WASHINGTON — The operators of a pair of Pennsylvania feed mills have asked the Surface Transportation Board to require Amtrak to allow freight service to continue while a six-week maintenance project is under way on its Philadelphia-Harrisburg main line. Amtrak plans to shut Track 1 to all traffic starting next month, which would prevent Norfolk […]
Trains News Wire spoke with Norfolk Southern CEO Alan Shaw after the railroad’s earnings call on Wednesday. Railroad safety has been in the spotlight since the Feb. 3 derailment of a Norfolk Southern train in East Palestine, Ohio, and subsequent hazardous materials release. The wreck has put the entire industry under scrutiny, including the Precision […]
ATLANTA — Norfolk Southern’s first quarter earnings tumbled due to expenses related to the disastrous Feb. 3 derailment and subsequent hazardous materials release in East Palestine, Ohio. The railroad’s operating income declined 34%, to $711 million, due in part to an initial $387 million charge associated with the derailment, the railroad reported today. NS CEO […]
The publicly traded U.S. Class I railroads are putting more of an emphasis on service and volume growth in the annual incentive plans they offer to their executives. It’s a clear sign, analysts say, that the railroads are shifting into growth mode after years spent concentrating on reducing their operating ratios in a quest for […]
Like trilobites and brachiopods, the paper carcasses of 19th-century railroads seem forever locked away in the sediments of corporate archives and government files. They fill the pages of old Official Guides and Poor’s Manual of the Railroads by the hundreds. Nearly all of them are dormant — but some are not. Consider the case […]
WASHINGTON – The National Transportation Safety Board today removed National Steel Car from its investigation into the March 4 derailment of a Norfolk Southern train in Ohio and was critical of the carmaker’s claims that its wheelsets had been ruled out as a potential cause of the wreck. “In a statement Friday, National Steel Car […]
BNSF Railway and Norfolk Southern have reached paid sick time agreements with two more of the unions representing their employees. BNSF and the International Brotherhood of Railway Carmen reached their agreement as part of larger ongoing discussions about modernizing the work environment, the railway said on Monday. Building upon existing BNSF paid time off and […]
EAST PALESTINE, Ohio – Norfolk Southern announced Friday that it has reached a “significant milestone” at the sight of the derailment in East Palestine. NS said it has finished excavating and removing contaminated soil beneath the south track at the derailment site. It has excavated and removed more than 25,000 tons of soil and 12 million […]
HAMILTON, Ontario – It turns out that the railroad industry’s emergency advisory sidelining 675 new steel coil cars with suspect wheelsets was a false alarm. In the wake of a March 4 Norfolk Southern derailment in Springfield, Ohio, the Association of American Railroads issued an equipment advisory recommending that the cars, built by National Steel […]
WASHINGTON — Most chemical shippers say railroad service has not yet returned to pre-pandemic levels, according to a survey released today by the American Chemistry Council. Some 77% of ACC members surveyed said rail service was worse in January than it was in early 2020 before the pandemic hit. Some 22% said service had returned […]
Rail labor leaders welcomed the safety advisory that the Federal Railroad Administration issued last week that encourages railroads to take steps to reduce the in-train forces that can cause long trains to derail. Railroads, meanwhile, said they were reviewing the advisory to make sure their operating practices are in line with the FRA’s recommendations. “For […]
ATLANTA — Norfolk Southern has tightened its train makeup standards for long, heavy trains in order to reduce the in-train forces that can cause derailments. The new restrictions — part of the railroad’s broader push on safety in the wake of the disastrous Feb. 3 derailment in East Palestine, Ohio — have caused significant increases […]
