Innovative Workforce Projects Among Today’s CRISI Awards

By Jim Mathews / President & CEO

Some 122 rail-improvement projects in 41 states – including many in rural areas – will share $2.4 billion in new CRISI grants, the Federal Railroad Administration said today, including an innovative workforce-development effort at the University of Montana for mechanical employees and up to $58.8 million to Amtrak to tackle the perennial loss-of-shunt signaling issue that ties up Superliner cars in Illinois and Midwest service.

“Under the Biden-Harris Administration and through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, FRA is investing more than ever in communities nationwide, reversing a half-century of federal underinvestment in America’s rail network and delivering the world-class rail our citizens deserve,” FRA Administrator Amit Bose said in a prepared statement announcing the latest CRISI round. “Today’s CRISI grants will enhance rail safety, better connect towns, cities, and ports, introduce more environmentally friendly locomotives, support the current rail workforce, and provide workforce development opportunities essential to the future of our industry and the national economy.”

CRISI stands for Consolidated Rail Infrastructure and Safety Improvements, and typically covers a broad range of capital investments for safety equipment, signaling, rolling stock, and even grade-separation projects. This round included several significant investments in workforce development.

Working with Amtrak and labor unions, FRA awarded $14 million to support a 36-month Mechanical Craft Workforce Development Apprenticeship Program. This program aims to build a skilled workforce to maintain Amtrak's equipment fleet, enhancing safety and service performance. Through this initiative, Amtrak will offer job opportunities and career pathways in essential mechanical crafts critical to operational efficiency. The program will be offered at locations across the country, including Beech Grove, Indiana; Wilmington, Delaware; Washington, DC; New York, New York; Chicago, Illinois; and Los Angeles, California.

Montana State University also is getting as much as $6.4 million under the heading “Developing a Home-Grown Multidisciplinary Rail Workforce through Engagement with the Corridor Systems Planning Process.” The idea is simple: getting proactive about creating the workforce of the 21st century and eliminating hurdles related to lack of human resource capacity to serve the needs of existing and expanded rail in the Mountain West and across the country.

The Shunt Enhancement Safety Project, supported by a CRISI grant of up to $58.8 million, involves Amtrak's installation of Onboard Shunt Enhancement (OSE) devices on 443 locomotives and 192 cab cars across its national fleet. Track circuits work by detecting trains through an electrical shunt, created when train wheels connect both rails, completing an electrical circuit. When there’s not enough weight or pressure on the rails (or poor wheel-rail contact), this connection may not fully complete, causing a “loss of shunt,” which makes that train undetectable to signal systems – an obvious safety issue. The way Amtrak solves that problem today on the CN territory where it’s the biggest problem is by running empty Superliners, which works but also soaks up badly needed Superliner capacity. Getting it back into revenue service would be significant for the entire Midwest. To complete the project, Amtrak will collaborate with numerous state Departments of Transportation from California to Wisconsin, contributing a 20% non-federal funding match.

The loss-of-shunt program is among the larger CRISI awards this round. The largest single project is the Livingston Avenue Movable Rail Bridge Replacement in New York, a $215,104,000 award, followed by the Springfield Rail Improvements Project in Illinois ($157,126,494), a $105 million project to enhance the North Carolina Rail Road, the Detroit RECHARGED Project for $67.4 million, and an effort directed at modernizing rail on Colorado’s Front Range for $66.4 million.

The Livingston Avenue project will replace an elderly CSX-owned passenger rail bridge spanning the Hudson River between Albany and Rensselaer, New York. It’s a critical part of the Empire Corridor, and the new structure will support enhanced service reliability and increased operational speeds. Additionally, it will allow for simultaneous two-track operation, removing current speed restrictions and addressing both vertical and horizontal clearance limitations, alleviating current bottlenecks caused by single-track constraints and low-speed limits and enabling smoother flow and reducing delays. Importantly, the project will introduce a safe and accessible crossing for pedestrians and cyclists over the Hudson River.

The Springfield project will consolidate the Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern corridors into one multitrack corridor through the city and advance the efforts to provide a higher speed intercity passenger rail connection between St. Louis and Chicago, FRA says. In addition to track improvements and new grade crossing separations, the project will also construct a Multimodal Transportation Center to better connect public transportation options such as passenger rail, local bus service, and intercity bus service.

In North Carolina, more than $105.5 million will be invested in the North Carolina Railroad Company (NCRR) Carolinian and Piedmont Passenger and Freight Improvements Project, to improve the capacity of the NCRR’s NC-Line to meet the growing demands of both freight and passenger rail traffic. Upgrades would add more than five miles of sidings, reconstruct up to 69 miles of track, eliminate one grade crossing, and improve track geometry. The project will increase on-time performance for existing Amtrak routes, allow for additional passenger trains along the growing corridor, and meet the needs of a growing manufacturing sector.

You can review the details of all 122 projects in this round by clicking here.