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 […]
DAVENPORT, Iowa – Railroaders are working “around the clock” this week to restore and maintain service along water-logged routes in the Midwest, but the worst may be yet to come as communities along the Mississippi River brace for major flooding in the coming days. Over the weekend, flooding affected hundreds of miles of BNSF Railway […]
Darrell Wendt BNSF lines out-of-service map as of March 15 BNSF Railway MILWAUKEE — Union Pacific and BNSF Railway are halting trains and assessing damage to hundreds of miles of rail lines threatened or damaged by rising flood waters in the Missouri River valley. Rapidly warming temperatures in the past two weeks have led to […]
PORTLAND, Ore. — BNSF Railway’s bridge across the Columbia River was reopened about 5:30 p.m. Pacific time on Tuesday, after a late-morning fire closed the bridge to all traffic, TV station KOIN reports. The Oregonian newspaper quoted a Portland Fire & Rescue spokesman as saying the fire was started by workers using acetylene torches on […]
PORTLAND, Ore. – A fire is reported Tuesday afternoon on BNSF Railway’s former Spokane, Portland & Seattle bridge over the Columbia River connecting Portland with Vancouver, Wash. The bridge, which parallels Interstate 5, hosts Amtrak Cascades and Coast Starlight services, as well as BNSF and Union Pacific freight traffic. Trains News Wire will continue to […]
FORT WORTH, Texas — BNSF Railway’s revenue and profits were up in 2018, with industrial products revenue and volume leading the way. BNSF’s annual operating income increased 9 percent, to $6.9 billion, on revenue of $23.9 billion, an increase of 12 percent, the railroad’s parent, Berkshire Hathaway, reported on Saturday and BNSF reported in its […]
With the legalization of recreational marijuana in Canada — and the expectation that pot will become a $5 billion business by 2020 — the rail industry now has a shipping code for cannabis and related products. Effective Feb. 2, a new Standard Transportation Commodity Code, or STCC, went into effect to govern the shipment of […]
CLOQUET, Minn. and ST. LAZARE, Manitoba – It was a bad weekend for BNSF Railway and Canadian National as both railroads suffered derailments Feb. 16 in Minnesota and Manitoba, respectively. Around 11:25 a.m. Saturday a westbound BNSF coal train bound for Minnesota Power’s Boswell Energy Center at Cohasset, Minn., derailed 40 cars near Draco siding […]
SEATTLE — One of the biggest construction projects in the Pacific Northwest in recent years is actually a demolition job — the removal of a two-mile double-decker elevated highway slicing between downtown and the Elliott Bay waterfront. And slicing under that highway structure is one of the region’s most important rail lines. BNSF Railway’s main […]
FORT WORTH, Texas — BNSF Railway today announced its 2019 capital investment plan of $3.57 billion. The emphasis of this year’s capital plan continues to be on maintaining and expanding its network with an unwavering focus on operating a safe railroad that meets customers’ demands. “Our rail network is in excellent shape and its condition […]
WENDOVER, Wyo. – Two BNSF Railway coal trains derailed in a remote Wyoming canyon on Monday, injuring two people and spilling fuel into a nearby river. The Star Tribune reports that a loaded coal train rear ended another train north of Wendover. Three locomotives and four cars derailed as a result of the incident. The […]
OLYMPIA, Wash. — The Washington state Supreme Court has ruled that the Pierce County, Wash., medical examiner isn’t entitled to a copy of a video recording made and held by BNSF Railway of a 2017 fatality in which a man standing on tracks was struck and killed. The ruling, filed Jan. 31, stems from a […]
