MONTREAL — Members of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers have gone on strike against Canadian National Railway in Canada. The 750 signal and communications workers walked out as of 11 a.m. local time on Saturday, a union official confirmed to the CBC. The union had previously given the railroad a 72-hour notification of its […]
Railroad: Canadian National
Coal train derails on CN line in British Columbia
LYTTON, British Columbia — An estimated 15 cars of a coal train derailed Saturday afternoon on Canadian National tracks near Lytton, the website Castanet reports. No injuries were reported; a minor fire was extinguished. The accident occurred about 10 miles east of Lytton along the Thompson River. Canadian National and Canadian Pacific lines in this […]
CN receives strike notice from Canadian electrical workers’ union
MONTREAL — Canadian National has received a 72-hour strike notice from the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. CN said the union, which represents about 750 signals and communications employees in Canada, notified the railroad of its intent to strike as of 11 a.m. Eastern Time this Saturday, June 18. “CN has negotiated with the union […]
Canada ends vaccine requirement for travel, transportation workers
OTTAWA — Canada is lifting its COVID-19 vaccination requirement for travel and federally regulated forms of transportation as of June 20, meaning railroads will no longer be required to mandate vaccinations for workers and rail passengers are no longer required to have been vaccinated. Visitors to Canada will still have to be fully vaccinated or […]
CN’s deal to acquire CSX Massena Line is officially off
CHICAGO — Canadian National’s proposed acquisition of CSX Transportation’s line linking Syracuse, N.Y., with Montreal is officially dead. The railroads informed a federal court last week that the purchase and sale agreement had expired and that the deal was off. As a result, the railroads asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit […]
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 […]
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, […]
News photos: Canadian National returns Dash 8 locomotives to service
SARNIA, Ontario — Canadian National has returned some GE Dash 8 locomotives to service after most had disappeared in early 2021. Ex-Chicago North Western C40-8 No. 2131 led Chicago-Toronto train 148 on Sunday, June 5, providing the first look at a standard-cab Dash 8 on the mainline in well over a year. This unit and […]
Canadian National orders Wabtec’s new Precision Dispatch System
Canadian National is the first railway to order a new dispatching system that Wabtec says is a major building block toward network automation, the companies announced on June 6. The latest version of Wabtec’s Precision Dispatch System is scheduled to be operational at CN in late 2023. CN completed installation of an earlier version of […]
Engineer concerned about balloon before crash with train
WAUKESHA, Wis. — Bruce Rogers says that when a hot air balloon with people in it was caught in his train Wednesday evening in southeastern Wisconsin, he felt helpless. “The worst thing is watching it unfold and not being able to do something about it,” Rogers tells Trains News Wire. What Rogers says he saw […]
3 people in hot air balloon injured in collision with CN freight train
BURLINGTON, Wis. — Three occupants of a hot air balloon sustained life-threatening injuries when their craft collided with a Canadian National freight train on Wednesday night. At 8:15 p.m. on June 1 the Burlington Police Department responded to the 400 block of Calumet Street after receiving a report that a balloon had been struck by […]
Amtrak seeks right to take over dispatching on poor-performing routes as part of new contract with CN
WASHINGTON — Amtrak is proposing that, in extreme examples of routes with poor on-time performance, it would be allowed to take over dispatching from host railroad Canadian National as part of a new operating agreement with CN. In asking the Surface Transportation Board to set terms of a new agreement with CN, the passenger railroad […]