Union Pacific workers took an aerial drone photo of the wreck of two UP freight trains on Oct. 4. An eastbound train struck a parked train near Sherman Hill, killing two railroaders. Union Pacific via the National Transportation Safety Board Safety investigators around the world are still gathering data and learning what caused several runaway […]
Firefighters set a back burn along the Durango & Silverton tracks as part of their efforts to contain the 416 Fire in early June. Wyoming Interagency Hotshots Railroaders have always had to deal with whatever Mother Nature threw at them, but 2018 was a particularly trying year for railroads dealing with natural disasters, from fires […]
Behind six units, an eastbound Z-train flies through historic downtown Laramie, Wyo., on June 7, 2018, exactly 150 years to the day that Union Pacific tracks reached the town named for French-Canadian fur trader Jacques La Ramee. Bill Stephens OMAHA, Neb. — More of Union Pacific’s intermodal trains will operate daily, up from five or […]
A Norfolk Southern SD70ACe pushes on an empty crude oil train in Toledo, Ohio, in March 2013. Michael D. Harding Q Watching passing freight trains, I’ve seen a locomotive located in the middle or at the end of the train. Are these pusher locomotives being run by remote control by the engineer in the lead […]
Association of American Railroads Association of American Railroads WASHINGTON — The Association of American Railroads on Wednesday reported U.S. rail traffic for the week ending Dec. 8. For this week, total U.S. weekly rail traffic was 570,225 carloads and intermodal units, up 3.1 percent compared with the same week last year. Total carloads for the […]
NEW YORK — The spread of Precision Scheduled Railroading to most of the Class I railroad systems is both an opportunity and a risk for short line and regional railroads. The opportunity, short line executives say, is that Class I railroads focus more on carload traffic, provide service that’s more consistent and reliable, and spin […]
Jim Foote, CSX Transportation CEO CSX Corp. NEW YORK — When Canadian Pacific CEO Keith Creel said in October that the spread of Precision Scheduled Railroading made Class I consolidation more likely, it stirred the pot of merger speculation. So it was no surprise last week that Union Pacific CEO Lance Fritz and CSX Transportation […]
NEW YORK — If you want to see the beginning of Norfolk Southern’s move toward an operating plan based on the principles of Precision Scheduled Railroading, look no further than train 23G. A few times a week, the international intermodal train linking St. Louis; Louisville, Ky.; and Norfolk, Va.; pauses in Knoxville, Tenn., to pick […]
Union Pacific Union Pacific NEW YORK — Union Pacific remains about a month ahead of schedule with the rollout of its new operating plan and now expects systemwide implementation by the middle of 2019, months earlier than originally envisioned. The railroad has completed the introduction of Unified Plan 2020 on its Mid-America Corridor linking the […]
NEW YORK — Union Pacific, which is bucking the Precision Scheduled Railroading trend of idling the humps at classification yards, still needs the new hump yard it’s building in Hearne, Texas, CEO Lance Fritz says. The late CEO E. Hunter Harrison converted several hump yards to flat-switching facilities at Canadian National, Canadian Pacific, and CSX […]
WASHINGTON — Union Pacific has defended penalties it plans to impose on shippers who don’t load and unload cars quickly or who make last-minute changes to unit train service schedules. “We are certain the proposed tariffs are fair, balanced, and reciprocal in nature,” Kenny Rocker, UP’s executive vice president of marketing and sales, wrote in […]
Keith Creel, Canadian Pacific CEO Canadian Pacific PALM BEACH, Fla. — Canadian Pacific will renew its locomotive fleet by continuing to rebuild stored high-horsepower AC-traction units in 2019 and 2020 before considering the purchase of new power, CEO Keith Creel says. “We’re not in the market at all for new locomotives,” Creel told an investor […]
