NEWTON, Mass. — One person died and a dozen were injured after two Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority trains collided.
The only fatality was the engineer of one of the trains. The employee had worked for MBTA for less than a year, according to media reports.
According to reports, one train rammed into the rear of the other […]

BOSTON — Two Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority trains collided near Newton, Mass.
The National Transportation Safety Board is dispatching a Go Team to investigate the collision. NTSB Rail Investigator Wayne Workman will serve as Investigator-in-Charge and lead the 7-member team.
Board Member Kitty Higgins will accompany the team and serve as spokesman for the on-scene investigation.

WASHINGTON — Higher gas prices and congestion on the nation’s highways are helping to make railroads a more viable travel alternative, a congresswoman says.
“Amtrak’s improved physical state and recent focus on customer service, along with increasing highway and airport congestion and rising gas prices, have made intercity passenger rail more popular and necessary than ever,” […]

WASHINGTON — A bill to reauthorize Amtrak and improve intercity passenger rail was approved and reported out by the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure.
HR 6003, the Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act of 2008, authorizes $14.4 billion for Amtrak capital and operating grants, state intercity passenger grants, and high-speed rail over the next five […]

WASHINGTON — The Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority (MWAA) has substantially improved its proposal to extend Metrorail, responding various concerns the Department of Transportation raised in January, the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) announced.
“Consequently, we have sent the required 10-day notification to Congress that we intend to move the project into the Final Design stage of FTA’s […]

CHICAGO — Two people were killed after a tractor trailer slammed into a bus shelter at the Cermak-Chinatown CTA station, authorities said.
Trains on CTA’s Red Line were interrupted because of the accident.
“Right now this is just a tragic traffic accident,” The Associated Press quoted Chicago Police Department Deputy Chief Joseph Patterson as saying. Two women […]

WASHINGTON — The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) has issued a guidance document to help minimize accidents due to gaps between the edge of a passenger station platform and the threshold of a passenger train door.
FRA Approach to Managing Gap Safety addresses the use of engineering evaluation and analysis to establish gap standards and the application […]

NEWARK, N.J. — Trains along Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor came to a standstill because of electrical problems, authorities said.
“It was done as a precautionary measure. None of the trains lost power,” The Associated Press quoted Amtrak Spokesman Cliff Cole as saying.
The voltage in the overhead wires dropped from 12,000 volts to 9,000 volts, though an exact […]

CANTON, Mass. — About 150 people were injured when a lumber car crashed into a Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority commuter train Tuesday afternoon, March 25, authorities said.
“All the lights went out and people were flying down the aisles and people were on the floor of the car,” one passenger told The Boston Herald newspaper. “The […]

WASHINGTON — The National Transportation Safety Board determined the probable cause of the collision involving a Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority train with a maintenance truck in Woburn, Mass., was the failure of the train dispatcher to maintain blocking that provided signal protection for the track segment occupied by the maintenance-of-way work crew, and the failure […]