WASHINGTON — The Association of American Railroads has filed a friend-of-the-court brief backing BNSF Railway in its appeal of the Surface Transportation Board’s decision ordering the railroad to haul more export coal from a Montana mine to tidewater in British Columbia. The brief, filed yesterday with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, […]
WASHINGTON – Federal regulators have put a hold on their final environmental assessment of Union Pacific’s proposed 6-mile branch to a new industrial park being built outside Phoenix. The Surface Transportation Board’s Office of Environmental Analysis, in a decision released on Thursday, said it was delaying a decision indefinitely due to the discovery of “significant […]
HYANNIS, Mass. — A Massachusetts legislator has announced plans for a bill that would revive daily commuter train service to Cape Cod, currently served by the summer-weekend-only CapeFlyer service. The Cape Cod Times reports state Rep. Dylan Fernandes said this week that the service would ease congestion on the Cape’s major roadways and bridges across […]
Mid-Continent Railway Museum NORTH FREEDOM, Wis. — Mid-Continent Railway Museum celebrated its 60th anniversary earlier this year, marking the milestone with special events as well as reminiscences of the Wisconsin museum’s growth from a fledgling museum to one with some 500 volunteer members who share their interest in and knowledge of the “Golden Age of […]
Pan Am Southern quietly wrapped up operations on Thursday. Shown is one of the final trains, EDBF, making a late-afternoon departure from the former Boston & Maine yard at East Deerfield, Mass., for to Bellows Falls, Vt. Effective today (Sept. 1, 2023), Pan Am Southern lines in Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont, New Hampshire, and New York […]
NEWARK, N.J. — NJ Transit engineers have voted overwhelmingly in favor of a strike, the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen has announced. The union said in a Thursday press release that 81% of those eligible to vote returned their ballots, and 100% of those ballots supported a strike authorization. The exact breakdown: 494 members […]
GREAT BARRINGTON, Mass. — The worker who died in an Aug. 4 accident on state-owned tracks in Great Barrington was operating a leaf blower on those tracks when he was struck by a maintenance-of-way machine, the National Transportation Safety Board said in its preliminary accident report issued on Thursday. The accident victim was identified in […]
SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. — Caltrain has energized the second traction power substation for the electrification of its San Francisco-San Jose main line, another step toward the planned launch of electrified operation in fall 2024. The agency announced the substation, built by Balfour Beatty and its partners had been powered up by Pacific Gas & […]
ERIE, Pa. — Members of the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE) voted today to accept Wabtec’s latest offer, ending a 10-week strike at the company’s locomotive manufacturing plant in Erie. Workers, who had walked out on June 22, ratified a four-year agreement including raises of 3.65%, 3%, 3.25%, and 3%, as […]
NEW HAVEN, Conn. — Amtrak is temporarily increasing the number of its trains that will cross-honor tickets for Connecticut’s Shore Line East commuter service because of Shore Line East schedule changes to accommodate an Amtrak maintenance-of-way project. Shore Line East service will be reduced during that project. The schedule changes and cross-honoring are effective Sept. […]
North Dakota’s corn trains When you watch a freight train pass, it will most likely be comprised of cars that have a single use, hauling a commodity to one location before returning empty to a yard or another assignment. And most freight only touches the rails once during its path from source to final customer, […]
WASHINGTON — U.S. rail traffic showed its largest single-week drop in several weeks for the week ending Aug. 26, with volume down 5.9% compared to the same week in 2022. The total volume of 472,525 carloads and intermodal units included 226,679 carloads, down 3.9% from the corresponding week a year ago, and 245,846 containers and […]
