Ryan Wilkins worked in Union Pacific's law department from 2014 to 2019. He led the railroad's Federal Railroad Safety Act (FRSA) team. Now he is the plaintiff in a federal whistleblower lawsuit in Ne...

Chiltern Railways became the seventh passenger operator in Britain to return to public ownership on September 20.

CSX plans to furlough 1,100 workers nationwide by mid-November, including hundreds across West Virginia, Ohio and Kentucky, a union said.

YouTube video by The Rail Story

NOVI, Mich. — CSX is planning to abolish 165 maintenance-of-way positions and furlough more than 1,000 workers, the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employes Division has announced. In a post on its website earlier this month, the union, part of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, said the furloughs will include approximately 900 BMWED members on [...]Read More...

CHICAGO — A Chicago labor organization has gone to bat for Amtrak’s plan to build a new maintenance facility on the city’s South Side. The Chicago Federation of Labor joined Amtrak representatives on Thursday, Sept. 24, at a news conference supporting the proposed $900 million Midwest Maintenance Facility, WTTW-TV reports. “Our support comes from a [...]Read More...

The Surface Transportation Board on Sept. 18 reported its unanimous decision rejecting several motions that sought summary denial of the revised major merger application filed by Union Pacific (UP) and […]

Jami Wallace, resident of East Palestine, Ohio shared her experiences with us on our podcast. She spoke at the Labor Notes Conference in front of 100 participants and explained the rare cancers that folks are being diagnosed with, and the lack of government support for the residents of East Palestine. The Blue Shirt Justice League...

Union Pacific CEO Jim Vena wants regulators to disregard their own requirements to approve his merger first and worry about the consequences later. During last week’s fireside chat with Wall Street an...

Progressive Railroading Daily News

LAGUNA BEACH, Calif. — The proposed Union Pacific-Norfolk Southern merger will not win regulatory approval because its harms outweigh the benefits, CPKC CEO Keith Creel says. But if the $85 billion deal does somehow satisfy the Surface Transportation Board’s 2001 merger review rules, Creel says the approval will be so loaded up with conditions to [...]Read More...

On Sunday Chiltern Railways will become the 10th rail company to be nationalised.

Growing delays for rail-bound boxes reflect continuing pressure on intermodal capacity.

LAGUNA BEACH, Calif. — Union Pacific CEO Jim Vena is critical of rival railroads’ plans to request trackage rights over a combined UP-Norfolk Southern system. “The idea to give up tracks of your railroad for no reason at all just goes against the fundamental principle of how …. business should work,” Vena told an investor [...]Read More...

Railroad fuel surcharges on U.S. grain shipments have more than doubled over the past year, rippling through the ​farm belt and raising transportation costs as many farmers also struggle with higher p...

Trains Turntable: Commentary from locomotive engineer Jason Doering On Aug. 11, 2026, a federal appeals court upheld the Federal Railroad Administration’s two-person-crew rule, which generally requires two crew members while allowing exceptions and an approval process for certain one-person operations. Yet Washington is already debating a more consequential question: whether anybody needs to be aboard [...]Read More...

WASHINGTON — BNSF, CPKC, and CSX have asked federal regulators to order Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern to certify by Sept. 19 that their merger application will not undergo any further changes. The three Class I railroads, in a letter to the Surface Transportation Board today, said that UP and NS have made substantial amendments [...]Read More...

AAR priced catenary across most of the Class I network, but that does not establish where freight rail electrification makes economic sense.

Progressive Railroading Daily News

MONTREAL — With the first cars not due until 2031, it’s far too early for VIA Rail Canada to address how it will deploy the 313 new passenger cars to be built by Alstom in Canada. But the order could make it possible for increased frequencies for the Crown corporation’s flagship long-distance trains, as well [...]Read More...

Poland's railways faced widespread disruption on Friday as a go-slow ‌protest by train drivers over safety concerns left around two-thirds of services facing delays on one of the busiest days of the w...

WASHINGTON — BNSF Railway, CPKC, and CSX plan to seek broad trackage rights over a combined Union Pacific-Norfolk Southern system, if federal regulators approve the transcontinental merger. Notably, CPKC and CSX are targeting the same corridor: They want access to the Kansas City-St. Louis trackage now controlled by UP or NS, arguing that the merger [...]Read More...

US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the class action attorneys have lied in the East Palestine, OH Norfolk Southern train derailment and the residents of East Palestine, OH and the public hav...

Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor launch their new book, End Times Fascism: And the Fight for the Living World on Democracy Now! It examines how wealthy elites are preparing for “the end of the world,” eve...

We speak with the economist Mariana Mazzucato, author of the new book The Common Good Economy: A New Compass.

WASHINGTON — Intermodal traffic set an all-time monthly record in August — and year-to-date is the highest ever — while monthly carload volume is at its highest level in nearly seven years, the Association of American Railroads says. Intermodal volume in the U.S. was up 4.4% in August compared to a year ago. U.S. railroads [...]Read More...

Jim Vena doesn’t really see why the Surface Transportation Board should be concerned about other mergers that might follow the proposed Union Pacific-Norfolk Southern transaction. But if the board must do so, the UP CEO says there’s a simple solution: approve the UP-NS deal based on its merits, and if the board doesn’t want to [...]Read More...

If Union Pacific’s merger with Norfolk Southern is approved, the combined company could increase train traffic in suburbs like Barrington and take business from smaller lines.

WASHINGTON — The Rail Passengers Association on Wednesday, Sept. 9, called for the Surface Transportation Board to reject the Union Pacific-Norfolk Southern merger, saying the UP-NS application ignores potential expansion of passenger service as part of its failure to make a prima facie case for the transaction. In a 63-page filing, the RPA argues that [...]Read More...

WASHINGTON — The Federal Railroad Administration has issued a safety advisory regarding the importance of complying with federal regulations and railroad rules governing restricted-speed operation, expressing concerns about such operations in areas with positive train control. The advisory, to be published in the Federal Register on Thursday, Sept. 3, but available here in pre-publication form, [...]Read More...

Retail diesel prices are at an all-time high according to one key measurement. The daily average national retail price for diesel, published by AAA, was

Retail diesel prices are at an all-time high according to one key measurement. The daily average national retail price for diesel, published by AAA, was

THUNDER BAY, Ontario — The Canadian government will spend Ca$4.7 billion (U.S. $3.41 billion) for 313 new VIA Rail Canada passenger cars to be built in Canada by Alstom. Prime Minister Mark Carney mad...

ST. LOUIS — The longstanding compensation dispute between Union Pacific and Metra over Metra’s use of UP lines is again in the spotlight after a federal court ruling in UP’s appeal of the Surface Transportation Board decision granting Metra trackage rights in the Chicago area. The Aug. 31 decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals [...]Read More...

The Stop the Rail Merger Coalition is looking to stir up local opposition to the Union Pacific-Norfolk Southern merger in trackside communities that would see an increase in train and truck traffic if regulators approve the proposed transcontinental combination. The coalition — which includes BNSF Railway, CPKC, shipper organizations, and three rail labor unions — [...]Read More...

The UP-NS Proposed Safety Integration Plan: a 215 page Nothing BurgerPublic Rail NowConnolly Insights LLC presented to a Public Rail Now audience on August 26 about the Safety Integration Plan (SI...

WASHINGTON — Vice President JD Vance and the head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency have asked the EPA’s Office of Inspector General to investigate the Biden administration’s response to the February 2023 Norfolk Southern derailment and hazardous-materials release in East Palestine, Ohio. The EPA said in a Friday, Aug. 28, press release that Vance [...]Read More...

More than 100 House Democrats urged the Surface Transportation Board to prioritize rail jobs in its review of the proposed Union Pacific-Norfolk Southern merger.

WASHINGTON — A coalition of rail unions has told the Surface Transportation Board that they support motions asking the board to summarily deny or reject the Union Pacific-Norfolk Southern merger application. BNSF Railway, CSX, and a group of five shippers’ organizations filed those motions earlier this month, arguing that UP and NS had not made the [...]Read More...

More than three years later, we're beginning to learn about the health impacts of the Norfolk Southern train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio.

Progressive Railroading Daily News

The $8-billion Airo fleet promises cleaner, more reliable service as passenger rail enjoys record ridership — and faces an uncertain future in Washington.

WASHINGTON — The Surface Transportation Board today adopted a schedule for review of the Union Pacific-Norfolk Southern revised merger filing, removing a hold it placed on the proceeding in May. But the board’s decision did not address the merits of the application or any of the comments filed since UP and NS submitted their 412-page [...]Read More...