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Inching towards Vegas: Brightline West Releases Environmental Documents for Cajon Pass

High Speed Rail Alliance reports that Brightline West has released an Environmental Assessment for the Cajon Pass section of the Las Vegas to Southern California high-speed rail project. This is an important milestone that had to be completed before construction could begin.

Graphic from High Speed Rail Alliance

In a newsletter to members, High Speed Rail Alliance writes:

“The Cajon Pass Segment is a 49-mile high-speed line between Victor Valley and Rancho Cucamonga, CA. The segment includes two new railway stations, one in Hesperia and another in Rancho Cucamonga, while the Victor Valley station is part of a previous environmental report. For this segment, Brightline West is proposing to use 48 miles of I-15 right-of-way and the station at Hesperia, under a lease agreement with the California Department of Transportation.

Brightline West also recently reached an agreement to acquire five acres for the station at Rancho Cucamonga. This station is a critical part of the project, as high-speed trains will connect with Metrolink here, allowing riders access to and from LA Union Station and over 60 other Metrolink stations. High-speed rail service could eventually be extended from Rancho Cucamonga directly into LA Union Station, connecting to the California High-Speed Rail network.

As Brightline West continues to move forward, there’s optimism that we could have American high-speed rail in operation by the end of the decade.”

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Improved passenger rail from Sacramento to Reno – need your voice!

Sacramento-Reno Rail Extension Study: It appears local transit agencies are actually talking seriously about better passenger train service between Reno and the Bay Area! Please take this short survey to let them know northern Nevadans want better transportation options than driving on dangerous, crowded I-80 over the mountains.

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Passenger Rail Comeback?

From the Christian Science Monitor in August: All Aboard: Why rail travel is making a comeback

‘Passenger rail is handling the double whammy of a summer vacation surge and end-of-pandemic travel bump well – or at least better than its competitors. Amtrak, which has a monopoly on long-distance rail travel, has hurriedly restored services it mothballed during the worst of COVID-19. Ridership is up, too, reaching 85% of pre-pandemic levels in the Northeast and showing a promising pattern elsewhere. The company is even opening up new lines.”

More here: https://www.csmonitor.com/Business/2022/0805/All-aboard-Why-rail-travel-is-making-a-comeback

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Freight Rail Shipping Fair Market Act Introduced

September 23, 2022

Addressing some of the complaints of poor service for shippers, the chairs of four House committees dealing with transportation, commerce, infrastructure and agriculture introduced the  Freight Rail Shipping Fair Market Act in August 2.

A press release issued by the House committees says, “Rail customers have increasingly expressed concern with inconsistent and unreliable rail service. The impacts of erratic rail service have been particularly acute in the agricultural and energy sectors. To better understand why rail service delivery problems persist, the Railroad Subcommittee held two hearings, one in March 2022 and one in May 2022, and the Surface Transportation Board held a hearing on urgent issues in freight rail service in late April 2022.

 All three hearings documented serious problems in the freight rail industry stemming from years of Wall Street focus on increasing railroad operating profits to allow for stock buy backs and dividends, rather than investing those profits in expanding critical freight rail service to more places and serving more industries. Despite these hearings and actions undertaken by the Surface Transportation Board, severe service issues continue to hamstring rail shipments across the country. This bill seeks to stem that tide.”

 Read the rest of the press release here. https://transportation.house.gov/news/press-releases/chairs-payne-jr-defazio-scott-and-costa-introduce-freight-rail-shipping-fair-market-act

By Davidellias – Camera, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=21068755
This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license. Wikimedi Commons user Davidellias

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U.S. Freight Rail in Crisis

9/23/2022

Rail Strike?

Working conditions for railroad workers in this country have deteriorated as freight railroads, while making record-breaking profits for their shareholders, continue to cut costs. Many observers say we are at a crisis point for US freight rail. 

When contract talks between railroads and rail unions on wages and working conditions  stalled this summer, President Biden convened a presidential emergency board (PEB) that issued a recommended settlement in mid-August, then later revised it to answer some of the Union’s concerns. While the leadership of the rail unions recommend that membership vote in favor of the revised proposal, there is still a chance that membership will vote against ratification.

Nevada Rail Coalition leaders,  many of them Union members/leaders, are actively engaged in the current labor action against the country’s freight rail corporations. Here is Ron Kaminkow, co-chair of the NRC steering committee, quoted in The Guardian  on why rail workers have had enough:

“Kaminkow said many railroad workers don’t have any paid time off at all, with the PEB recommending just one added day of paid time off. Workers are currently on call consistently throughout the year, making a life-work balance near impossible and contributing to fatigue issues, illnesses, job safety and discontent among the workforce.

‘It’s our speculation that if this contract is approved and the PEB recommendations form the basis for a tentative agreement, and this is what we end up with, you will probably see thousands of workers in train engine service who will wait to get the best paid lump sum settlement and then they’ll quit. So it doesn’t solve any of the problems that the industry is facing,’ Kaminkow added. “I’ve worked in the industry 26 years, and it’s – I never thought I’d see it like this.’”

more HERE

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/sep/14/us-railroad-strike-union-pacific-bnsf

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Senators seek study of potential Northwest passenger-rail service

Progressive Railroading, December 22, 2021

A bipartisan group of U.S. senators representing the greater Northwest region this week called on the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) and the U.S. Department of Transportation to establish a Greater Northwest Working Group for the purpose of working toward the restoration and enhancement of passenger-rail service across the region.

The lawmakers, led by Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.), sent a letter to FRA Deputy Administrator Amit Bose calling for a study of restoring passenger-rail service to the West and Northwest regions.

Read the Article at ProgressiveRailroading.com

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Governors weigh in on high-speed rail progress between Vegas and Victorville

FOX-5 KVVU TV, December 19, 2021

Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak said he is confident California Gov. Gavin Newsom is committed to making the rail a reality, and that they both were anxious to get the project rolling.  “We’re both working with Brightline as it relates to the high-speed train. I was down in Florida to actually ride the train … It’s impressive what they’re doing, and we’re working on certain rideaway issues with the Brightline folks,” Sisolak said. “I know the [Gov. Gavin Newsom] is committed to it. I’m certainly committed to it. Anything we can do to relieve the congestion and help the citizens of both states, is something we’re anxiously working toward.”

photo High Speed Rail Alliance

Read More at FOX5Vegas.com

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Federal Railroad Administration announces availability of $198 million for intercity passenger rail projects

RT&S, December 07, 2021

The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Railroad Administration issued a Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) for the Federal-State Partnership for State of Good Repair Grant Program (Partnership Program) including $198 million in grant funding to repair and rehabilitate qualified intercity passenger railroad infrastructure and assets. It will also provide an opportunity to jumpstart investments in eligible projects under the recently enacted Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.

“The Partnership Program will make targeted investments to improve and modernize rail assets used in intercity passenger rail service,” said FRA Deputy Administrator Amit Bose.

Read the article at rtands.com

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Study sees rail move to battery-electric propulsion as feasible, cost effective

Trains, December 1, 2021

A new study says railroads could save $94 billion over 20 years by reducing air pollution and carbon dioxide emissions — and help avoid health impacts including an estimated 1,000 premature deaths each year — by retrofitting diesel-electric locomotives with battery power.

The study from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, in collaboration with UCLA and UC Berkeley researchers, says the conversion could be accomplished in a cost-competitive manner, in part through the use of battery tenders, cars carrying battery units, while leaving the diesel engine in place as a backup power source. 

Read the article at trains.com

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Amtrak Joe vs. the Modern Robber Barons

Washington Monthly, Aug 9, 2021 

The Biden administration will need to do more than just invest more public money in train travel. It will also need to reverse decades of deregulation, lax antitrust enforcement, and other policy blunders that have left modern-day robber barons in control of nearly all the nation’s highly monopolized railroad infrastructure, just as they were in the worst days of the Gilded Age. Only this time, the financiers aren’t presiding over an expanding rail system; they’re selling it off and permanently liquidating its assets for short-term economic gain.

Read the article at washingtonmonthly.com

V&T Steam Engine emerging from a tunnel in Gold Hill, Nevada.