BURLINGTON, Vt. — The spread of Precision Scheduled Railroading inflicts short-term pain on shortline railroads but offers the potential for long-term gain, Michael Miller, president of Genesee & Wyoming’s North American operations, told a shipper conference last week. The short-term impact includes unexpected service changes, the bunching of customer traffic, and the handling of larger […]
FORT WORTH, Texas — Eight major freight railroads filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court last week arguing that one of the nation’s largest labor unions is refusing to negotiate on the continuous issue of train crew size. On Oct. 3, attorneys representing eight freight carriers — BNSF Railway, Kansas City Southern, CSX Transportation, Grand […]
WASHINGTON — The Surface Transportation Board today announced that it is issuing a series of decisions on demurrage and accessorial rules and charges, continuing its efforts to improve dispute resolution processes, promote transparency, and make the agency more accessible. Informed by the agency’s two-day public hearing with more than 50 participants, the Board is issuing […]
In a down year for North American rail volumes, Union Pacific led the third quarter decline in traffic among the six big systems, with its intermodal volume slumping 12% and its overall carloads off by 9%. Among the big four U.S. systems, BNSF Railway fared the best in the third quarter. Its intermodal volume was […]
CHICAGO, Ill. — The Indiana Rail Road is taking the debate over laws requiring minimum crew sizes for freight trains to federal court in Illinois. According to a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois Eastern Division, Indiana Rail Road, along with railroad industry advocacy groups the Association of American […]
BURLINGTON, Vt. — A common theme woven through several presentations at a regional rail shippers’ conference this week involved a key question: Are railroads still relevant? The world increasingly expects transportation that’s fast, reliable, and easy. Railroads are slow, unreliable, and complicated. As a result, they’ve lost market share to trucks and often aren’t even […]
Association of American Railroads WASHINGTON — The Association of American Railroads on Wednesday reported U.S. rail traffic for the week ending Sept. 28, 2019, as well as volumes for Sept. 2019. U.S. railroads originated 992,542 carloads in Sept. 2019, down 7%, or 74,172 carloads, from Sept. 2018. U.S. railroads also originated 1,061,483 containers and trailers […]
BURLINGTON, Vt. — Although 2019 is shaping up as a disappointing year for railroad volume, it’s been a downright disastrous year in trucking, Cowen & Co. transportation analyst Jason Seidl told a rail shipper conference on Wednesday. “Things are bad,” Seidl says. More trucking companies filed for bankruptcy in the first half of 2019 than […]
A CSX Transportation intermodal train hits the diamond at Blue Island, Ill., on Sept. 16, 2019. CSX, BNSF, Norfolk Southern, and Union Pacific face a series of lawsuits from shippers over fuel surcharges the railroads instituted beginning in 2003. TRAINS: David Lassen Shippers across the country filed suit against the four largest U.S. railroads on […]
ELMHURST, Ill. — Following a recent multi-agency event to raise child awareness of safety around railroad tracks, parents are being encouraged to share five safety tips with their children. The Sept. 27 event at the Metra station in Elmhurst, Ill., part of National Rail Safety Week, involved Union Pacific, Metra, the DuPage Railroad Safety Council, […]
SANTA ANA, Calif. — South Korean automakers Hyundai and Kia are suing the four largest U.S. Class I railroads, saying the railroads are violating U.S. antitrust law with coordinated fuel surcharges that drive up shipping costs. Reuters reports that the companies filed the suits Tuesday in federal court in Santa Ana, near their U.S. headquarters […]
WASHINGTON — The Surface Transportation Board on Tuesday issued a notice of proposed rulemaking that would amend the Board’s railroad performance data reporting rules. Specifically, the Board proposes to include chemical and plastics traffic as a distinct reporting category to the Class I railroads’ weekly reporting of the “cars-held” metric, which tracks the average number […]
