LOCARNO, Switzerland — The trains are new, modern, run on time, and everyone uses them to go everywhere. Clearly, I’m not at home. In fact, and as the dateline has given away, I am in Switzerland. This is night two of my second trip here, this time a three-week adventure. And while I am badly […]
BOSTON – CSX Transportation still expects to see growth in revenue ton miles this year despite declines in several key commodity segments, CEO Joe Hinrichs told an investor conference today. While the railroad’s automotive, coal, minerals, and metals business has been strong, its chemicals, forest products, and international intermodal traffic are all down year over […]
WASHINGTON – The House of Representatives Oversight Committee is probing the Department of Transportation’s response to a series of rail and aviation safety issues. The committee’s Republicans sent a letter yesterday to Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg regarding train derailments and near-misses involving airlines. The letter asks DOT to provide documents related to “efforts to investigate […]
Second of two parts Part one of this report appeared Tuesday, Sept. 5 EFFINGHAM, Ill. —The latest round of tests investigating ways to ensure trains always activate track circuits — the process known as “shunt” — involves shunt-enhancing antennas mounted on both trucks of a state-owned locomotive in Amtrak service in California. Here’s how the […]
HOUSTON – Union Pacific and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency are seeking residents’ permission to conduct soil testing on their properties this month as part of the railroad’s ongoing effort to clean up contamination from the former Southern Pacific crosstie treatment plant in the Fifth Ward. The Houston Health Department independently conducted some additional soil […]
WASHINGTON — Five of the seven Class I railroads operating in the U.S. last year were revenue adequate in 2022, the Surface Transportation Board said today. Being revenue adequate means a railroads achieved a rate of return equal to or greater than the board’s calculation of the average cost of capital to the freight rail […]
I’m heartened to see Amtrak intends to explore a 200-mph Dallas-Houston passenger rail service in cooperation with Texas Central Partners. Having driven I-45 between the two megacities, I can vouch for its clear need and likely success. Not all of Amtrak’s plans have succeeded as envisioned, unfortunately. One, in particular, comes to mind: the short-lived […]
First of two parts EFFINGHAM, Ill, —What happens when electrical current connected with signal systems doesn’t reliably travel from one rail to another when a train passes? Dispatchers “lose” the train — it disappears from their screens — and warning lights don’t flash or gates don’t lower at highway crossings as the train approaches. The […]
ATLANTA — A “software defect” led to the computer system outage that disrupted Norfolk Southern operations on Monday, the railroad said in a follow-up report. In a statement today, the railroad said during routine maintenance by its data storage vendor, “a leading global technology provider,” this software defect created an error that affected both the […]
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – CSX Transportation says Berkshire & Eastern’s operation of Pan Am Southern, which began today, should moot the concerns that Norfolk Southern raised last month in a lawsuit alleging that CSX was hampering its access to New England. NS asked a Delaware court for an expedited preliminary injunction that would bar CSX and […]
WASHINGTON — The Association of American Railroads has filed a friend-of-the-court brief backing BNSF Railway in its appeal of the Surface Transportation Board’s decision ordering the railroad to haul more export coal from a Montana mine to tidewater in British Columbia. The brief, filed yesterday with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, […]
WASHINGTON – Federal regulators have put a hold on their final environmental assessment of Union Pacific’s proposed 6-mile branch to a new industrial park being built outside Phoenix. The Surface Transportation Board’s Office of Environmental Analysis, in a decision released on Thursday, said it was delaying a decision indefinitely due to the discovery of “significant […]
