WASHINGTON — Union Pacific is not preserving dispatching information relevant to its handling of the Sunset Limited, Amtrak has claimed in a new filing with the Surface Transportation Board that asks the board to order UP to show cause why the railroad is not complying with an STB order to do so.
The “petition to show cause” filed on Wednesday, April 10, is the latest twist in the slow-moving investigation over Sunset Limited timekeeping, the first such case brought by Amtrak to the STB under the Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act of 2008 [see “Amtrak asks federal regulators to investigate …,” Trains News Wire, Dec. 9, 2022].
The filing says that UP destroys its dispatch playbacks — videos providing information about dispatching decisions — after 99 hours, and that UP claims it is under no obligation to preserve those playbacks. Amtrak says this does not comply with the terms set by the board when it set the terms for its investigation last July [see “STB announces investigation …,” News Wire, July 11, 2023]. As quoted by Amtrak, the board’s order called for the preservation of all documents or data related to the subject “regardless of any parties’ ongoing document retention policy or other data destruction practices … even if they claim those documents or data are protected from discovery by privilege or otherwise.”
The filing argues the board should order UP to show why it concluded its dispatching playbacks were not covered by those instructions, immediately end its policy of destroying the dispatching playbacks for the duration of the Sunset Limited case, and says Amtrak “reserves the right to seek additional and appropriate relief” for the railroad’s failure to comply with the board order.
Insight about dispatching decisions is likely to be critical, given that questions whether the railroad honors Amtrak’s statutory right of preference or gives its freight trains priority are likely to be at the heart of the case. Union Pacific has complained in an earlier filing about the difficulty in documenting past operating decisions [see “Union Pacific seeks more time …,” News Wire, March 30, 2024]. The loss of information provided by the playbacks would appear to only make the investigation more difficult.
The full filing covers 255 pages, although the show-cause petition covers just the first 13 pages. The remainder is exhibits, including some redacted in their entirety as “highly confidential.” Others document the back-and-forth between Amtrak and Union Pacific in Amtrak’s requests for information. This includes UP statements that “it does not possess dispatching playback documents for the relevant period” of specific requests, as well as frequent responses that Amtrak requests are “overbroad and unduly burdensome.”
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