SACRAMENTO, Calif. – California Gov. Gavin Newsom is deadlocked in a dispute with Democratic colleagues in the state House over the next steps in the future of the state’s $105 billion high speed rail project, according to CalMatters, an online, nonprofit news agency that covers public policy in the Golden State. The California High-Speed Rail […]
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OTTAWA, Ontario — Canadian Transport Minister Omar Alghabra has criticized Canadian National Railway Co. for maintaining an English-speaking-only board of directors in a bilingual nation where 7.9 million citizens – 22% of the population – speak French as their first language. “It’s unacceptable that the board of directors does not have a francophone representative on […]
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KANSAS CITY — Canadian Pacific should file updated traffic data with the Surface Transportation Board pertaining to its planned merger with Kansas City Southern well ahead of a May 27 deadline, John Brooks, CP vice president and chief marketing officer, told the North American Rail Shippers conference on Wednesday. The STB requested updated baseline traffic […]
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KANSAS CITY — Service and labor issues are generally the defining issues for current public appearances by railroad officials, and so it was Tuesday when BNSF Railway CEO Katie Farmer spoke to the North American Rail Shippers conference. Less than two weeks after officials from BNSF and other Class I railroads were called to testify […]
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KANSAS CITY — 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 CSX Transportation CEO Jim Foote. They might have welcomed it, too, if not for the adversarial […]
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KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The prospect that the Surface Transportation Board will require specific, operational moves by the rail industry to address its ongoing service issues appears unlikely, and board member Patrick Fuchs spells out why it is not the regulators’ preferred option. “To the board, carriers are clearly in the best positions to identify […]
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SHEPHERDSTOWN, W.Va. — Two construction barges broke loose on the flood-swollen Potomac River, with one of them striking the 1904 Norfolk Southern deck truss bridge here before hanging up further east. Both runaway vessels were engaged in work at a section of the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal National Historical Park to the north along the […]
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PITTSFIELD, Mass. — The new seasonal rail service between Pittsfield, Mass., and New York City is scheduled to operate during summer weekends this year and again in 2023. Amtrak and local transportation officials will evaluate the demand, determining if the pilot project should be continued. “We are pleased to work together with our partner agencies […]
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OTTAWA, Ontario – 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 Board said it will temporarily require the big railroads to provide more detailed operational and […]
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PUEBLO, Colo. — The new operator of a half-century-old Colorado rail testing facility has begun the transition to full operations at the site. In March 2021, the Federal Railroad Administration awarded ENSCO a 20-year contract to operate and maintain the Transportation Technology Center (TTC) in Pueblo, Colorado. Perhaps confusingly, another company, previously named TTCI, owned […]
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WASHINGTON – Federal regulators have ordered Class I railroads to provide more detailed operational and staffing metrics and will require the big four U.S. systems to submit service recovery plans in light of widespread service problems that were spotlighted during hearings last week. The Surface Transportation Board, in a decision issued on Friday, said “immediate […]
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WASHINGTON — A Nebraska utility says it will file a rate complaint against Union Pacific for a reciprocal switch involving unit coal trains interchanged with BNSF Railway a few miles from the power plant. The Omaha Public Power District disclosed its plans to challenge the reasonableness of UP’s rates in a regulatory filing with the […]
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