Join me in early mid-March, beside Amtrak City of New Orleans at Chebanse, Ill., a few weeks ahead of farmer’s spring planting — about 70 miles south of Chicago. It’s a breezy, crisp early morning before sunrise. The camera’s ISO is notched up to 2500. A lamp brightens the interior of the Chebanse depot, but […]
WASHINGTON — Three of the Federal Maritime Commission’s five members have urged the Surface Transportation Board to reject the proposed Canadian Pacific-Kansas City Southern merger, saying the deal would hurt U.S. ports. Canadian ports — particularly Vancouver and Prince Rupert in British Columbia — have been gaining market share for containerized traffic that’s ultimately bound […]
WASHINGTON — A major grain shipper opposes Canadian National’s effort to force Canadian Pacific and Kansas City Southern to divest the KCS line linking Springfield, Ill., and Kansas City. Earlier this year CN asked the Surface Transportation Board to condition approval of the CP-KCS merger on divestiture of KCS’s Springfield Line. CN promises to spend […]
The U.S. Class I railroads’ recurring crew shortages, related bouts of service problems, and a lack of meaningful volume growth are intertwined. You can lay the blame for all three problems at just one place: Wall Street. BNSF Railway, CSX Transportation, Norfolk Southern, and Union Pacific are in the midst of the mother of all […]
Accurail June 2022 HO scale freight car kit Scale: HO (1:87.1) Price: See individual cars below Era: Varies depending on car type Manufacturer: Accurail, P.O. Box 278, Elburn, IL 60119, 630-365-1173, accurail.com Accurail June 2022 HO scale freight car kit features: Injection-molded plastic kits Plastic wheelsets Solid-or roller-bearing trucks as appropriate Steel weight(s) Screws for trucks […]
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 […]
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 […]
WASHINGTON — The National Mediation Board will end mediation between railroads and their unions over the long-running negotiations for a new national contract, moving the contract process closer to intervention by President Joe Biden. The organization representing railroads in the negotiations, the National Carriers’ Conference Committee, said in a press release that it was “disappointed […]
CHICAGO — Higher interest rates may not be significantly pulling back inflationary pressure thus far, but they are cooling down lumber prices, returning them to near pre-pandemic norms in an inadvertent sacrifice of Class I railroad carloads. According to rail carload data, so far this year the country’s seven Class I railroads have hauled approximately […]
WASHINGTON — An engineer’s failure to operate his train in accordance with restricted speed rules, and his prohibited use of a personal electronic device, were the probable cause of a fatal collision with track maintenance equipment on the Alabama Export Railroad in November 2020, the National Transportation Safety Board said in an accident report issued […]
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 […]
THOROLD, Ontario — An agreement with shortline holding company GIO Rail has returned rail service to an industrial park in Thorold, near Niagara Falls, for the first time in more than two decades. GIO Rail’s switching agreement with HOPA Ports — the Hamilton-Oshawa Port Authority — and Bioveld Canada, owner of the Thorold Multimodal Hub, […]
