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Railway News

04 Jan 2024

Public Hearing Scheduled for Deadly Newark Ship Fire

New York City Fire Department personnel respond to a fire on the motor vessel Grande Costa D’Avorio in Port Newark, New Jersey, July 6, 2023. (Photo: Dan Henry / U.S. Coast Guard)

The U.S. Coast Guard and National Transportation Safety Board will conduct a formal public hearing this month to consider evidence related to a deadly fire that occurred aboard the Italian-flagged cargo vessel, Grande Costa D’Avorio, while docked at the Port of Newark, N.JThe hearing, slated to take place January 10-12 and 16-18 at the Union Township City Council Chambers in Union, N.J., will be open to the public, as well as broadcast live and recorded. It will focus on the condition of the Grande Costa D’Avorio prior to and at the time of the fire…

06 Nov 2023

In Brazil's Amazon, Cargill Grains Ports Meet Local Resistance

© JR Slompo / Adobe Stock

For centuries, riverside communities, including the "quilombola" descendants of enslaved Africans who escaped from plantations and ranches, have shared Xingu Island in Brazil's Amazon Basin.Its inhabitants live in brightly painted wooden houses overlooking rivers where small boats crisscross between islands and Abaetetuba city on the mainland to trade fish, seeds and fruits gathered from the Amazon forest in their backyard.In 2016, however, strangers docked on Xingu Island, in Para state…

03 Aug 2023

Lake Michigan Carferry's SS Badger Out for the Season

SS Badger (Photo: Interlake Maritime Services)

A historic Great Lakes car and passenger ferry will be sidelined the rest of the season due to damages it suffered in July. Lake Michigan Carferry said Tuesday that the SS Badger's daily crossings between Ludington, Mich., and Manitowoc, Wis., have been suspended indefinitely.“We have made the difficult, and unfortunately unavoidable, decision to suspend our daily crossings for the remainder of the season,” said Mark W. Barker, president of Ohio-based Interlake Maritime Services, parent company of the Lake Michigan Carferry.

19 Jul 2023

Russia Carries Out Air Strikes on Ukraine's Odesa Port

© kaetana / Adobe Stock

Ukrainian air defence systems were engaged in the early hours of Wednesday in repelling a Russian air attack on the southern port of Odesa for a second consecutive night, the region's governor said.Russia struck Ukrainian ports on Tuesday, a day after pulling out of a U.N.-backed deal for safe Black Sea grain exports, a decision that raised concern primarily in Africa and Asia of rising food prices and hunger."Do not approach the windows, do not shoot or show the work of air defence forces…

02 Jun 2023

Russia's Taman Port to Suspend LPG Exports over Drone Danger

Taman Port - ©European Space Agency -      Date March 5, 2018 - CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO

Russia's Black Sea port of Taman is poised to suspend exports of highly-explosive liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) because of concerns linked to drone attacks, three sources with knowledge of the situation told Reuters on Friday. Russia has come under repeated attack in recent weeks, suffering a major cross-border incursion and drone attacks including on Moscow, oil refineries in southern Russia and a fuel depot near a strategic bridge that links Russia's mainland with Crimea. Russia says Ukraine was behind the attacks, including on the Kremlin last month. Kyiv denies it.

15 May 2023

How Gdańsk is Reclaiming its Industrial Waterfront

© Piotr Wawrzyniuk / Adobe Stock

The prosperity of port cities, throughout history, has been closely tied to the ports’ ability to adapt to economic and technological change. As ships got bigger, ports had to keep up. This has often seen the port proper grow apart from the city whose name it bears because the old harbor could no longer accommodate the needs of modernized shipping.In those European cities located by rivers, port activities have often migrated towards the estuary. The ships headed for the port of Liverpool now berth in docks stretching north of the original Royal Albert dock…

03 May 2023

Crowley Launches Multimodal Service Between Mexico, US and Canada

(Photo: Crowley)

Crowley announced it will launch an end-to-end, integrated ocean and rail service between Mexico and the U.S. Midwest region and into Canada. Featuring Crowley’s new Mexico-U.S. ocean route in the Gulf, the service will leverage the inland rail network of Canadian National Railway Company and its U.S. rail subsidiaries (CN). The companies’ combined network provides broad reach across the Midwest and into Canada to increase solutions for global customers in North American market…

14 Apr 2023

What Happens if Russia Abandons UN-backed Grain Corridor?

The Kremlin has said the outlook is "not so great" for extending beyond May 18 a deal that allows the safe wartime export of grain from some Ukrainian Black Sea ports, raising concerns over what happens next with the U.N.-backed sea corridor.The deal has helped to tackle a global food crisis that U.N. officials said had been worsened by the most deadly war in Europe since World War Two.Reached in July last year, it created a protected transit corridor to enable exports to resume from three ports in Ukraine…

13 Mar 2023

Offshore Wind Hub Planned at Avondale Global Gateway in Louisiana

© Fokke Baarssen / Adobe Stock

An offshore wind hub is coming to the site of the former Avondale Shipyard in Louisiana as the region ramps up to service the growing renewable energy industry in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico.New Orleans-based Gulf Wind Technology (GWT) announced Monday it is collaborating with energy supermajor Shell to establish a research, training and technology demonstration program at GWT’s facility within the Avondale Global Gateway in Jefferson Parish.The news comes after the Biden administration…

01 Mar 2023

Crandall Dry Dock Engineers, Inc Is Up for Sale

(Photo: Crandall Dry Dock Engineers, Inc.)

The family of Crandall Dry Dock’s late owner P. Brian Duffy is seeking a buyer for the Bourne, Mass. shipyard engineering and services firm.Originally founded in Boston in 1854, Crandall Dry Dock was acquired by Duffy, a former employee, in 1994. The company, which specializes in shipyard rail systems, is known for its engineering and design work as well as the supply of specialized hardware and equipment for use in marine railway systems.“Crandall designed and installed marine railways all over the world…

01 Mar 2023

India Coal is Back in Business

Copyright Parilov/AdobeStock

India's coal industry celebrated the return of its major conference after a three-year pandemic hiatus by presenting a bullish view of demand, rising supply from new mines and strong demand for imports."King coal is coming back and coming with a big bang," Anil Kumar Jha, the chairman of Jindal Power Ltd., told the Coaltrans India conference, held this week for the first time since February 2020.The sentiment was echoed by virtually every speaker at the event, although there was a wide variety of views as to how successful India will be at ramping up coal domestic coal output…

30 Nov 2022

Landslides Block Access to Brazil's Paranagua Port

Paranagua port - ©CLAITON LUIS MORAES/Wikimedia Commons - CC BY-SA 4.0

Brazil's Paranagua port authority said on Tuesday that landslides caused by heavy rainfall blocked road and rail access to the port, the second busiest for grain exports in the country. In a statement, the authority said other port operations are normal as ships continue to unload and load products stored at the port's warehouses. Landslides have totally blocked the main access road to Parana's ports of Paranagua and Antonina, disrupting the flow of trucks headed to the coast, according to the statement.

09 Nov 2022

Strong Offshore Quake Rattles Italy

Credit: earthquake.usgs.gov

A strong earthquake of magnitude 5.7 struck off Italy's Adriatic coast early on Wednesday, but caused no serious damage or injuries but was felt as far away as Rome and northern parts of the country. The quake, which occurred shortly after 7 a.m. (0600 GMT), was followed by more than 50 aftershocks of weaker intensity, the Italian Geophysics and Volcanology Institute (INGV) said. Its epicentre was 35 kilometers (21.7 miles) offshore from Pesaro, a seaside city in the eastern Marche region…

17 Oct 2022

Svitzer Names Paterson UK Managing Director

(Photo: Svitzer)

Effective January 1, 2023, Michael Paterson joins as new Managing Director for Svitzer UK, replacing Kasper Karlsen who has acted as interim MD since June. Paterson joins Svitzer from a role as Operations Director at Govia Thameslink Railway (GTR), with a history in maritime gained from 26 years in the Royal Navy. Managing Director of Svitzer Europe, Lise Demant, said, “Michael will be a huge asset for Svitzer Europe. He is a proven business leader with a real passion for people as well as the maritime industry.

07 Sep 2022

Putin Casts Doubt Over Ukraine Grain Deal and Gas Supplies to Europe

© Elena / Adobe Stock

President Vladimir Putin mooted on Wednesday reopening a U.N.-brokered deal for Ukrainian grain exports via the Black Sea and threatened to halt all energy supplies to Europe if Brussels caps the price of Russian gas.In a combative speech to an economic forum in Russia's Far East region, Putin made little reference to his invasion of Ukraine, but said in answer to a question that Russia would not lose the war and had strengthened its sovereignty.On the ground, Ukrainian officials…

25 Jul 2022

Russian Missiles Hit Ukraine Port

© Valentin Kundeus / Adobe Stock

Russian missiles hit Ukraine's southern port of Odesa on Saturday, the Ukrainian military said, threatening a deal signed just a day earlier to unblock grain exports from Black Sea ports and ease global food shortages caused by the war.Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy called the strike blatant "barbarism" showing Moscow could not be trusted to implement the deal. However, public broadcaster Suspilne quoted the Ukrainian military as saying the missiles had not caused significant…

25 Jul 2022

More Long Delays at UK's Port of Dover

© Eddie Cloud / Adobe Stock

Long queues of holidaymakers and lorries built up on Saturday outside the Port of Dover, Britain's main gateway to Europe, and officials said the disruption could be worse than the logjam seen on Friday.Travelers setting out at the start of the British school summer holidays, as well as the usual flow of goods lorries, have faced long delays because of slow border checks.The Kent Resilience Forum, which brings together local councils and emergency services, declared a "major incident"…

22 Jul 2022

MARAD Awards $19.6 Million in Small Shipyard Grants

(File photo: Gladding Hearn)

The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Maritime Administration (MARAD) announced $19.6 million in grant awards to 24 small shipyards in 19 states through the Small Shipyard Grant Program.The funds will help awardees—many of which being family-run businesses—modernize, increase productivity and expand local employment opportunities while competing in the global marketplace, MARAD said.“Small businesses are the lifeblood of the American economy, and small shipyards play a critical role in America’s maritime industry, helping us get the goods we depend on every day,” said U.S.

18 Jul 2022

Macquarie Invests in Brazil Port Operator CLI to Fund $260M Deal

Credit: soualexandrerocha/AdobeStock

Australia's Macquarie group is investing in Brazilian ports by taking a stake in port operator CLI and funding a deal to buy sugar and grain terminals in Latin America's largest port, Santos, for $260 million, the companies said on Friday.Railway operator Rumo said in a securities filing late it has sold 80% of its subsidiary EPSA, which manages terminals 16 and 19 in Santos, to CLI for 1.4 billion reais ($260 million). Rumo will remain a minority shareholder.CLI, formally Corredor Logistica e Infraestrutura, belonged to the Brazilian private equity fund IG4.

11 Jul 2022

Biden Administration Announces Nearly $300 Million in Ferry Grants

© Derek Victor / Adobe Stock

The Biden Administration announced funding to improve and expand ferry service in communities across the country, as well as accelerate the transition to zero emission transportation.Thanks to President Biden's Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the Federal Transit Administration is making available nearly $300 million through three competitive grant programs that boost access to rural ferry service, bolster existing and new urban service, and lower emissions across all services by…

26 May 2022

Black Sea Ports Still the Best Way to Get Ukraine's Grain Moving Fast

© bergamont / Adobe Stock

Ukraine is desperately trying to export its vast stores of grain by road, river and rail to help avert a global food crisis but has no chance of hitting its targets unless Russia's blockade of its Black Sea ports is lifted, a government official said.Before Russia sent troops into Ukraine on Feb. 24, the country had the capacity to export up to 6 million tonnes of wheat, barley and maize a month but exports collapsed to just 300,000 tonnes in March and 1.1 million in April.While the government wants to lift that to 2 million…

02 Jun 2022

Deltamarin Designing Train Ferry for Fennorail

(Image: Deltamarin)

Finnish ship designer Deltamarin said it has signed a contract with Oy Fennorail Ltd for conceptual design of a train ferry capable of carrying both train and truck cargo.The so-called EUROCARRIER train ferry is being engineered to connect Finland to the European TEN-T railway networks and create a connection across Eastern Europe to Central Europe and the Mediterranean. Approximately 400,000 trucks per year, or almost 1,100 trucks per day travel on car ferries between Finland and Estonia.

24 May 2022

Ukraine Seeking Ways to Get its Grain Out

 A grain carrier in a Ukrainian port back in 2021 - ©Elena/AdobeStock

Ukraine is seeking ways to get grain and vegetable oils out of the country by breaking a months-long blockade of the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea by the Russian navy and moving more by land.The war, together with Western sanctions against Russia, have sent the price of grain, cooking oil, fertilizer, and energy soaring.That in turn, is threatening a global food crisis as many countries count on Russia and Ukraine for more than half of their wheat imports, including some of the poorest.Russia and Ukraine together account for nearly a third of the global wheat supply…