered [...]

Lipinski on track with new rail policy post

Rep. Dan Lipinski, D-Chicago, is poised to become the highest-ranking Democrat on a House subcommittee on railroads at a time when issues involving Metra and Amtrak will be barreling down the track next year. His Southwest Side turf has more rail lines than any congressional [...]

Rails sound alarm ahead of Chicago gridlock replay

With last week’s 7 feet of snow in upstate New York heralding an early winter, railroads crisscrossing Chicago are rushing to open 24-hour command centers, install heaters to keep switches from freezing, and plotting ways to reroute traffic. The aim is to avoid the gridlock t [...]

NTSB recommends better sleep disorder screening

Federal regulators who concluded that an engineer’s sleep apnea caused a deadly train derailment in New York adopted several recommendations Wednesday for better screening of such disorders, including a call for improved physician training. The National Transportation Safety [...]

Two MTA railroads to acquire video cameras

Metro-North Railroad and Long Island Rail Road won approval from a committee of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) Board of Directors on Monday, Nov. 17, 2014 to award contracts totaling $34.6 million for the purchase of inward- and outward-facing cameras in the [...]

Amtrak asks STB to investigate, NS, CSX

WASHINGTON – Amtrak is taking action to improve the on-time performance (OTP) of its trains that operate over tracks controlled by other railroads. In a complaint filed on Nov. 17, Amtrak is asking the Surface Transportation Board (STB) to investigate Norfolk Southern Railway [...]

Former Local 911 Chairperson Fred Croes Jr. dies

Retired former Local 911 (Minneapolis) Chairperson Fred J. Croes Jr., 78, a mentor to many United Transportation Union and SMART Transportation Division officers in the Upper Midwest, died Nov. 12 of natural causes. Croes was born May 18, 1936, in St. Paul, Minn. At age 18, h [...]