Rail Group On Air

PTC has made much progress at reducing railroad operational risks, but optimizing safety and efficiency never stops. As railroads continue to innovate, further improvements and operational advancements will be deployed. Safety HMI (human-machine interface) technology, combined with continued human factors design considerations, can mitigate known hazards and safely allow for expanded functionaliti...

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 pu...

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...

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 in...

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 Presi...

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 provi...

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 Ri...

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.

Railway Age’s 58th Railroader of the Year, Canadian Pacific President and CEO Keith Creel, talks with Editor-in-Chief William C. Vantuono about his career, and his mission at CP, in this audio version of the video interview. Creel has been instrumental in Canadian Pacific forging a leadership role in the industry, while acknowledging the railroad’s place in history and its role in driving the Nort...

Railroad Financial Corp. President and Railway Age Financial Editor David Nahass; Cowen and Company Managing Director and Railway Age Wall Street Contributing Editor Jason Seidl; and Cowen and Company Transportation Equipment Analyst Matt Elkott join Editor-in-Chief William C. Vantuono to offer their perspectives on 2021, a year in which the world hopes to see the end of the devastating COVID-19 p...

Jim Derwinski, Commuter Rail Coalition Chair and CEO/Executive Director, Metra; John Cline, CRC Government Affairs Director and Principal, Cline Strategic Consulting; Chuck Spitulnik, CRC Counsel and Partner, Kaplan Kirsch Rockwell; and KellyAnne Gallagher, CRC Executive Director, discuss access, capacity, and public convenience and necessity issues of importance to commuter railroads with Railway...

Cogniac is a startup enterprise-class AI image and video analysis company providing enterprise-class software for automating railroad visual inspection tasks. Based in San Jose, Calif., the company has landed two contracts with U.S. Class I railroads and a Mexican client in the past year. Cogniac is also working with the AAR to help reshape and modernize federally mandated inspection regulations....

Industry 4.0 (also known as the Fourth Industrial Revolution) is a reality. Railroads, including their partners in the transportation supply chain, are at the beginning of their journey to establishing true end-to-end digital continuity. For example: Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT); Positive Train Control (PTC) and Enhanced Train Control (ETC); and AI (artificial intelligence)-based automatio...

Sometimes it seems like lightning strikes and we see a significant jump in the capabilities of technology. Such is the case with PS Technology’s Precision Train Builder™ (PTB), a suite of abilities that enables railroads to enhance safety using physically accurate simulation. This ability is leading to improvements in both accident analysis and train consist design. But, like most significant tech...

Industry 4.0 (also known as the Fourth Industrial Revolution) is a reality. Railroads, including their partners in the transportation supply chain, are at the beginning of their journey to establishing true end-to-end digital continuity. For example: Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT); Positive Train Control (PTC) and Enhanced Train Control (ETC); and AI (artificial intelligence)-based automatio...

On Jan. 1, 2021, Katie Farmer will become the first woman chief executive of a Class I railroad, BNSF. Farmer knows BNSF inside and out. She’s held leadership positions in every major function of the company, starting as a 22-year-old management trainee at predecessor Burlington Northern in 1992. At BNSF, she will oversee a 32,500-route-mile network that spans 28 states and three Canadian province...

Connecticut Department of Transportation Commissioner and Commuter Rail Coalition Co-Founder Joe Giulietti, accompanied by ConnDOT Public Transportation Bureau Chief Rich Andreski, discuss “Transformation and Innovation in the Commuter Rail Realm” with Railway Age Editor-in-Chief William C. Vantuono. Commuter rail customers almost disappeared, practically overnight, but they will come back. The un...

RT&S Editor-in-Chief Bill Wilson talks with new Railway Tie Association Executive Director Ashley Goodin on the current and future shape of the crosstie market.

This edition of our continuing series with the Commuter Rail Coalition takes a look ahead at technology, policy and performance. What’s next as Positive Train Control evolves to “PTC 2.0”? What’s possible? Jim Derwinski, Metra CEO/Executive Director and CRC Chair; Eileen Reilly, Global Train Services LLC CEO and CRC Board Member; John Cline, Principal, Cline Strategic Consulting and CRC Board Memb...

Industry 4.0 (also known as the Fourth Industrial Revolution) is a reality. Railroads, including their partners in the transportation supply chain, are at the beginning of their journey to establishing true end-to-end digital continuity. For example: Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT); Positive Train Control (PTC) and Enhanced Train Control (ETC); and AI (artificial intelligence)-based automatio...

This installment of the Rail Group On Air podcast series sponsored by the Commuter Rail Coalition features Virginia Rail Express CEO Rich Dalton, who discusses COVID-19 recovery, his U.S. Navy experience, PTC implementation, working with numerous Commonwealth of Virginia stakeholders, VRE’s relationship with CSX, Norfolk Southern and Amtrak, and capital projects, for both infrastructure and equipm...

RT&S Editor-in-Chief Bill Wilson talks with RT&S 2020 Engineer of the Year Ed Boyle. Boyle is the vice president of engineering with Norfolk Southern.