The funding represents the largest amount ever awarded for rail safety and rail supply chain upgrades through the Consolidated Rail Infrastructure and Safety Improvements (CRISI) program.
“For years, the CRISI Program has helped to maintain and modernize America’s freight rail network, and it’s the only federal grant program prioritizing smaller, short line railroads vital to our nation’s economy and regional supply chains. With unprecedented levels of funding through President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, FRA is advancing even more projects and laying the groundwork for further transformation,” said FRA administrator Amit Bose.
“The selected projects will tackle issues facing communities and invest in a 21st century rail network yielding greater benefits – faster and more reliable deliveries of goods, safer communities, cleaner transportation, and more jobs and workforce development opportunities.”
One project to benefit from CRISI funding is the Port of Baltimore Strategic Acquisition of Battery Electric Locomotives Project. This project in Maryland has received more than $11.5m to bring the first-ever zero-exhaust emissions locomotives to an east coast port.
In total, three older, higher-emission locomotives will be replaced with new battery electric locomotives and a battery charger at the Port of Baltimore, benefiting shippers, port employees, and nearby communities by decreasing air emissions and noise. CSX Transportation will use the battery electric locomotives in its Curtis Bay Piers terminal.
Meanwhile, a CRISI investment of US$178.4m is going to Amtrak, in partnership with the Southern Rail Commission, for the Gulf Coast Corridor Improvement Project, which will restore passenger service in a region that has not had access to it since Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
Other projects to receive funding include track-related improvements and locomotive modernization in Ohio, Kentucky, and Nebraska.
While the majority of selected projects support freight rail safety and supply chains, CRISI investments are also helping to expand world-class passenger rail to more communities nationwide.
Investments in Virginia, for example, will result in two new Amtrak round trips and three new commuter rail round trips on the RF&P corridor between Washington, DC, and Richmond – a critical link between Northeast and Southeast states – while improving the fluidity of CSX’s freight network.
In California, two additional daily round trips will be added to the Capitol Corridor between the cities of Sacramento and Roseville, and a project eliminating grade crossings in the Central Valley will bring high-speed rail one step closer to becoming a reality.
Speaking about the latter, former US transportation secretary Ray LaHood, who is co-chair of the US High Speed Rail Coalition, said: “This grant [US$202m] shows that California High Speed Rail is picking up steam. It’s time to put the full weight of the federal government behind this historic project.”
California is building the first solar-powered high-speed rail system in the world, with solar panels at select locations along the route supplying enough electricity to power the initial phase of the high-speed rail system.
Last month, the California High-Speed Rail Authority’s board of directors took a major step toward bringing high-speed rail service to California by approving the release of a Request for Qualifications (RFQ) to industry for the US’s first 220mph electrified high-speed trainsets.
California High Speed Rail is an 800-mile, 220mph electrified statewide high-speed rail system, which once fully complete will connect San Diego to Sacramento and San Francisco. The project is being completed in phases, with the first phase – the main spine of the system – now under construction in the Central Valley.