Rail supplier news from C2K, Teleste, Janam, Conduent, HNTB and Bourque (Sept. 28)

MTA New York City Transit (NYCT) has chosen an LTK Engineering Services-Jacobs Engineering Group Inc. joint venture known as C2K Partners to provide post-award consulting services for the new R211 subway cars. C2K will provide technical and program management support to NYCT during the design, manufacturing, delivery, testing and acceptance of the new cars, which will feature expanded doors aimed at reducing delays and speeding the boarding process. The R211 cars also will be equipped with monitoring systems that will transmit information about performance to the wayside, which will help crews examine trains before equipment failure, according to a C2K press release. The contract's value was not disclosed in the press release. In January, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's board approved a $1.4 billion contract with Kawasaki Rail Car Inc. for 535 of the R211 units.

Spanish rail-car maker CAF has selected Teleste Corp.'s on-board solutions for metro projects in the Philippines and Italy. The order includes 30 metro units for Manila and 12 units for Naples. Deliveries are slated to start in 2019, Teleste officials said in a press release. The deployment will include a passenger information system and Ethernet network for Manila metro trains, and a passenger information system and closed-circuit television systems with an Ethernet network in Naples.

Thermoplastic compound maker Aurora Plastics has begun using Janam Technologies LLC's XM2-RFID rugged mobile computer to identify and track rail-cars in its rail yard. Aurora Plastics each year unloads more than 100 million pounds of PVC resin from rail cars at its facility in Streetsboro, Ohio. As demand for PVC building materials  increased, the company looked for ways to improve unloading processes at the facility, Janam officials said in a press release. The XM2-RFID computer ensures rail cars pass quality checks before they're unloaded and materials are delivered, they added.

Conduent Transportation is incorporating new technology into New Jersey Transit's fare payment system to enable riders to "tap and ride" using their mobile devices and other cashless methods. The company will update more than 500 ticket vending machines, 200 platform validators and 65 fare gates to accept payments via mobile phones and contactless bank cards, Conduent officials said in a press release.  Conduent's contract with NJ Transit began earlier this year and will include four phases over a five-year period. Financial details of the contract weren't disclosed in the press release.

HNTB Corp. has hired James Collins as project director and vice president in its transit and rail practice. Based in New York City, Collins will help support the practice's growth in the region, with an emphasis on major design-build projects. He has more than 30 years of transit design and construction management experience, HNTB officials said in a news release. Before joining the firm, Collins led design teams with another major consulting firm involved in many significant design-build transit projects, including improvements to MTA Long Island Rail Road facilities at New York Penn Station.

Bourque Logistics soon will release its SHIPPER BI software, a logistics business intelligence tool aimed at providing visual evaluation of clients' performance measures. The software will provide dashboards that aggregate fleet, shipment, freight cost and equipment maintenance data. The SHIPPER BI software addresses rail, truck and intermodal operations, including domestic and international movements, according to a Bourque press release.