AUGUSTA, Maine — The Maine Legislature is considering a bill that would repeal an earlier act that created confidentiality for information about hazardous material transported on railroads. LD1937, sponsored by House Speaker Rachel Talbot Ross (D-Portland) and co-sponsored by Sen. Richard A. Bennett (R-Portland), would repeal the bill passed in 2015. The Bangor Daily News, […]
My first model railroad operating session: One morning each month I join the Old Codgers, a group of mostly retired model railroaders, for breakfast followed by an operating session at one of the group’s home layouts. I hosted the Codgers on my N scale layout for the first time this past August, having given myself a year […]
ATLANTA — Norfolk Southern has launched a Rail Emissions Report tool that, in an industry first, uses fuel burn data directly from locomotives. “Fuel burn can be applied to each shipment based on the weight as it travels across the Norfolk Southern network,” a railroad spokeswoman says. “Combining fuel burn with other estimates for yard […]
OMAHA, Neb. — Union Pacific is promoting Chief Information Officer Rahul Jalali to executive vice president, effective June 1. He joined UP in 2020 and has most recently been a senior vice president and chief information office, and is credited by the railroad with a pivotal role in the company’s modernization efforts and leading development, […]
CHEYENNE, Wyo. — A hopper car loaded with 30 tons of ammonium nitrate — a chemical used as fertilizer and as a component in explosives — was empty by the time it arrived at its destination last month, triggering investigations by state and federal authorities, as well as the manufacturer and Union Pacific, the railroad […]
WASHINGTON — Record funding for large-scale infrastructure spending will make Amtrak more vulnerable to fraud, the passenger operator’s Office of Inspector General says in a report released this week, identifying four areas in which the company will be particularly at risk. “Industry research estimates that 10% of infrastructure investments could be lost to fraud,” Inspector […]
Norfolk Southern and the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen have reached a sick time agreement, the railroad and union have announced. The deal announced today (May 18) will provide NS engineers with five new days of paid sick leave per year while also offering the flexibility to use up to two additional days of […]
OTTAWA — VIA Rail Canada no longer needs to run unoccupied “buffer” cars on trains with stainless steel Budd “HEP-1” and “HEP-2” passenger cars and rail diesel equipment, Transport Canada has announced. The order, effective at 11:59:59 p.m. EDT on Wednesday, May 17, repeals a previous order issued last October after questions surfaced about the […]
BOSTON — Norfolk Southern’s remediation work at the site of the February derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, is on pace to allow reopening of the second main line early next month, CEO Alan Shaw said today. “What’s important is we’re making progress there,” Shaw told an investor conference. To date, NS has distributed $34.5 million […]
PALESTINE, Texas — A Texas judge has ruled for the city of Palestine and Anderson County and against Union Pacific in the railroad’s efforts to close a car repair shop in the city, continuing an ongoing legal battle underway on two levels. The Palestine Herald-Press reports that in a May 15 ruling, state District […]
KEYETESVILLE, Mo. — A Chariton County judge has ruled that a series of lawsuits by Amtrak employees over the fatal June 2022 derailment of Amtrak’s Southwest Chief may be combined for a single trial, KMIZ-TV reports. In a Wednesday hearing, the judge said lawyers for Amtrak, BNSF, MS Contracting — owner of the truck involved […]
WASHINGTON — An inbound Metra BNSF Line train was traveling at 60.9 mph when it struck a 33,000-pound box truck at a grade crossing in Clarendon Hills, Ill., in a May 11, 2022, accident that killed a passenger, according to information in the accident docket released Wednesday by the National Transportation Safety Board. The preliminary […]
