By David Lassen for trains.com Post-pandemic hiring woes show a need to rethink the nature of rail jobs, CEO says The 40 or so union rail employees picketing outside the site of the National Rail Shippers Conference, unhappy over their lack of a new national contract, might have been surprised by the message delivered inside […]
By David Shepardson for reuters.com U.S. passenger railroad Amtrak said on Monday it is boosting train service ahead of an expected busy summer travel season and as rail demand returns, with high gasoline prices encouraging more people to take trains. Amtrak said it planned to operate about 80% of pre-pandemic level Northeast Regional train departures […]
By Bill Stephens for trains.com Railroads would have to report local service data as well as locomotive and crew availability Class I railroads operating in Canada would be required to report additional performance and staffing metrics under a proposal Canadian regulators unveiled on Friday. Transport Canada’s move was announced on the same day that the Surface Transportation […]
Written by William C. Vantuono, Editor-in-Chief for railwayage.com On May 5—a little more than a week after its April 26-27 “Urgent Issues in Freight Rail Service” hearing—the Surface Transportation Board, voting unanimously, has issued updated, more-comprehensive rules for reporting performance and employment metrics. The eight-part regulations, which mostly affect the “Big 4”—BNSF, CSX, Norfolk Southern […]
By Justin Franz for railfan.com The U.S. Surface Transportation Board announced Friday that all seven Class I railroads will have to submit reports on rail service, performance and employment, and four of them will need to provide plans on how they will get service back on track. The request for more information and transparency comes […]
Written by David Nahass, Financial Editor for railwayage.com FINANCIAL EDGE, RAILWAY AGE MAY 2022 ISSUE: Sports journalists say they don’t root for teams; they root for stories. At “Financial Edge,” the circumstance is the same. There always needs to be something to write about. Nonetheless, at its heart, “Financial Edge” roots for the railroads. The […]
By Justin Franz for railfan.com After a fiery two-day hearing in Washington D.C., about the ongoing Class I service crisis, many in and out of the rail industry are asking “What’s next?” After receiving an avalanche of complaints from shippers and railroaders about the state of rail service, the U.S. Surface Transportation Board demanded that […]
Union officials say hundreds of people have left the railroad in the last three months, adding to BNSF’s struggles to move freight through Montana. by Justin Franz for montanafreepress.com Brady Wassam knew what to expect when he took a job on the railroad. Wassam, 30, of Columbia Falls, came from a family of railroaders who […]
Shippers, unions and the STB believe cost cutting has gotten out of hand. By David Sparkman for mhlnews.com The service deterioration on the nation’s Class 1 railroads is approaching the point of becoming a national security issue, shippers informed the Surface Transportation Board (STB) at hearings held April 26-27, where they described how it already […]
By Bill Stephens for trains.com At second day of hearings, BNSF and UP say they are working to hire conductors and improve service Utilities are worried that the slowdown in coal deliveries could threaten U.S. electricity supply and destabilize the power grid. Chemical producers say erratic rail service has forced them to curtail production of […]