New Canadian National Chief Operating Officer Rob Reilly speaks at his alma mater, Washburn University, in 2017. Reilly was a starting guard on Washburn’s 1987 NAIA men’s basketball national championship team. Washburn University CN Chief Operating Officer Mike Cory will retire at the end of June after 38 years with the railway. Canadian National MONTREAL […]
Union Pacific BOSTON — Union Pacific Chief Operating Officer Jim Vena wants to reset the discussion about hump yards and Precision Scheduled Railroading. Converting hump yards to flat-switching facilities was a key element of E. Hunter Harrison’s PSR strategy at Canadian National, Canadian Pacific, and CSX Transportation. And at CSX, where Harrison idled eight of […]
Canadian National and Canadian Pacific both reported record volumes of grain traffic from Western Canada in April. TRAINS: David Lassen MONTREAL — Canadian National and Canadian Pacific say they moved record amounts of grain out of Western Canada in April. The Canadian Press reports that CN shipped 2.72 million tons of grain during the month, […]
A westbound BNSF Railway intermodal train passes through La Grange, Ill., on April 20, 2019. Warren Buffett, chairman of BNSF parent Berkshire Hathaway, says the company is closely watching Union Pacific as it adopts Precision Scheduled Railroading. TRAINS: David Lassen OMAHA, Neb. – Berkshire Hathaway is monitoring Union Pacific as it adopts Precision Scheduled Railroading and […]
FIELD, British Columbia — Hours before a Canadian Pacific train derailed in the rugged mountains of British Columbia, killing three railroaders, the previous crew had struggled to keep the doomed grain train under control on a steep grade. On Thursday, investigators with the Transportation Safety Board of Canada provided new details about their inquiry into […]
SEATTLE — A Canadian transportation regulator says Canadian National violated its obligation to serve customers by imposing limitations on shipments of wood pulp last year because of congestion on the rail network as western railroads worked to move grain harvests to ports. In a statement issued Tuesday, April 16, the Canadian Transportation Agency cleared Canadian […]
SEATTLE — Linking Alaska to the 48 contiguous U.S. is an idea that is resurfacing again with heavier Canadian support. Canadian businessman Sean McCoshen told a recent meeting of the Alaska State Senate Transportation Committee that the company he co-founded and runs, Alberta-Alaska Railway Development Corp., has been working with consultants, the Alaska Railroad, Canadian […]
With overall rail traffic down in the first quarter, only two of the big six Class I railroad systems — Canadian National and Norfolk Southern — managed volume gains through the first three months of 2019. CN’s volume was up 1 percent, while NS eked out a 0.4% gain, according to a review of Association […]
Flooding of the Platte River, south of Omaha, Neb., has destroyed spans of BNSF Railway’s Omaha Subdivision, along with the Union Pacific’s Fall City Subdivision. On Tuesday morning, a Union Pacific crane was working on removing a log jam on the upstream side of the bridge. Steve Smedley Three truckloads of rock are being dumped […]
RITZVILLE, Wash. — Adding to the list of mid-March nature-related disruptions across its network, Union Pacific is cleaning up a derailment that has interrupted traffic on its Ayer subdivision between Spokane and Hinkle, Ore. A UP spokesman said a train with a Canadian Pacific locomotive derailed 23 rail cars of mixed freight near mile post […]
OTTAWA — Days after Canada’s two Class 1 railroads announced they would appeal a government order requiring the use of handbrakes on trains stopped on mountains grades, one of the county’s largest unions says it’s standing by the Crown. Last month, Transport Canada announced a new rule requiring the application of handbrakes on trains in mountainous […]
CALGARY, Alberta — Canadian Pacific and Canadian National will appeal an order by the Canadian government requiring the use of handbrakes when trains stop on mountain grades, an order issued in the wake of a fatal CP accident in February. In a press release issued Friday, CP President and CEO Keith Creel said the railroad […]
