A Triple Crown trailer train heads westbound out of Huntington, Ind., in September 2015. 15273-21 Randy Olson Question: I occasionally see Triple Crown semi-trailer trains on a route that runs near Decatur, Ill. Since these trailers are attached directly to one another and are not on flatcars, how are the frames of these trailers reinforced […]
President Donald Trump The White House WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s threat to close the border with Mexico this week would quickly have an impact on railroads and wreak economic havoc on both sides of the Rio Grande. Cross-border traffic represents about 11 percent of Union Pacific’s total volume and nearly 30 percent of volume […]
Union Pacific CEO Lance Fritz Union Pacific OMAHA, Neb. — Union Pacific has slowed work on the new hump yard it is building near Hearne, Texas, and no longer has a firm opening date for the $550-million Brazos Yard. UP now has about 90 contractors working on the yard, down from 300. Crews were aiming […]
Missouri-Kansas-Texas drovers’ caboose No. 350 shows off the car’s extra length. The cars could accommodate extra riders overseeing livestock shipments. Harold Schupp Q Where, in the train’s consist, were drovers’ cabooses placed? Were they at the rear with the regular caboose, or somewhere in the train’s consist near the stock cars? Were they used only […]
CSX train Q-032, with a single unit on the point, crosses Rail Lane with a mix of COFC/TOFC on the Philadelphia Subdivision at Elk Mills, Md, on Feb. 16, 2019 … Michael S. Murray … and another single unit, operating as distributed power, is midtrain. CSX is increasing its use of distributed power as part […]
Association of American Railroads WASHINGTON — The Association of American Railroads today reported U.S. rail traffic for the week ending March 23. For this week, total U.S. weekly rail traffic was 503,017 carloads and intermodal units, down 4.5 percent compared with the same week last year. Total carloads for the week ending March 23 were […]
BNSF Railway ES44DC No. 7765 leads an intermodal train through a curved main line at Siberia, Calif., in September 2008. 08357-7 Steve Schmollinger Question: In many photos taken on open land in the West and Midwest, you can see curvature in the tracks even though there are no visible obstacles such as rock cuts, rivers, […]
The increased use of locally mined frac sand in America’s largest shale oil field, the Permian Basin of Texas and New Mexico, is rapidly crowding out rail-hauled sand from the Midwest. On Union Pacific, for example, frac sand volume was down 45 percent this year through the first week of March, a trend the railroad […]
WASHINGTON — Federal regulators have scheduled a May hearing on Class I railroads’ higher demurrage and accessorial charges, which can hit shippers who don’t load or unload freight cars quickly enough. The May 22 hearing, which the Surface Transportation Board announced on Wednesday, comes as shippers are complaining about the charges that have become more […]
The spate of harsh winter weather and flooding that has wreaked havoc with operations on BNSF Railway and Union Pacific has helped submerge traffic volumes, too. UP’s carload traffic fell 12 percent in the week ending March 16, while intermodal volume was down 9 percent, amid record flooding in Nebraska and a rock slide and […]
Making 90 mph on an E7, a Chicago, Burlington & Quincy road foreman of engines whistles for a grade crossing east of La Crosse, Wis., in July 1955. W. A. Akin Jr. photo […]
Association of American Railroads WASHINGTON — The Association of American Railroads today reported U.S. rail traffic for the week ending March 16. For this week, total U.S. weekly rail traffic was 501,001 carloads and intermodal units, down 6.8 percent compared with the same week last year. Total carloads for the week ending March 16 were […]
