The money will benefit Marshall’s Rahall Transportation Institute and will be used to support research into different
kinds of transportation. Congressman Rahall says the donation will be put to
good use.
“What they’re doing here with this grant
to RTI is to provide to Bucks for Brains program, to set up a program that
provides additional research into safety research and safety technologies and
also to keep our economy moving in this area, which they do in so many different
ways,” Rahall said.
The funding will help to further RTI
studies in its Railroad Safety and Operations Research Center of Excellence or
Rail-SORCE. The center was formed to look at the challenges that face the
railroad industry worldwide. Rail-SORCE does testing of new technologies that
could be used on railroads as well as looks for new ways to make the railroads
more efficient.
Rahall says that RTI is looking at
what’s next in transportation.
“RTI has been involved in a number of
projects of that nature, also lighting technologies, intelligent transportation
systems network which would provide our drivers with up to date real time
information to try to prevent them from not only accidents, but driving in to
situations that are dangerous such as the winter storm we had this winter,”
Rahall said.
The donation is part of the statewide
Bucks for Brains program at Marshall and West Virginia University. The donation
marks the second straight year that CSX has donated $50,000 to Marshall and
RTI. Rahall says Bucks for Brains has been vital in allowing RTI to more
closely examine safety issues.
“It helps further the vision of the
Rahall transportation institute which is helping build jobs through
transportation and an important part of that is getting our young people
involved and when you go through RTI and see the young people that are involved
there its very heartwarming and that’s what this program is all about,” Rahall
said.
Randy Cheetham, regional vice president
for public affairs at CSX, says his company feels it’s important to work with a
center that’s helping to further the use of railways.
“The reason that we wanted to give to
the RTI foundation is because they have done so much to improve rail technology,
rail safety innovations, a lot of the technology that we use on our system
right now has been developed right here in Huntington, West Virginia at RTI,”
Cheetham said.
Cheetham says CSX hopes that the
relationship will continue to develop.
“It continues to grow, we started out
with one projects and it’s led to several projects and we hope to continue to
develop that and support many many more projects and see much more research,”
Cheetham said.
The grant from CSX will be matched
through the Bucks for Brains program, meaning that both $50,000 donations from CSX
over the past two years will become $100,000 after the state matched them.
The money comes from the West Virginia
Research Trust Fund. The fund was established in 2008 by the state legislature
to help increase the amount of research at both Marshall and West Virginia University.
The legislature initially appropriated
$15 million for Marshall
and $35 million for WVU.
WVU has raised $7.8 million. Marshall has raised
$800,000. Both of those amounts will be
doubled by the state matching fund. Private gifts to the university are also being
matched.