Canadian Pacific was the clear winner in second quarter traffic growth among the big six Class I railroad systems. CP carried 6% more carloads in the quarter, led by double-digit gains in its potash, forest products, and energy, chemicals and plastics business segments. The only CP traffic segments not to grow were coal, which was […]
GN 400 crosses the French River near Duluth, Minn., on the North Shore Scenic Railroad. Steve Glischinski DILWORTH, Minn. – Great Northern Railway SD45 No. 400, the “Hustle Muscle” diesel, will appear at the annual convention of the Great Northern Railway Historical Society this month. The locomotive, currently at the Lake Superior Railroad Museum in […]
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Following the recent bankruptcy filing of coal producer Cambrian Holdings, another Appalachian coal company has filed for bankruptcy protection. According to court documents, Revelation Energy LLC and its Blackjewel LLC parent company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the Southern District of West Virginia. According to the filing, made under the […]
Oklahoma Gas & Electric empties approach the four loading silos as the Belle Ayr Mine, then owned by Amax, on Dec. 21, 1976. Hol Wagner GILLETTE, Wyo. – Wyoming’s pioneering Belle Ayr mine southeast of Gillette has closed abruptly this week, following the bankruptcy filing of parent Blackjewel LLC in West Virginia. The company has […]
Atlas Model Railroad Co. HO scale Fairbanks-Morse H-15-44 and H-16-44 diesel locomotives HO scale locomotives Fairbanks-Morse H-15-44 and H-16-44 diesel locomotives. New paint schemes. H-15-44: Rock Island (red and silver). H-16-44: Central RR Co. of New Jersey (blue and yellow); New York Central (black and white with radio stencil); and New York, New Haven & […]
Surface Transportation Board data Employment at U.S. Class I railroads has fallen 4% since February 2017, the month before E. Hunter Harrison began implementing Precision Scheduled Railroading at CSX Transportation. Harrison’s efficiency-driven operating model has since spread to Union Pacific, Norfolk Southern, and Kansas City Southern, making additional workforce reductions likely through the end of […]
A Union Pacific container train leaves the Port of Los Angeles in March 2016. The port’s executive director says tariffs on Chinese goods will affect 64% of container volume at the port. TRAINS: David Lassen A westbound BNSF intermodal train passes through Hinsdale, Ill., on June 22, 2019. BNSF and UP have reported lower container […]
Cheyenne, Wyo. – Wasatch Railroad Contractors is marking 20 years of service in 2019. “Twenty Years! It is so hard to believe,” Chairman and CEO John Rimmasch says. “You watch other companies celebrate the same milestone and wonder if you will ever make it, but here we are! From our humble beginnings serving the amusement […]
A Metra BNSF train pulls into the Aurora station from the adjacent yard prior to a departure for Chicago on May 25, 2019. Communities in two counties want to see the BNSF route extended to serve them, but any such expansion is unlikely in the near future. TRAINS: David Lassen CHICAGO — Representatives from two […]
CHICAGO – Metra may receive as much as $1.6 billion in state bond revenue for capital improvements over the next five years under legislation recently approved by the Illinois General Assembly, agency officials say. That number is far below the amount Metra had hoped for, but the commuter rail agency’s board members expressed gratitude to legislators […]
A Metra train leaves Big Timber Road west of Elgin in 2014. A connection will be built to Union Pacific rails to Rockford in the foreground Bob Johnston CHICAGO – Although Illinois lawmakers and newly-elected Gov. J. B. Pritzker, a Democrat, enacted the state’s first infrastructure capital spending legislation in a decade [see “Illinois passes […]
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Midwest flooding has prompted Kansas City Southern and Norfolk Southern to seek temporary trackage rights on each others’ Kansas City-St. Louis routes while Union Pacific reports essentially full service restoration on its Southern Region. KCS and NS have petitioned the Surface Transportation Board to allow NS to use 156 miles of […]
