March 2005 in rail transport

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This article lists events related to rail transport that occurred in March 2005.

Events

• March 2 – Citing disputes in paid leave policies, around 200 BNSF Railway dispatchers walk off the job for nearly three hours, causing traffic delays over the entire system from Chicago to the Pacific coast.
• March 7 – Amtrak's Three Rivers line is discontinued west of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
• March 11 – A rail grinder working westbound on the Union Pacific mainline sideswipes an eastbound BNSF Railway intermodal train at Rochelle, Illinois; the trains do not derail but a few containers are destroyed. The entire event is recorded on the Trains Magazine Rochelle webcam.
• March 14
  • Paul Côté becomes president and CEO of Via Rail Canada.
  • Canadian Pacific Railway purchases 35 new Green Goat hybrid locomotives, becoming the first railroad to order this type of locomotive.
• March 18 – Joseph H. Boardman, head of the New York State Department of Transportation, is nominated to lead the United States Federal Railroad Administration.
• March 22 – Texas Pacifico Transportation operates the first test train over former Santa Fe Railroad tracks between Presidio and San Angelo Junction, Texas.
• March 23 – Spokespeople for JR Central in Japan announce that Series 300 Shinkansen trains have been operating with faulty speed control equipment; the problem is detected after an engineer reports that he needed to manually reduce a train's speed after the Automatic Train Control (ATC) device installed on the train failed to operate. The trains are pulled from service until repairs can be made.
• March 26 – Fire destroys the 75-year-old Deval Tower in Des Plaines, Illinois; the tower housed one of the few remaining manual interlocking mechanisms still in use on American railroads. The tower's current owner, Union Pacific Railroad, does not plan to rebuild it.
• March 29 – BNSF Railway announces that it will add a fuel surcharge based on mileage to all shipments made as of January 1, 2006, making BNSF the first railway to do so.
• March 30
  • Kansas City Southern Railway leases its Bay Springs branch line between Newton and Bay Springs, Mississippi to Watco; the line will be the basis of the new Mississippi Southern Railroad.
  • Bombardier is awarded a contract to build 10 new bilevel commuter coaches for GO Transit; the contract is valued at $21 million.
• March 31 – Kawasaki Rail Car Inc. is awarded a US$499 million order to build 340 new commuter coaches and power cars for PATH in New York and New Jersey; the order is part of a plan to completely replace PATH's entire fleet of cars.

Deaths

• March 28 – Paul H. Stringham, central Illinois railroad photographer and historian (born 1913).

References

• (July 2005), "Abandonments and Acquisitions", Trains Magazine, p. 19.
• BNSF Railway (March 29, 2005), BNSF Announces First Mileage-Based Fuel Surcharge Program In the Rail Industry. Retrieved March 29, 2005.
• Canadian National Railway (March 21, 2005), CN – BC Rail Systems Integration. Retrieved March 21, 2005.
• Canadian Pacific Railway (March 14, 2005), Canadian Pacific Railway to acquire first hybrid locomotives. Retrieved March 17, 2005.
• (July 2005), "City Rail briefs", Trains Magazine, p. 29.
• Federal Railroad Administration (March 18, 2005), Federal Railroad Administration Changes Effective Date of Interim Final Rule on Use of Train Horns. Retrieved March 21, 2005.
• Fitzgerald, Ken (July 2005), "Carriers revive ex-Santa Fe line to open a U.S.-Mexico gateway", Trains Magazine, p. 18–19.
• Trains News Wire (March 23, 2005), Bullet trains may have been running with faulty speed controls. Retrieved March 24, 2005.
• Trains News Wire (March 14, 2005), Collision ties up UP-BNSF diamonds at Rochelle, Ill.. Retrieved March 15, 2005.
• Via Rail Canada (March 14, 2005), Via statement on appointment of new president. Retrieved March 17, 2005.
• Wald, Matthew L., and Bogdanich, Walt, (March 18, 2005), New York official to head Federal Railroad Administration. Retrieved March 18, 2005.