WASHINGTON – Operational changes related to Precision Scheduled Railroading — including a reliance on longer trains — took center stage at a congressional hearing focused on rail safety. Rail labor leaders and some safety officials were critical of PSR during a House Transportation & Infrastructure subcommittee hearing on Tuesday. But little light, backed up with […]
Train Topic: Railroad Operations
Metra says new analysis shows CP-KCS merger would vastly increase commuter train delays
WASHINGTON – The impact of the Canadian Pacific-Kansas City Southern merger on Metra commuter operations is even worse than initially thought, the Chicago area commuter railroad has told federal regulators. Changes to CP’s operations in the Chicago area as a result of the merger would cause up to a 1,200% increase in delays to commuter […]
Regulators scold railroads over recovery plans, order improvements
WASHINGTON — The Surface Transportation Board, making clear its unhappiness with service recovery plans filed by the four largest U.S. Class I railroads, will require those railroads to correct deficiencies in service recovery plans submitted to the board, and to provide additional information on how they plan to improve service and communication with customers. At […]
STB grants Amtrak access to NS, CSX data, orders mediation
WASHINGTON — The Surface Transportation Board will allow a limited number of Amtrak personnel access to raw train data used by CSX Transportation and Norfolk Southern so the passenger operator can run its own Rail Traffic Controller capacity modeling study. In a decision issued Friday, the STB also ordered board-sponsored mediation to address the differences […]
Norfolk Southern warns that CP-KCS merger would hurt service on Meridian Speedway
WASHINGTON — The Canadian Pacific-Kansas City Southern merger threatens to degrade intermodal service on the Meridian Speedway that serves as a shortcut between the Southeast and Southwest, Norfolk Southern told federal regulators this week. NS and KCS currently operate interline intermodal trains over the Meridian, Miss.-Shreveport, La., joint venture. KCS handles the NS trains over […]
FRA releases new rule on fatigue management
WASHINGTON — The Federal Railroad Administration has issued its new rule on railroad fatigue management, set for formal publication on Monday, and at least one rail union leader has offered a positive response. The final rule, “Fatigue Risk Management Programs for Certain Passenger and Freight Railroads,” is available here for public inspection. Following its publication […]
Amtrak unveils infrastructure plan to transform Chicago operations
CHICAGO — Amtrak is seeking more than $200 million in federal funding, along with money from state and local sources, in an attempt to fix a series of long-standing deficiencies, capacity limitations, and how trains from the south and east enter Chicago. The passenger operator is competing for a portion of $5 billion available between […]
FRA weighs railroads’ request for wheel temperature detectors instead of manual inspections
WASHINGTON — The Federal Railroad Administration could soon rule on a petition that would allow a pair of freight railroads to use wayside wheel temperature detectors for inspections currently performed by workers. But a union representing railroad employees says granting such a request would be dangerous. Canadian Pacific and Union Pacific jointly petitioned the FRA […]
Broken rail likely cause of 2020 UP derailment, fire, bridge collapse in Tempe, Ariz.
TEMPE, Ariz. — A broken rail is the probable cause of a derailment of a Union Pacific train on a Tempe bridge in July 2020, which led to a fire, collapse of part of the bridge, and a release of hazardous material, according to a report released Thursday by the National Transportation Safety Board. The […]
Data reported to federal regulators reveal extent of deterioration in rail service
Overall on-time performance for the big four U.S. Class I railroads has fallen from a pre-pandemic average of 85% to just 67% in the last week of May 2022, as crew shortages continue to plague rail service. The extent of the service decline was revealed in historic on-time performance data that BNSF Railway, CSX Transportation, […]
Canadian Pacific and Kansas City Southern run interline intermodal test train carrying produce from Mexico
Canadian Pacific and Kansas City Southern want to haul produce grown in Mexico to destinations in the Midwest and Canada. The railways ran an interline intermodal train from Laredo to the Midwest this week to test the truck-conversion concept, CP Chief Marketing Officer John Brooks told an investor conference on Tuesday. The train — CP […]
Engineer in fatal Cascades derailment reaches settlement with Amtrak
Amtrak has reached a settlement with the engineer who was seriously injured in the fatal 2017 derailment of Cascades train No. 501 on a curve in DuPont, Wash. In a lawsuit filed against Amtrak, engineer Steven Brown argued that he was not properly trained. The settlement, compensation for pain and suffering related to the accident, […]