NJ Transit uses this AquaTrack equipment to clear rails of falling leaves and their residue during the fall. The trains begin around-the-clock operation on Sunday. Ralph Spielman The AquaTrack equipment sprays the rails with water at a pressure of up to 20,000 pounds per square inch. Ralph Spielman LITTLE FALLS, N.J. — As autumn arrives […]
WASHINGTON — A Missouri bridge outage has prompted Norfolk Southern to seek temporary trackage rights on a parallel Kansas City Southern line. On Wednesday, NS filed a request with the Surface Transportation Board for “expedited” granting of access to the KCS line between Kansas City, Mo., and Mexico, Mo. The filing is the result of […]
Association of American Railroads WASHINGTON — The Association of American Railroads this week reported U.S. rail traffic for the week ending Oct. 5. For this week, total U.S. weekly rail traffic was 515,061 carloads and intermodal units, down 7.1% compared with the same week last year. Total carloads for the week ending Oct. 5 were […]
An eastbound BNSF Railway train passes a stopped BNSF freight at “Summit” in California’s Cajon Pass in 2013 — this meet is one of several conditions which might require a locomotive bell to be sounded. Trains staff Q: What are the rules concerning when a train should ring its bell at a crossing or elsewhere? […]
Trespassers stop to pose for photos on Florida East Coast Railway tracks in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., in May 2018. Bob Johnston CHICAGO — The Federal Railroad Administration will hold six regional workshops in response to an alarming increase of the number of fatalities along railroad rights-of-way, in or near locations where such incidents are most […]
Arthur Adams, CSX Transportation vice president of merchandise sales CSX Corp. BURLINGTON, Vt. — CSX Transportation can stop and ultimately reverse decades of market share loss to the highway through a combination of more reliable service and a better customer experience, a railroad executive told a rail shipper group last week. CSX has steadily improved […]
BURLINGTON, Vt. — The spread of Precision Scheduled Railroading inflicts short-term pain on shortline railroads but offers the potential for long-term gain, Michael Miller, president of Genesee & Wyoming’s North American operations, told a shipper conference last week. The short-term impact includes unexpected service changes, the bunching of customer traffic, and the handling of larger […]
FORT WORTH, Texas — Eight major freight railroads filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court last week arguing that one of the nation’s largest labor unions is refusing to negotiate on the continuous issue of train crew size. On Oct. 3, attorneys representing eight freight carriers — BNSF Railway, Kansas City Southern, CSX Transportation, Grand […]
WASHINGTON — The Surface Transportation Board today announced that it is issuing a series of decisions on demurrage and accessorial rules and charges, continuing its efforts to improve dispute resolution processes, promote transparency, and make the agency more accessible. Informed by the agency’s two-day public hearing with more than 50 participants, the Board is issuing […]
In a down year for North American rail volumes, Union Pacific led the third quarter decline in traffic among the six big systems, with its intermodal volume slumping 12% and its overall carloads off by 9%. Among the big four U.S. systems, BNSF Railway fared the best in the third quarter. Its intermodal volume was […]
CHICAGO, Ill. — The Indiana Rail Road is taking the debate over laws requiring minimum crew sizes for freight trains to federal court in Illinois. According to a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois Eastern Division, Indiana Rail Road, along with railroad industry advocacy groups the Association of American […]
BURLINGTON, Vt. — A common theme woven through several presentations at a regional rail shippers’ conference this week involved a key question: Are railroads still relevant? The world increasingly expects transportation that’s fast, reliable, and easy. Railroads are slow, unreliable, and complicated. As a result, they’ve lost market share to trucks and often aren’t even […]
