News & Products for the week of November 11th 2024

A black model caboose

News & Products for the week of November 11th 2024   Model railroad operators and builders can get the latest information about locomotives, freight cars, passenger cars, tools, track, and more by reading Model Railroader’s frequent product updates. The following are the products Model Railroader editors have news on for the week of November 11th […]

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Cumberland Yard improvements will enable CSX to reroute traffic to the former B&O main line

AMELIA ISLAND, Fla.— CSX is wrapping up work at Cumberland Yard in Maryland that will enable the former Baltimore & Ohio main line to handle merchandise traffic moving between the Mid-Atlantic and Midwest that’s currently routed the long way around via Selkirk, N.Y., on the former New York Central Water Level Route. CSX has been […]

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Schneider to launch intermodal service over new CPKC-CSX shortcut

GREEN BAY, Wis. — Schneider will launch intermodal service next month linking the Southeast with Texas and Mexico via CSX and Canadian Pacific Kansas City’s new Meridian & Bigbee corridor. The first interline trains over the new route are scheduled to roll on Dec. 1, CSX officials have said. “This represents a major leap forward […]

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BNSF logistics center in Arizona clears first regulatory hurdle

Plan for BNSF logistics center in Arizona

PHOENIX — Plans for a major BNSF intermodal and logistics facility near Phoenix have passed the first step in the permitting process. In a meeting last week, the Maricopa County Planning and Zoning Commission recommended approval for the BNSF Logistics Park Phoenix development, the Phoenix Business Journal reports. The county’s Board of Supervisors will vote […]

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Railroads ask federal courts to order FRA to take action on waylaid safety waivers

WASHINGTON – BNSF Railway, CSX, and Union Pacific filed lawsuits against the Federal Railroad Administration today for its failure to act on a half dozen safety waiver requests that in some cases would allow railroads to scale back visual inspections in areas where they have deployed new high-tech train and track inspection systems. The litigation […]

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CSX expects U.S. manufacturing growth to spur carload revival

Freight train with blue locomotives crossing diamond

AMELIA ISLAND, Fla. — CSX is banking on a U.S. manufacturing renaissance to fuel a billion-dollar revival of its carload traffic over the next three years. A record number of industrial development projects — largely in the Southeast but also scattered around the CSX network — should produce annual merchandise volume growth of 1% to […]

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Groundbreaking held for new Utah short line

GRANTSVILLE, Utah — More than three years after the project began seeking regulatory approval, and seven months after that approval was granted, construction has begun on the Savage Tooele Railroad, Utah’s first new railroad in decades. The 11-mile short line will build five miles of new track and restore a 6-mile former Union Pacific branch […]

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TSA proposes new cybersecurity requirements for some railroads, other transportation systems

U.S. Transportation Security Administration logo

WASHINGTON — The Transportation Security Administration has proposed a rule that would require cybersecurity risk management and reporting requirements for some freight and passenger railroads, as well as rail transportation. The Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, published today in the Federal Register, also covers some bus and pipeline operations. The TSA estimates that under the rule’s […]

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R.J. Corman breaks ground on Kentucky infrastructure project

Line of people holding shovels

FRANKFORT, Ky. — Federal, state, and local officials were on hand as R.J. Corman Railroad Group held a groundbreaking ceremony on Wednesday, Nov. 6, for its Bluegrass Multimodal Freight Improvement Project at the company’s yard in Frankfort. The $12.3 million project to upgrade infrastructure of the R.J. Corman Central Kentucky Lines will include construction of […]

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U.S. weekly rail volume jumps

Weekly table showing U.S. carload rail traffic by commodity type, plus overall intermodal volume

WASHINGTON — Weekly U.S. rail traffic showed its biggest gain in seven weeks over the period ending Nov. 2, boosted by a double-digit increase in intermodal traffic. According to statistics from the Association of American Railroads, weekly volume was 516,743 carloads and intermodal units, a 6.6% gain over the same week in 2023. That was […]

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GOP Senate majority could alter future for rail safety legislation: analysis

Train passing under signal bridge at sunset

While the final margins may not be determined for some time in several outstanding races, the election results are coming into focus. Former President Donald Trump has been reelected, Republicans have won a majority in the U.S. Senate, and the U.S. House will be split fairly closely, as it has been for the past four […]

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Union Pacific executives tout carload and intermodal growth prospects

HUTCHINS, Texas — Inside a spartan warehouse the size of 10 football fields, the loud hum of plastic pellet packaging machinery may as well be the sound of carload and intermodal growth on Union Pacific. UP gathers covered hopper loads from Gulf Coast petrochemical plants and delivers them here, to the Katoen Natie packaging plant […]

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