Rail Group On Air

IRJ Editor-in-Chief, Kevin Smith is joined by Carlo Borghini, Executive Director of Shift2Rail, to discuss the successor to the Shift2Rail European railway research program, Europe’s Rail. The European Commission (EC) confirmed a proposal to proceed with the program in February 2021. Borghini discusses what Europe’s Rail will look like and its potential impact on rail research, and the sector’s pursuit of the goals outlined in the EC’s Smart and Sustainable Mobility Strategy. (Introductory music: “Tired Traveler on the Way to Home” by Andrew Codeman – CC BY 3.0)

Commuter Rail Coalition: Four Women in Rail, Four Different Paths by RT&S, Railway Age, IRJ

RT&S Editor-in-Chief Bill Wilson talks with the leaders behind the Long Island Rail Road Mainline Expansion Project, which deals with adding a third line of track within the existing right-of-way.

Early on March 21, the big announcement came: Canadian Pacific Railway will acquire Kansas City Southern in a cash and stock transaction worth $29 billion in U.S. dollars. The combined Class I will be named Canadian Pacific Kansas City, CPKC. If approved by the United States Surface Transportation Board, the merger will be the first Class I transaction of its type since the late 1990s. The result will be a single, integrated rail system connecting ports on the U.S. Gulf, Atlantic and Pacific coasts with key overseas markets, with reach via new single-line hauls across the combined company’s continent-wide network. Importantly, CP and KCS say, “no customer will experience a reduction in independent railroad choices as a result of the transaction, and customers will benefit from a seamless integration of the two systems without service disruption.” Railway Age Editor-in-Chief William C. Vantuono speaks with Canadian Pacific President and CEO Keith Creel, 2021 Railroader of the Year, and Kansas City Southern President and CEO Pat Ottensmeyer, 2020 Railroader of the Year. Podcast sponsored by The Greenbrier Companies, Virtual Sample Railcar™.

Currently, rail carries 23% of all Nevada freight tonnage. Targeted rail improvements could op-timize existing freight networks to improve travel time reliability, reduce vehicle emissions and support Nevada’s economic development., according to the Nevada Department of Transporta-tion (NDOT). The Nevada State Rail Plan, prepared by Strategic Rail Finance (SRF), outlines op-tions to improve and integrate rail through local and private sector investment in eight regions of the state. Rail improvements listed in the plan become eligible for federal grant funding, opening the opportunity for local government and economic development partners to potential-ly pursue the rail improvements in the future. NDOT State Railroad Coordinator Lee Bonner and SRF Chairman and CEO Mike Sussman discuss how the plan “creates a blueprint for potential rail improvements to augment existing freight systems; provide jobs, tax revenue and business opportunities; and enhance mobility, traffic safety and the environment, fully utilizing rail for an integrated and sustainable statewide freight transportation network,” with Railway Age Editor-in-Chief William C. Vantuono.

Direct Chassis Link, Inc. (DCLI) is the largest provider of marine and domestic container chassis to the U.S. intermodal industry. Headquartered in Charlotte, N.C., the company owns, leases and manages more than 154,000 marine chassis and 89,000 domestic chassis serving customers involved in the global movement of containerized goods. DCLI Chief Commercial Officer Ryan Houfek and Senior Vice President Government and Public Relations Mike O’Malley discuss the intermodal market, focusing on rail’s critical role in the transportation supply chain and logistics, with Railway Age Editor-in-Chief William C. Vantuono.

In this Rail Group On Air podcast, part of our series with the Commuter Rail Coalition, North County Transit District Executive Director and CEO Matt Tucker, BNSF Assistant Vice President Passenger Operations DJ Mitchell and CRC Executive Director KellyAnne Gallagher discuss the San Diego Pathing Study with Railway Age Editor-in-Chief William C. Vantuono. Released in November 2020, the study provides an implementation blueprint for a unique NCTD/BNSF partnership that will bring capacity and service improvements for commuter and intercity passenger rail and freight rail to Southern California’s LOSSAN (Los Angeles-San Diego-San Luis Obispo) rail corridor, the second-busiest rail corridor in the U.S. In a typical year, the LOSSAN rail corridor moves approximately $1 billion of freight and more than eight million rail passengers. DB Engineering & Consulting USA, Inc., the international consulting division of Germany’s national railroad Deutsche Bahn, prepared the study, which identifies and prioritizes infrastructure improvements that are tied to a specific increase in service capacity over the near-, mid- and long-term future. DB E&C applied an approach to rail operations and infrastructure planning that allows rapidly iterating service design, operational adjustments and infrastructure improvements in order to derive an attractive solution. The blueprint will assist NCTD and its rail partners in growing service along a corridor that is currently bottlenecked by single track and other infrastructure deficiencies.

The first lines of Riyadh’s six-line, 176-km metro network are due to commence operation in the final quarter of 2021. As the world’s largest single-phase metro project nears its conclusion, IRJ Editor-in-Chief Kevin Smith speaks with Carter Rohan, project director for the Riyadh Metro Transit Consultants (RMTC) project management consultancy (PMC), and Lindsay Vamplew, project director for the Riyadh Advanced Metro Project Execution and Delivery (RAMPED) PMC, which have overseen project delivery. Rohan and Vamplew address the challenges of delivering such a vast scale of work in a country with no past experience in metro construction, and in Saudi Arabia’s tough environmental conditions. (Introductory music: “Tired Traveler on the Way to Home” by Andrew Codeman – CC BY 3.0)

RT&S Editor-in-Chief Bill Wilson takes a look back at 2020 and provides a forecast for 2021. He also interviews HNTB's Ronnie Hakim and Herzog's Troy Elbert.

New Jersey Transit met the December 31, 2020 federally mandated deadline for implementing Positive Train Control. NJT President and CEO Kevin Corbett discusses the project’s complexity, and the “come from behind” coordination and cooperation it took with numerous stakeholders to reach the finish line with time to spare, with Editor-in-Chief William C. Vantuono.