OMAHA, Neb. — Berkshire Hathaway Chairman Warren Buffett’s widely read annual letter to investors, released on Saturday alongside the company’s 2023 financial results, included a long passage on railroads in general and BNSF Railway in particular. BNSF’s revenue and profits fell last year, which Buffett termed a disappointment. But he noted that the national labor […]
OMAHA, Neb. — BNSF Railway’s revenue and profits tumbled in 2023 due to a combination of lower volume and lower revenue per carload and intermodal unit. Pre-tax earnings declined 14.2%, to $6.6 billion, as revenue declined 6.9%, to $23.4 billion, BNSF parent company Berkshire Hathaway reported on Saturday. The railway’s operating ratio increased 2.5 points […]
Irish Rail It was the early 1990s and I was an Electro-Motive Division export locomotive district sales manager in the International Locomotive Business Group, based at EMD’s headquarters in LaGrange, Ill. At the time, I was responsible for our locomotive and spare parts sales in Europe, and one of my customers was Irish Rail. During […]
DENVER — A new plan released last week might finally lead to passenger rail service between Denver, Boulder, and Longmont, Colo., but not exactly as originally envisioned. That route was part of the Fastracks commuter rail plan approved by voters in 2004, but has never been built out because of a lack of funding. Now, […]
BOSTON — The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority has announced the March schedule for shutdowns as part of its ongoing effort to eliminate slow orders on its rail transit lines, along with scheduled work on several of its commuter rail lines. Already in progress are a group of shutdowns on the B, C, and D branches […]
TORONTO — A member of the Toronto Transit Commission and Toronto city council is questioning whether the transit agency performed sufficient maintenance on the Scarborough Rapid Transit line before a July 2023 derailment that led to the premature closing of the line, the CBC reports. Council member Josh Matlow is raising his concerns based on […]
ATLANTA — Americold Realty Trust will spend $127 million on a 335,000-square-foot cold storage facility in Kansas City, Mo., the first in a series of planned facilities to be located along the CPKC rail network, the company announced Thursday (Feb. 22). CPKC and Americold announced their collaboration last year, and said then that the first […]
FRONT ROYAL, Va. — The Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen has become the first rail labor union to come out against the activist investor group that’s plotting to oust Norfolk Southern CEO Alan Shaw and gain control of the railroad’s board. The union today expressed “grave concern” with Ancora Holdings’ proxy battle. The union said Ancora […]
LOWELL, Ark. — J.B. Hunt will acquire all of Walmart’s domestic intermodal containers and chassis as part of a new long-term intermodal contract with the nation’s largest retailer. Walmart, which has been a J.B. Hunt customer for decades, had 14,100 WAMU containers in its fleet as of April 2023, but that figure is now between […]
WASHINGTON — Federal Railroad Administrator Amit Bose, in a Wednesday letter to Norfolk Southern CEO Alan Shaw, has cautioned against “backsliding, as a result of a change in leadership or otherwise, on the safety-oriented path” the railroad has established since the February 2023 East Palestine derailment. Bose’s letter comes in response to an effort by […]
OMAHA, Neb. — Union Pacific plans to spend $3.4 billion on capital projects in 2024, the railroad announced Wednesday, with more than half of that going to basic infrastructure upgrades and replacement, such as rail, ties, and ballast. The $1.9 billion for infrastructure represents approximately 56% of the capital plan. Another $600 million is budgeted […]
WASHINGTON — U.S. rail traffic was up from 2023 levels for the fourth straight week, according to statistics from the Association of American Railroads, with overall traffic showing a 3.7% gain for the week ending Feb. 17. Total traffic for the week was 474,226 carloads and intermodal units. That included 220,539 carloads, down 0.6% from […]
