Belt Railway of Chicago is to equip its locomotive fleet with Wi-Tronix’s Violet Edge IoT technology to support fuel consumption and idle reduction monitoring, incident investigation and mechanical health status and provide alert of high coupling forces. ‘Using new tools allows us to fulfil our mission, while making improvements to our use of fuel, our environmental footprint and the overall efficiency of our locomotive assets’, said BRC President Mike Grace. ‘We are excited to have a connected solution that will provide actionable information and insights on how our rail networks are performing in real-time.’
On March 24 ČD Cargo ordered 10 more Alstom (ex-Bombardier) Traxx MS3 locomotives for delivery in 2022. In 2018 it signed a framework agreement for up to 50 locos, with a firm order for 10. The first two of these have been in trial operation since early July 2020, although final authorisation for international use has not yet been granted; the other eight from the first order were delivered on March 12-26.
Mediterranean Shipping Co now offers its customers access to three weekly block intermodal train services between the port of Odessa and Kyiv, Kharkiv and Dnipro. MSC said it expects a strong uptake, and may consider launching additional regular block trains in Ukraine later this year.
Shell Canada’s Sulphur business is to use Cando Rail Services’ Quasar supply chain visibility platform for real-time wagon tracking and data analytics. ‘Our design strategy for Shell Sulphur starts with using the Quasar platform to capture real-time GPS location data’, said Corrie Banks, General Manager of Quasar. ‘The insights gathered from the real-time data will give Shell Sulphur visibility and control over administrative issues, rail network system challenges, and dwell across the network, as well as track green hosue gas emissions and further qualify opportunities to reduce cost and increase cycle time.’
Uralvagonzavod has been awarded a contract to produced 3 053 Type 12-196-02 open wagons with 25 tonne axleload bogies by September. The customer was not disclosed.
