Commuter rail

Rail unions ‘disappointed’ by vaccine mandate ruling but will press on

Efforts to prevent a COVID-19 vaccine mandate from being implemented on Chicago’s commuter rail system were thwarted last week when a federal judge ruled against two rail unions’ requests to stop it.

The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division, ruled against the preliminary injunction filed by the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (BLET) and the Transportation Division of the International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation...

https://www.freightwaves.com/news/rail-unions-disappointed-by-vaccine-mandate-ruling-but-will-press-on

CSX, Amtrak and Virginia formalize public-private partnership

A composite image featuring two photographs. Both are of a train crossing a rusted bridge.

The commonwealth of Virginia, Amtrak, commuter rail Virginia Railway Express (VRE) and CSX (NASDAQ: CSX) have formally dedicated themselves to take part in a $3.7 billion effort to divide passenger and freight rail traffic in Virginia and improve traffic flows between the Northeast and Southeast corridors.

The public-private partnership, dubbed “Transforming Rail in Virginia,” seeks to alleviate the choke point that passenger and freight rail trains encounter when passing from Washington into...

https://www.freightwaves.com/news/csx-amtrak-and-virginia-formalize-public-private-partnership

U.S. Class I railroads inch towards full positive train control implementation

A photograph of a freight train locomotive.

One-hundred percent of the tracks owned by the U.S. operations of the Class I railroads have completed the advanced field testing of positive train control (PTC), a federally mandated safety technology that must be implemented on all Class I railroads, Amtrak and certain commuter rail lines by December 31 of this year, according to the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA). 

The advanced field testing stage, known as revenue service demonstration (RSD), is among the last steps to completing the...

https://s29755.pcdn.co/news/u-s-class-i-railroads-inch-towards-full-positive-train-control-implementation