WASHINGTON — Travelers already booked on some Amtrak long-distance trains in April and May are being advised today (Thursday, March 3) to rebook their trips as the passenger carrier extends its frequency reductions on seven routes. Amtrak had cut service from daily to five days a week on most of its long-distance routes in January, […]
FORT WORTH – Analysts and industry observers suspected that BNSF Railway had to pay a pretty penny to buy out Montana Rail Link’s long-term lease on the former Northern Pacific main line. It turns out they were right. BNSF’s financial report suggests the railroad paid MRL around $2 billion to tear up the lease well […]
The Powder River Basin was North America’s last, great railroading frontier. By the time of Fred W. Frailey’s article in 1989, PRB was served by Class I railroads where before railroads scarcely traveled — all in the later half of the 20th century. Enter your email address below to read this classic 24-page article that […]
WASHINGTON — The Surface Transportation Board has set a schedule for submission of evidence and arguments in a long-running disagreement between Amtrak and Canadian National over Amtrak operations on CN routes. The case dates to a July 20, 2013, filing by Amtrak asking the board to establish terms and compensation for use of CN’s rail […]
WASHINGTON — Shippers say they will support the proposed Canadian Pacific-Kansas City Southern merger so long as regulatory approval of the first Class I combination in two decades includes conditions that would protect competition. The broadest coalition of shipper groups — the American Chemistry Council, The Fertilizer Institute, and the National Industrial Transportation League — in a […]
CALGARY, Alberta — Members of the Teamsters Canada Rail Conference have approved a possible strike against Canadian Pacific, the union reported to members after a strike vote concluded on Feb. 28. Union officials said 3,062 ballots were sent out to members. While it did not report the number of ballots returned, 96.7% of those voting […]
NEW YORK — Light rail, express buses, ferry service, and subway extensions are among the new public-transit options to connect Manhattan and LaGuardia Airport released Wednesday by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. The website amNY.com reports a total of 14 options are offered as alternatives to the controversial AirTrain project that […]
OTTAWA — The consortium that built and operates Ottawa’s problem-plagued light rail Confederation Line has claimed the city launched the service before it was ready and without consulting with the builders, according to a court document filed in a dispute between the city and contractor. The CBC reports Rideau Transit Group CEO Nicolas Truchon makes […]
CLEVELAND — OmniTRAX’s Newburgh & South Shore has purchased a battery-electric locomotive, becoming the first short line in Ohio to deploy such a unit. The GP9-based locomotive from AMPS Traction features 1,700 gross horsepower, reduces fuel consumption by half, and cuts NOx emissions and particulate matter by 77%, removing 4.2 tones of nitrogen oxide from […]
WASHINGTON — Traffic figures suppressed by winter weather in February 2021 skewed year-to-year comparisons for U.S. rail traffic in February 2022 statistics released by the Association of American Railroads. In the month just ended, U.S. railroads originated 915,320 carloads, an 11% increase over 2021, while the 1,030,317 containers and trailers represented a 1.4% increase. Overall […]
WASHINGTON — BNSF Railway has urged federal regulators to take steps to protect cross-border traffic to and from Mexico as part of any approval of the proposed Canadian Pacific-Kansas City Southern merger. But BNSF dropped its plan to pursue trackage rights over KCS to the Laredo, Texas, gateway in its Monday regulatory filing, which was […]
WASHINGTON — Norfolk Southern sees the Canadian Pacific-Kansas City Southern merger as a threat to its Meridian Speedway intermodal traffic. NS announced its intention to protect its Meridian Speedway traffic in a pair of Monday regulatory filings posted to the Surface Transportation Board website on Tuesday. NS may exercise its option to purchase the KCS-served […]
