Patrick J. Ottensmeyer, Kansas City Southern CEO TRAINS: David Lassen KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Kansas City Southern reported improved earnings for the fourth quarter as revenue grew despite a slight decline in traffic volume. Much of the financial improvement was due to the railroad’s shift to an operating plan based on Precision Scheduled Railroading, which […]
DENVER — Shortline holding company OmniTRAX has promoted Sergio Sabatini to president and named Gord Anutooshkin as chief operating officer, the company has announced. Sabatini, who had been chief operating officer, was with Canadian Pacific Railway for 18 years before joining OmniTRAX in 2013. Anutooshkin, who also came to OmniTRAX from Canadian Pacific, was previously […]
SANTA ROSA, Calif. — A single donor has contributed more than $500,000 to an effort to block a sales-tax extension to fund Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit service, and has indicated willingness to double that amount, the Santa Rosa Press-Democrat reports. Molly Gallaher Flater, daughter of Sonoma County developer Bill Gallaher, is funding the effort to […]
KNAPP, Wis. — Union Pacific says a broken rail was the apparent cause of Sunday’s derailment in western Wisconsin. Thirty-five cars of a 192-car train derailed about 4 p.m., closing parallel U.S. Route 12 [see “Union Pacific train derails in western Wisconsin,” Trains News Wire, Jan. 12, 2020]. The finding is preliminary and a detailed […]
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — Rail traffic is expected to remain in the doldrums for at least the first half of this year as manufacturing slows, retail inventories remain high, and there are plenty of trucks competing for freight. That’s the outlook of the forecasters at FTR Transportation Intelligence, which last week held a State of Freight […]
LOMBARD, Ill. – Class I railroad mergers are not the sure path to efficiency gains that they once were within the industry. So says Canadian National President and CEO JJ Ruest at the winter meeting of the Midwest Association of Rail Shippers in Lombard on Thursday. Ruest notes that as the entire industry has […]
Association of American Railroads WASHINGTON — The Association of American Railroads today reported U.S. rail traffic for the week ending Jan. 11. For this week, total U.S. weekly rail traffic was 501,624 carloads and intermodal units, down 9.6% compared with the same week last year. Total carloads for the week ending Jan. 11 were 239,119 […]
WASHINGTON — Attorneys general from 15 states and the District of Columbia have come out against a Trump administration proposal to allow the movement of liquified natural gas by rail. Last year, the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration and the Federal Railroad Administration began to seek public comment on the proposal to move LNG […]
Greenbrier’s Lorrie Tekorius TRAINS: David Lassen LOMBARD, Ill. – As Precision Scheduled Railroading sweeps the rail industry its effect is also being felt throughout the rail supply industry. Around 408,000 North American freight cars are stored. Some of that is attributed to a 5.1 percent decline in traffic in 2019, but some can also be […]
KCS CEO Pat Ottensmeyer TRAINS: David Lassen LOMBARD, Ill. — In a conference that — like most most rail gatherings these day — had a great deal of focus on PSR, Patrick Ottensmeyer was thinking and talking about PTC. That’s not to say Precision Scheduled Railroading wasn’t part of the Kansas City Southern CEO’s Wednesday […]
WASHINGTON — Representatives of six Class I railroads and a coalition of labor unions representing more than 125,000 railroaders are set to begin the next round of contract negotiations on Feb. 26 and 27 in Washington. According to officials with SMART Transportation Division, one of the largest unions represented in the talks, negotiations are expected […]
SEATTLE — Portland & Western Railroad, owned by Genesee & Wyoming, has filed with the Surface Transportation Board for permission to discontinue service on a 22.6-mile line between Astoria and Wauna in Clatsop County, Ore. “The subject line is an out of service segment of line the underlying property of which is owned by the […]
