Hotline #778 - September 28, 2012

A crucial step towards delivery of 130 bilevel cars for use in California and the Midwest announced Sept. 26. A joint venture of Nippon-Sharyo and Sumitomo Corp. of America is the winner of the production contract, pending an audit to verify that the cars and components will be produced and assembled in the United States in accordance with the Buy America provisions attached to the federal funding of the order.

The cars are to be built at Nippon’s new Rochelle, IL, plant, . The first cars are scheduled for delivery in 2015. Illinois, Michigan, Missouri and California are buying the cars for $352 million.

Washington Union Station on Sept. 26 became the home for Greyhound and Peter Pan buses. The companies vacated the 25-year-old Greyhound Bus Terminal, which was four blocks north at First and K Streets NE. The move brings all of the Washington area’s intercity and regional public transportation providers under one roof. The developers who have purchased Greyhound’s site, apparently for $46.75 million, plan to demolish the terminal and build a mix of offices, apartments and retail.

The ribbon-cutting ceremony for the new intercity bus facility, located inside Union Station’s parking garage, was attended by Deputy US Transportation Secretary John Porcari, US House Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC), US House Transportation Committee Chairman Rep. John Mica (R-FL), and Greyhound Lines President & CEO David Leach. A small, new ticket office has been built on the first floor of the Union Station garage. Restrooms are to be built; passengers for now can choose between jiffy-johns and Union Station’s restrooms.

More from the NARP Blog.

President Obama today signed into law the continuing resolution that funds the federal government through March, 2013. The Senate on a 62-30 vote passed the resolution on Sept. 22.

Funding for most federal programs, including Amtrak, the TIGER grant program, and discretionary transit accounts see an 0.612% increase above 2012 level. Thus, Amtrak initially will be funded at a level slightly above the $1.418 billion it received in fiscal 2012 ($466 million for operations; $681 million for capital needs; $271 million for debt service). There will be no additional funding for High-Performance Passenger Rail grants, as there was none in fiscal 2012. The 113^th Congress will have to agree to funding for the second half of the fiscal year, and will have to address the spending cuts (“sequestration”) mandated by the Budget Control Act of 2011 and which could take effect January 2 if the lame duck Congress does not avert them.

OMB currently estimates that sequestration would be 8.2% off from the FY 2012 levels (not from the continuing resolution’s slightly elevated levels). Under one plausible scenario, in which sequestration takes place, Amtrak could wind up with an FY 2013 operating grant for the full year just shy of $392 million, which would be 16% or $75 million less than the FY 2012 level. The capital reduction could be more severe. And it is unclear how far into the fiscal year we will get before Amtrak (and other agencies) know what to expect for funding over the full year.

One footnote: if sequestration goes forward, percentage sequestration cuts will continue to apply when the continuing resolution is replaced with a regular FY 2013 appropriations bill, unless the appropriation itself represents a cut. In other words, any reduction in the appropriations bill below the FY 2012 level would count towards the required sequestration cut.

Amtrak has been testing the operation of Acela trainsets at 160-165 mph on four segments of the Northeast Corridor on late evenings this week, in preparation for the introduction of revenue Acela service at top speeds of 160 mph on these segments sometime in 2014. The tests are not affecting normal operations or schedules of Amtrak or commuter trains this week.

The four sections are: Perryville, MD to Wilmington, DE (21.3 miles); Trenton to New Brunswick, NJ (29.2 miles); Westerly to Cranston, RI (29.2 miles); and South Attleboro to Readville, MA (27.8 miles). On the latter two, Acelas currently top out at 150 mph in revenue service. On the former two, due to the age of the catenary (overhead wires), the top speed is 135 mph.

On the New Jersey segment, Amtrak is working on design, engineering and other pre-construction activities for a $450 million project being funded by the federal High-Speed and Intercity Passenger Rail grant program, with money redirected from Florida after Gov. Rick Scott turned down money for a Tampa-Orlando high-speed line. Along with higher Acela speeds, the project will produce improved reliability for Amtrak and New Jersey Transit service.

Amtrak and the North Carolina Department of Transportation have approved the addition of a stop at Lexington, NC on the heavily-patronized, state-supported Piedmont and Carolinian routes. Lexington, a city of 18,912, is about halfway between High Point and Salisbury on the state-owned North Carolina Rail Road’s main line, which is leased to, and operated by, Norfolk Southern Railway.

Lexington received a $700,000 federal grant in 2010 to finance the planning of a new multi-modal transportation center. Representatives of the firm designing the station told the City Council on Monday that they are on schedule to have the facility open in time for Amtrak trains to begin stopping there in 2015. The station is expected to spur the revival of the surrounding Depot District.

The only passenger train service Lexington has seen recently is when the Piedmonts and Carolinian make a special stop there one day a year for the city’s famous annual Barbecue Festival, held in October.

Amtrak’s drug testing problem. Yesterday, Amtrak’s Inspector General released a highly unflattering report. Politico today reports that the IG “found flaws in Amtrak’s drug and alcohol testing programs, concluding the railroad is not ‘exercising due diligence’ in controlling substance use and that the railroad’s positive test numbers are inordinately high.”

Much progress was made in the expansion and development of America’s rail transit this week:

• In New York City, new rail tunnels under the East River from both the Manhattan and Queens sides were connected with each other on Friday, Sept. 21 as part of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s East Side Access project. These will allow Long Island Rail Road trains to access Manhattan’s Grand Central Terminal for the first time in LIRR’s 180-plus-year history. In doing so, the MTA’s sandhogs created a continuous tunnel running more than 3.5 miles from a cavern underneath Grand Central Terminal to openings just feet below Sunnyside Yard in Queens that will soon be connected to LIRR’s main line. LIRR service to Grand Central is set to begin in August 2019.
• Also in the Big Apple, a new direct transfer tunnel has been opened between the uptown platform for the no. 6 train at the Bleecker Street station and the Broadway-Lafayette Street station serving B, D, F, and M trains. The $127 million project, with partial funding from the Federal Transit Administration, also includes upgraded platforms and lighting and the installation of five elevators to make both stations fully wheelchair-accessible. The MTA estimates that the project will benefit approximately 30,000 riders each weekday.
• Charlotte, NC, received an $18 million federal Transportation Investments Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) III grant to support the improvement and extension of the Lynx Blue Line light rail. It will enable the Charlotte Area Transit System to lengthen some station platforms to handle three-car trains, and to add power substations to handle those longer trains. It also funds work to prepare for a nine-mile northward extension of the line to the campus of the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. US Sen. Kay Hagan (D-NC) and Charlotte Mayor Anthony Foxx (D) jointly issued a statement announcing the grant on Thursday.
• Washington State’s Sound Transit’s 2013 budget, which its Board began work on Thursday, would advance major light rail expansions in the Seattle area. It contains $754.7 million in capital investments to extend light rail to the north, east and south, and $211.8 million in operating costs to cover higher fuel costs and the soon-to-come extension of Sounder commuter rail south from Tacoma to Lakewood.
• Officials in California’s Santa Clara Valley (greater San Jose) break ground today on the Mission-Warren Area Improvement Project in Fremont, along with infrastructure upgrades making way for the extension of Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) train service south to Berryessa and the Silicon Valley. The Mission-Warren project benefits both road and rail users (BART and Amtrak).
• Railway Age reports that the California Transportation Commission “has voted to release $39.8 million in allocations toward work to advance the Caltrain Modernization Program and prepare the rail corridor, which connects San Francisco with San Jose and Gilroy, for a future ‘blended’ system with California High Speed Rail.”

California Superior Court Judge Timothy Frawley said Tuesday that he will decide on Nov. 16 whether to prevent the construction of California High-Speed Rail’s initial operating segment until a trial can be held to resolve three lawsuits that were filed to stop the project.

Judge Frawley said the three suits will be combined into one for future hearings. The cases challenge the California High Speed Rail Authority’s final approval of environmental reports for the Merced-Fresno portion of the IOS, a segment the Authority hopes to start building next year. The suits were all filed within weeks of the Authority Board’s May 3 approval of the project.

Authority attorneys told the Fresno Bee that an injunction that delays the start of major construction work beyond mid-2013 would jeopardize federal Recovery Act funding for the project, which stipulates completion by Sept. 30, 2017. State rail officials said the judge is more likely to order the Authority to re-evaluate certain points of the environmental analysis without halting construction.

The Milwaukee City Board of Aldermen on Tuesday rejected a proposal to hold a referendum election on the proposed $64.6 million downtown modern streetcar line. The line would link the city’s lower east side to the downtown Amtrak/Greyhound station.

Had Alderman Bob Donovan’s proposal to put the project to a vote succeeded, it would have halted work on the streetcar, which is largely federally funded. Donovan’s bill was defeated by an 11-3 vote.

After working round the clock to repair damage caused by recent floods, the Alaska Railroad reopened its Anchorage-Fairbanks main line at 3:30 PM local time on Sept. 25. A 70-mile stretch of the line, north of Talkeetna, was washed out on Friday, suspending all freight and passenger train service through the area. Anchorage-Fairbanks passenger trains, which only run on weekends at this time of year, will resume on Saturday as scheduled.