From Crain’s Detroit Business

Source: http://www.crainsdetroit.com/article/20101130/FREE/101139992/last-minute-attempt-fails-to-get-dric-bill-out-of-michigan-senate-committee#

From the Gary Post-Tribune

Construction will start next year on the $71.4 million railroad project that the feds authorized for Northwest Indiana in early 2010, state transportation officials said Monday.

The project, which is supposed to relieve congestion in a bottleneck from Porter County to the Indiana/Illinois state line, is paid solely by stimulus funding. It’s expected to create about 700 jobs each year for two years.

“Right now, they’re still working on the final details of the agreement between Norfolk Southern, Amtrak and the Federal Railroad Administration. They’re meeting every week to two weeks and hope to have it finalized by the end of the year,” Jim Pinkerton, a spokesman for the Indiana Department of Transportation, said. “Once the agreement is finalized, they’ll go ahead and authorize the final design work to go ahead. That’ll probably take place in first quarter of 2011. The project will be under way during the 2011 construction season.”

Read more: http://www.post-trib.com/news/2931114,new-rail1130.article

From Trains Magazine

SAULT STE. MARIE, Ont. — Canadian National’s Agawa Canyon tour train equipment is on its way to Illinois for refurbishment and repainting. CN spokesman Mark Hallman told TRAINS News Wire the C$10 million project aims to improve the ride experience.

CN acquired the tour train with its 2001 purchase of Wisconsin Central Ltd. and WC subsidiary Algoma Central Railway. The train travels daily between Sault Ste. Marie and Agawa Canyon Wilderness Park, 114 miles, during summer and fall. CN uses the former Denver Ski Train consist for the service, and the train currently operates with CN patches over the old Ski Train markings.

Hallman said the work will include installing larger car windows for better viewing, new carpeting, new window trim, and seat reupholstery. CN and the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund Corp., an arm of the provincial government, are jointly funding the work.

Additional work includes new wheels and extra safety features. Beyond the joint upgrade, the Salt Ste. Marie Economic Development Corp. has secured C$1 million to install state-of-the-art audio-visual equipment for the train. Those upgrades will include GPS-linked headsets to provide commentary along the route (it’ll be available in five languages), and a front-mounted digital video camera that’ll feed to 196 TV monitors inside the passenger cars. It’s part of the CN-Heritage Fund fleet acquisition and renewal program announced in May 2009.

The train will wear a special paint scheme, and CN plans to have the work completed in time for the 2011 summer tour season.

For more information on the Agawa Canyon tour train, visit www.agawacanyontourtrain.com/.

From NPR’s “All Things Considered”

High-speed rail may be among the casualties of last week’s midterm elections.

The governors-elect of Wisconsin and Ohio say they will reject hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding intended to start up new high-speed passenger rail service in their states, even though the projects require their states to pay nothing upfront. Florida’s governor-elect may do the same.

The moves to oppose the Obama administration’s efforts to get high-speed trains whisking through some parts of the country appear to be the first of many fights between Democrats and newly elected Republicans who campaigned on promises to rein in spending.

And even states such as Illinois that want high-speed rail and tout its benefits could face a day of reckoning with the changing of the guard on Capitol Hill.

Read more: http://www.npr.org/2010/11/10/131223230/not-so-fast-future-for-high-speed-rail-uncertain

From The Grand Rapids Press

Plans for a new Amtrak station that would consolidate train and bus services downtown got an $850,000 boost this morning.

The Downtown Development Authority approved the outlay to the Interurban Transit Partnership, which operates The Rapid, to help leverage a $3.8 million grant to build rails to service the site.

Supporters see the facility as a way to make rail transit aboard Amtrak’s Pere Marquette line to and from Chicago more convenient while alleviating congestion as trains come and go at least twice a day.

The new 3,000 square foot station would be staffed by Amtrak but leased from The Rapid. The DDA’s funds will pay for design and construction of the station and platform along with acquisition of several small properties.

The federal dollars will go toward building a new spur connecting existing lines to what is now a commuter parking lot south of Rapid Central Station.

The new station will allow Amtrak to store its trains on site overnight rather than moving them three miles out of downtown each day.

The DDA already had set aside $873,479 as part of commitment made in 2000 to pass along revenue captured from the Rapid’s transit millage for downtown-area transit projects.

Design and construction of the new rail and station is expected to take 12 to 18 months.

Source: http://www.mlive.com/business/west-michigan/index.ssf/2010/11/new_downtown_amtrak_station_ge.html