Association of American Railroads WASHINGTON — The Association of American Railroads on Wednesday reported U.S. rail traffic for the week ending Sept. 28, 2019, as well as volumes for Sept. 2019. U.S. railroads originated 992,542 carloads in Sept. 2019, down 7%, or 74,172 carloads, from Sept. 2018. U.S. railroads also originated 1,061,483 containers and trailers […]
BURLINGTON, Vt. — Although 2019 is shaping up as a disappointing year for railroad volume, it’s been a downright disastrous year in trucking, Cowen & Co. transportation analyst Jason Seidl told a rail shipper conference on Wednesday. “Things are bad,” Seidl says. More trucking companies filed for bankruptcy in the first half of 2019 than […]
A CSX Transportation intermodal train hits the diamond at Blue Island, Ill., on Sept. 16, 2019. CSX, BNSF, Norfolk Southern, and Union Pacific face a series of lawsuits from shippers over fuel surcharges the railroads instituted beginning in 2003. TRAINS: David Lassen Shippers across the country filed suit against the four largest U.S. railroads on […]
ELMHURST, Ill. — Following a recent multi-agency event to raise child awareness of safety around railroad tracks, parents are being encouraged to share five safety tips with their children. The Sept. 27 event at the Metra station in Elmhurst, Ill., part of National Rail Safety Week, involved Union Pacific, Metra, the DuPage Railroad Safety Council, […]
SANTA ANA, Calif. — South Korean automakers Hyundai and Kia are suing the four largest U.S. Class I railroads, saying the railroads are violating U.S. antitrust law with coordinated fuel surcharges that drive up shipping costs. Reuters reports that the companies filed the suits Tuesday in federal court in Santa Ana, near their U.S. headquarters […]
WASHINGTON — The Surface Transportation Board on Tuesday issued a notice of proposed rulemaking that would amend the Board’s railroad performance data reporting rules. Specifically, the Board proposes to include chemical and plastics traffic as a distinct reporting category to the Class I railroads’ weekly reporting of the “cars-held” metric, which tracks the average number […]
WASHINGTON — The Surface Transportation Board on Tuesday announced a notice of proposed rulemaking to enhance its methodology for determining the railroad industry’s cost of capital by incorporating an additional model, called “Step MSDCF,” into the calculation. Each year, the Board determines the railroad industry’s cost of capital. This figure, which the Board calculates as […]
HAGENBERG, Austria — Track Machines Connected (TMC) launched its business today, taking over the former Plasser & Theurer Connected subsidiary of maintenance-equipment firm Plasser & Theurer. The new company will add additional services for collection and processing of rail infrastructure data to those offered by P&T Connected, which since its launch in 2017 had worked […]
MONTREAL — Canadian National and Canadian Pacific see signs that the economy is slowing but are sticking to their financial targets for this year as their traffic growth moderates. Canadian rail traffic has been much stronger than U.S. volume this year, but growth is weakening and crude oil traffic, while up, did not materialize as […]
FORT WORTH, Texas — BNSF Railway this week launched a sixth day of intermodal service linking Los Angeles and CSX Transportation’s Northwest Ohio terminal. BNSF added a Sunday morning eastbound departure from its Hobart terminal in Los Angeles and a Monday morning westbound departure from North Baltimore, Ohio. BNSF began directly serving CSX’s former intermodal […]
Association of American Railroads WASHINGTON — The Association of American Railroads today reported U.S. rail traffic for the week ending Sept. 21, 2019. For this week, total U.S. weekly rail traffic was 528,670 carloads and intermodal units, down 6.8% compared with the same week last year. Total carloads for the week ending Sept. 21 were […]
While Amtrak Police Officer Job Hernandez checks for another train, the motorized skateboarder in the foreground prepares to cross the tracks in back of the Metra train headed into Chicago Union Station on Sept. 24, 2019. Bob Johnston CHICAGO — Thousands of police department, railroad, and safety-oriented organization personnel throughout the country are participating in […]
