Welcome to 2024, News Wire readers.
There’s no predicting what the new year has in store for us, but in case you’ve been otherwise occupied over the holiday season, here’s a chance to review our recent history of top News Wire stories of the year, as well as this year’s Top 10 (actually 11) topics, as chosen by Trains staff and contributors.
Looking at the past top stories, it’s interesting to see how many remain relevant or played a role in this year’s events.
2018: Amtrak CEO Richard Anderson
The choice for 2018 — the controversial three-year term of the former Delta Airlines CEO as head of Amtrak, then roughly at its midpoint — still reverberates. It was on his watch that traditional dining-car meals were eliminated, a change only partially reversed so far; off-route charters were ended, and private car moves faced significant new restrictions. But his lasting significance may have come from the proposal to substitute a bus bridge for part of the Southwest Chief route. That rallied a group of senators to protect the train and led to more congressional scrutiny of Amtrak — including the proviso in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law calling for geographic balance on Amtrak’s board of directors. Of course, that proviso has yet to be fulfilled, as this year’s Top 10 list notes.
2019: Big Boy returns
The return to operation of Union Pacific’s 4-8-8-4 in time to mark the 150th anniversary of the Golden Spike ceremony was the 800-pound gorilla of preservation stories. It’s also very much a continuing saga. Where UP does or doesn’t take the Big Boy in a given year remains a big deal, so there’s already a great deal of anticipation for 2024 after the railroad teased plans for No. 4014 to visit the “four corners” of its system this year.
Having written so much about the locomotive in 2019, we marked its status as the No. 1 story with a video, rather than one more article.
2020: Railroading and the pandemic
The impact of COVID-19 took so many forms that we addressed our No. 1 story this year with not one, but five articles, considering the impact on freight railroading, transit, passenger railroading, preservation, and international railroading. The first, unfortunately, were lost when Trains.com moved to its current website. Passenger railroading is still recovering — Amtrak ridership is not yet back to 2019 levels, although the company projects it will get there in 2024 — and transit will likely never be the same. Work-from-home policies have undone the traditional five-day commute, with results ranging from New York subways running fewer trains on certain weekdays to many systems placing a greater emphasis on weekend and off-peak operation.
2021: The battle for Kansas City Southern
If it seems like the Canadian Pacific-KCS merger story has been going on forever, well, no. But it was in its third year when it received approval in 2023. (And various legal challenges will keep going into a fourth, and likely beyond.) But it all began with CP announcing its bid in March and Canadian National countering with an unsolicited bid exactly one month later; the resulting drama, which we recounted here, turned on a Surface Transportation Board decision rejecting a voting trust for a CN-KCS deal. That meant shareholders would have to wait much longer to cash in, and sent KCS back into the arms of CP; the union finally reached the regulatory altar in March 2023.
2022: Rail labor and the near strike
The Byzantine negotiating process of the Railway Labor Act makes a national strike extremely difficult, but the mounting enmity between railroads and their union workers brought the U.S. rail network closer than it had been in decades before an 11th-hour settlement. But the problems between railroads and their workers spilled over into 2023 in two ways: First, the issue of paid sick leave — highlighted late in the negotiations, but not addressed in the national agreement — was addressed railroad by railroad, as were quality-of-life issues for operating unions. And second, labor was quick to attack company operating practices and job cuts as the underlying issue behind …
2023: East Palestine
The previously little-known Ohio town of 4,700 adjacent to the Pennsylvania border became internationally known for all the wrong reasons after the Feb. 3 derailment of a Norfolk Southern train. An ugly plume of thick black smoke as toxic chemicals were burned off from damaged tank cars became the symbol of the dark cloud the event cast over NS and all Class I railroads, closely scrutinized for their safety practices and questioned whether those practices took a back seat to profit motives. NS has made a long-term commitment to the town, with everything from environmental monitoring to financial compensation for those who sustained losses to property value to civic improvements. New federal regulations proposed following the derailment have stalled in Congress.
The rest of this year’s Top 10
As noted above, several of these topics related directly to past stories of the year.
No. 2: Brightline begins service to Orlando
No. 3: The Canadian Pacific-Kansas City Southern merger
No. 4: Amtrak’s continuing capacity problems
No. 5: East Broad Top returns to steam
No. 6 (tie): Federal infrastructure spending
No. 6 (tie): Grand Central Madison opens
No. 8: Delays to Amtrak’s new Acela
No. 9: Amtrak leadership and governance issues
No. 10 (tie): Class I railroads’ quality-of-life deals with unions
No. 10 (tie): The BNSF-J.B. Hunt premium intermodal partnership
As a prologue to the list, we also looked at the runners-up in our voting, and the top stories in transit, preservation, and international railroading (a two-parter: part 1 is here, and part 2 is here.)
Thanks for reading in 2023, and we look forward to continuing to help keep you informed this year.
Good recap. Maybe next year go back 10 years to encompass the rise and fall of PSR.
To all at Kalmbach, a great, safe 2024.
Thanks for the recap and all Kalmbach does to put fun and knowledge into peoples lives. Too readers and staff may you have a happyvand healthy New Year 😀