USA: More than 13 years after Superstorm Sandy flooded it with 14 million gallons of saltwater, one of two damaged East River Tunnel tubes is carrying trains again at full capacity — and Amtrak says everything it learned fixing this one will shape how it fixes the other.
USA: Railway Supply previously reported on the freight-safety standoff between Portland and Union Pacific over the fire-damaged Centennial Mills warehouse; the demolition itself finally began Monday, Aug. 17, with a controlled explosion rather than the crane work that had marked the site's first week of preparation.
USA: Railway Supply reported in March that Shore Capital was working to acquire Amtrak's 47-acre South Loop rail yard on pure speculation; the federal money that makes the move possible has now actually arrived, and Justin Ishbia's footprint in the area has grown even larger than first suggested.
USA: This concise weekly review presents a selection of US railway news published from August 10 to August 16, 2026: federal funding awards, freight regulation and passenger service changes.
USA: Riders on Connecticut's busiest commuter line should expect about 30% fewer seats than usual on five separate weekends this fall — and for two of them, electric trains will be swapped for diesel entirely while crews tear down 130-year-old bridge infrastructure.
USA: As demolition finally begins on Portland's fire-damaged Centennial Mills warehouse, a separate dispute has surfaced: the city says Union Pacific ran 13 rail cars carrying residual hazardous materials past the unstable building, despite the railroad's earlier promise to restrict such traffic through the collapse zone.
USA: The Federal Railroad Administration is putting $5.3 billion behind new Amtrak trainsets, a rebuilt Midwest maintenance base and hundreds of dangerous grade crossings — the largest single passenger-rail funding round of the year, spread across 23 states.
UNITED STATES: Warren County has formally backed restoring passenger rail through Blairstown, but PennDOT says the Scranton–New York corridor has no confirmed opening timeline and that service in 2028 is not feasible under the current federal development path.
USA: New York City is seeking more than $21 billion in federal grants to deck over Sunnyside Yard for 12,000 affordable homes, but months after the proposal was pitched to President Donald Trump, the project remains in talks with no confirmed federal funding commitment.
UNITED STATES: Fairfield’s $40 million federal award advances a preferred design that would carry Symmes Road over CSX’s Cincinnati Terminal Subdivision and permanently close North Gilmore Road, creating more than 4.5 miles of track without at-grade road crossings immediately north of Cincinnati’s Queensgate Yard.
USA: A July agreement gives Amtrak a defined planning role in the proposed Reading–Philadelphia passenger service, while the project remains conditional on federal development work, railroad coordination and funding.
USA: Amtrak rejected AmeriStarRail’s Transcontinental Chief over its business case, but FRA data show the decisive question is whether new truck, vehicle and passenger revenues could cover a new layer of operating and infrastructure costs.
