KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The owner of the dump truck involved in June’s derailment of the Southwest Chief has a federal judge to halt a lawsuit by Amtrak and BNSF Railway, saying the federal investigation of the accident prevents it from responding to allegations. KMBC-TV reports MS Contracting says federal law prevents the company from […]
PALERMO, N.D. — The second of two main lines on BNSF’s Glasgow Subdivision was slated to be reopened about 3 p.m. Sunday after a July 14 derailment involving an intermodal train at Tagus, N.D., near the town of Palermo and about 48 miles west of Minot. BNSF said in a customer advisory that the first […]
MINNEAPOLIS — A dispute over funding continues for the Twin Cities-area Northstar commuter rail service, which continues to operate on a significantly reduced schedule introduced during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Minneapolis Star-Tribune reports Anoka County — one of the entities which funds the 40-mile line between Minneapolis and Big Lake — says its $1.95 million […]
TRENTON, N.J. — Three of NJ Transit’s busiest stations will receive more than $600 million for renovations and upgrades as part of $814 million in capital funding added to the New Jersey budget for fiscal 2023. NJ.com reports that the budget includes $250 million for replacement and expansion of the Walter Rand Transportation Center in […]
Looking for the loneliest Amtrak station in California? Consider Lompoc-Surf, population: zero, an alternative to crowded California passenger stations. You won’t worry about parking your car, long walks to trackside, or even other people. There may be about 40 million people in California, but unless they are waiting for the train, or someone on it, […]
WASHINGTON — Preventing a national rail strike that could have begun Monday, July 18, President Joe Biden has established a Presidential Emergency Board to investigate the ongoing dispute between railroads and workers. Biden will name the members of the three-person board, whose members can not have any financial or other interest in either a rail […]
Repowering locomotives is essential for a railroad to meet its needs. This is installment, number three, on our quest to find mishmashed locomotives, which reinforces the notion that railroaders will do anything and everything necessary to keep the daily routine fluid. Sometimes they ask a builder to create what they need, other times they make […]
LONDON — Britain is bracing for additional rounds of rail strikes after unions announced planned strike dates later this month and in August. The Guardian reports the National Union of Rail, Maritime, and Transport Workers (RMT) has called strikes for August 18 and 20; those strikes will involve about 40,000 RMT members at infrastructure company […]
WASHINGTON — Canadian Pacific and Kansas City Southern — responding to critics, skeptics, and opponents — told federal regulators this week that their proposed merger is in the public interest and should be approved. The railroads, in a three-volume, 4,374-page filing, argued that the first merger of Class I railroads in two decades should sail through […]
WASHINGTON — Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg will appear before the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure on Tuesday, June 19, as part of a hearing on implementation of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, committee chairman Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) has announced. The hearing will be held at 10 a.m. EDT at the Rayburn House Office […]
CALGARY — Wednesday’s derailment of a Canadian Pacific train in Bassano, Alberta, had an unexpected transportation impact— disruption of flight operations in Western Canada, particularly by Canadian airline WestJet. The CBC reports that flights from Calgary International Airport on Thursday were disrupted when a portion of the air navigation system was knocked out by loss […]
CHICAGO — Class I railroads appreciate moving large volumes of traffic across long routes. There’s efficiency and carload profitability gains by running fewer trains for longer distances on relatively consistent schedules. When this is successful, customers see their shipments make great strides across chunks of a Class I railroad’s network. But some customers’ locations aren’t […]
