Still more Wednesday rail news:
— Canada’s Transportation Safety Board is seeking a better way to test train air brakes as a result of the 2019 derailment of a Canadian Pacific train near Field, B.C., that killed three crew members. The crewmen were killed when the train ran away on Kicking Horse Pass, derailing two of three locomotives and 99 of 112 cars [see “Three dead in CP derailment in British Columbia,” Trains News Wire, Feb. 4, 2019, and “Investigations into fatal Canadian Pacific runaway train continue nearly a year afterward,” Trains News Wire, Jan. 28, 2020.] The Canadian Press reports that the TSB has asked Transport Canada what it intends to do to address the current shortcomings in air-brake testing. A TSB spokesman said Transport Canada has not responded to the letter and is not required to do so.
— The unions that represents Port Authority Trans-Hudson commuter rail workers are pressing for COVID-19 testing, hazard pay, and a death benefit after the death of one of the workers for the service between New York and New Jersey in April. Robert Elijah, 61, was a member of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 864, one of eight PATH unions working under contracts that expired in 2011 and 2012, reports the Chief-Leader, a New York City weekly focusing on government employees and civil servants. Under the National Railway Labor Act, the expired contracts remain in force until a new agreement is reached. The virus concerns have added to the long-running battle for a new contract, and have hit some unions hard; the president of the Brotherhood of Railway Signalmen said 29 of the union’s 64 PATH members were quarantined at one point in the pandemic. New York’s MTA has agreed to a $500,000 death benefit for its workers.
— A group seeking the permanent opening to pedestrians of a historic Mississippi River bridge used by Kansas City Southern in Vicksburg, Miss., is continuing its efforts, although they have been slowed by the COVID-19 virus. The Vicksburg Post reports the Friends of the Vickburg Bridge continues to pursue talks with the Warren County Board of Supervisors and Warren County Bridge Commission about opening the former road deck of the former U.S. 80 bridge, which opened in 1930 and was closed to vehicle traffic in 1998, on a regular basis. Currently, it is only open for a handful of special events. The supervisors have held discussions with the bridge commission and railroad about an engineering study to determine a way for trains and pedestrians to coexist on the bridge.
