Year: 2010

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UPPER DARBY, Pa. — It’s something every bus driver fears – a gun pulled in anger aboard a bus.

It happened – again – in Upper Darby, Pa., last week on a Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority bus, according to the Associated Press.

A female passenger brandished a handgun and threatened a fellow passenger during an argument. The altercation was stopped by a cool-headed third passenger, reported the Associated Press.

The Associated Press said there were 30 people on board the bus at the time. Police arrested the woman who brandished the handgun.

The UTU National Legislative Office and many state legislative directors are working with lawmakers to seek legislation requiring driver training in how to deal with unruly and abusive riders.

The UTU also is working to require protective shields for drivers and other crime deterring devices aboard buses, such as cameras.

The Railroad Retirement Board has confirmed for rail workers what the Social Security Administration already has told Social Security recipients: There will be no increase in benefits in 2011.

The reason is there was no increase in the Consumer Price Index (CPI) from the third quarter of 2009 to the corresponding period of the current year.

Additionally, and because the CPI did not rise, Railroad Retirement and Social Security beneficiaries will not see an increase in 2011 in the earnings limitation that triggers benefits cuts if they continue working while receiving benefits.

For those under full retirement age throughout 2011, the exempt earnings amount remains at $14,160. For beneficiaries attaining full retirement age in 2011, the exempt earnings amount, for the months before the month full retirement age is attained, remains at $37,680 in 2011.

For employee and spouse annuitants, full retirement age ranges from age 65 for those born before 1938 to age 67 for those born in 1960 or later. For survivor annuitants, full retirement age ranges from age 65 for those born before 1940 to age 67 for those born in 1962 or later.

Special work restrictions continue to be applicable to disability annuitants. In 2011, the monthly disability earnings limit will also stay at the previous year’s amount of $780.

Regardless of age and/or earnings, no Railroad Retirement annuity is payable for any month in which an annuitant (retired employee, spouse or survivor) works for a railroad employer or railroad union.

The Department of Health and Human Services has not yet announced if there will be Medicare premium changes for 2011. Information about Medicare changes for 2011, when available, may be found at www.medicare.gov.

Citing a series of on-duty career ending injuries and fatalities over the past 24 months that occurred on or near mainline track, the Federal Railroad Administration has issued a safety advisory on the importance of situational awareness, especially when the job being performed in main track territory changes.

FRA Safety Advisory 2010-03 also includes recommendations to railroads “to ensure that these issues are addressed by appropriate policies and procedures.”

Among the recommendations is that railroads strengthen and expand to all employees, when on or near track, bans on the use of electronic devices. FRA Emergency Order 26 (soon to be made permanent) only restricts the use of cell phones and other electronic devices by on-duty train and engine workers.

Although the employees injured and killed while on or near mainline track “were all familiar with operating and safety rules,” said the FRA, “in each case, the employees’ situational awareness seems to have been degraded.” Therefore, said the FRA, “employee alertness to changing job situations could have been heightened in these situations by the act of engaging in additional job briefings.

“As the railroad industry is well aware, a job briefing should take place at the beginning of a task and anytime the task changes,” said the FRA. “Railroad operating rules and certain federal railroad safety regulations require that these job briefings take place. The job briefing can act, particularly when there is more than one person involved with the task, as a time out for the affected employees to reinforce the need to exercise vigilance and awareness in the performance of their tasks.”

Among the FRA’s recommendations to railroads:

  • Develop processes that promote safety mentoring of fellow workers regardless of their titles or positions.
  • Develop procedures that address the need for dialogue between coworkers when exiting equipment near tracks or moving equipment.
  • Review the current process for job briefings and determine best practices that encourage constant communication about activities at hand.
  • Assess current rules addressing personal safety and employee behavior when on or near tracks, with particular emphasis on main tracks.
  • Review current rules pertaining to activities that could cause employees to become distracted, including rules pertaining to the use of electronic devices, with the view of strengthening and expanding them to include all employees when they are on or near tracks.
  • Review current rules pertaining to sounding the locomotive horn, with the view of requiring the horn to be sounded when approaching and passing standing trains, especially at or near grade crossings, regardless of whether such crossings are located in quiet zones.

For more information on railroad safety, go to the UTU website at www.utu.org and click on “Transportation Safety” link.

SANFORD, Fla. – A new Amtrak station – seating 600 and four times the size of its predecessor – has opened near Orlando for the more than 244,000 annual Amtrak Auto Train passengers, reports an Amtrak press release.

The $10.5 million to enlarge and improve the station – severely damaged by a 2004 hurricane — was funded with $10.5 million from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA). Since the hurricane, part of the waiting room was sheltered in a tent.

Amtrak’s Auto Train, operating between Lorton, Va., (just outside Washington, D.C.) and Sanford, is said by Amtrak to be “the longest passenger train in the world, with two locomotives and 40-plus passenger rail cars and vehicle carriers operating daily.”

The 855-mile Auto Train route is the only Amtrak service to simultaneously transport passengers and their motor vehicles, including cars, SUVs, vans, trucks and motorcycles. Each year, says Amtrak, the Auto Train draws more than 100,000 vehicles off heavily congested I-95.

Said the Amtrak press release: “A look at the license plates on vehicles being driven to and from the Auto Train shows it draws users from the Eastern Seaboard of the United States and several Canadian provinces, all choosing to ride overnight in sleeping compartments or reclining coach seats for the scheduled 17 ½ hour trip rather than drive the distance.”

BNSF, Norfolk Southern and Union Pacific have spent or are spending more than $600 million in Kansas, Pennsylvania and Illinois to increase their intermodal business.

BNSF is constructing a $200 million intermodal terminal southwest of Kansas City in Edgerton, Kan., reports journalstar.com. The state is contributing $35 million toward the project, which is to be repaid by a utilities sales tax.

Norfolk Southern will hold a groundbreaking Oct. 19 on a 220-acre, $94 million intermodal terminal near Greencastle, Pa., scheduled to be completed in 2012, reports progressiverailroading.com, which says the new terminal is part of the NS Crescent Corridor – a 2,500-mile intermodal double-stack route linking New Jersey and Louisiana.

Union Pacific, meanwhile, has opened a $370 million intermodal terminal at Joliet, Ill., reports journalstar.com. UP said the new terminal has the capacity to handle some 500,000 highway-to-rail containers and trailers, and is second in size to UP’s Long Beach, Calif., intermodal terminal that has a capacity of some 700,000 container and trailer loadings annually.

Railwayage.com reports that among the Joliet terminal’s features are four 8,000-foot tracks with capacity to handle the loading or unloading of 104 double-stack cars, six 8,000-foot tracks to sort railcars by destination, and six storage tracks.

WASHINGTON—State departments of transportation, which have long relied on gasoline and diesel fuel taxes to fund highways and transit programs, are asking Congress to replace the decades old pennies-per-gallon tax with a flat percentage tax, reports Dow Jones newswire.

The change is expected to increase dollars flowing into the Highway Trust Fund by almost $44 billion over six years, and debate could begin during a lame-duck congressional session following the November elections, said Dow-Jones.

Rather than tax gasoline at 18.4 cents per gallon, and diesel fuel at 24.4 cents per gallon, the new tax would be 8.4 percent on the price of each gallon of gasoline and 10.6 percent on the price of each gallon of diesel fuel, reported Dow-Jones.

Dow-Jones points out that raising the cents-per-gallon tax on motor fuels is not politically popular, but that the percentage tax would automatically increase federal revenue as the pump price of motor fuels increases – and insulate lawmakers from having to vote to raise motor fuels taxes in the future.

Republicans oppose the idea, however, according to Dow-Jones, which quotes Rep. John Mica (R-Fla.), the senior Republican on the House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee, as calling the proposed percentage tax a “non-starter.”

 

 

HOPE, Ark. – Amtrak President Joseph Boardman told an audience here last week that poor service and arrogance were to blame for Amtrak’s loss of the contract to operate the Virginia Railway Express, reports the Hope Star newspaper.

The commuter service contract was lost to a French company, Keolis, which now operates the commuter trains between Northern Virginia and Washington, D.C.

Amtrak lost the VRE contract “long before the bid,” said Boardman, as quoted by the newspaper. “We lost this contract because we didn’t take care of our customer … We were arrogant.”

The Hope Star quoted Boardman as saying Amtrak must demonstrate more “humility … be inclusive to those who want and have an idea … We need to share the decision making.”

 As reported by the Hope Star, Boardman said that as the federal railroad administrator, before becoming Amtrak’s CEO, he saw similar flaws in freight railroad management  — “They are good people, but way too autocratic; they depend too much on rules and not bringing ‘people’ people in, in an inclusionary way.”

 

SANFORD, Fla. – A new Amtrak station – seating 600 and four times the size of its predecessor – has opened near Orlando for the more than 244,000 annual Amtrak Auto Train passengers, reports an Amtrak press release.

The $10.5 million to enlarge and improve the station – severely damaged by a 2004 hurricane — was funded with $10.5 million from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA). Since the hurricane, part of the waiting room was sheltered in a tent.

Amtrak’s Auto Train, operating between Lorton, Va., (just outside Washington, D.C.) and Sanford, is said by Amtrak to be “the longest passenger train in the world, with two locomotives and 40-plus passenger rail cars and vehicle carriers operating daily.”

The 855-mile Auto Train route is the only Amtrak service to simultaneously transport passengers and their motor vehicles, including cars, SUVs, vans, trucks and motorcycles. Each year, says Amtrak, the Auto Train draws more than 100,000 vehicles off heavily congested I-95.

Said the Amtrak press release: “A look at the license plates on vehicles being driven to and from the Auto Train shows it draws users from the Eastern Seaboard of the United States and several Canadian provinces, all choosing to ride overnight in sleeping compartments or reclining coach seats for the scheduled 17 ½ hour trip rather than drive the distance.”

A Norfolk Southern sought lease of trackage to a newly created short line railroad in Michigan is being opposed by the UTU and the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, which represent affected train and engine workers.

The U.S. Surface Transportation Board (STB) is being asked by the UTU and the BLET to revoke an exemption from regulatory review previously provided a proposed transaction of NS and Adrian & Blissfield Rail Road, a holding company intending to create a new shortline to lease and operate almost 45 miles of NS track near Lansing.

The new short line, to be called Jackson & Lansing, is expected — as is the case with virtually all upstart shortlines — to hire a new workforce that will be paid lower wages and benefits than NS now pays the five trainmen, three engineers and three other employees now assigned to that trackage by NS.

The UTU and the BLET are asking the STB to revoke a previously granted STB exemption that would permit the transaction to move to completion without regulatory scrutiny. Such exemptions are permitted if the STB is satisfied that neither competition, continued rail service, safety nor other so-called public interest considerations will be jeopardized as a result of the transaction.

In fact, STB Vice Chairman Frank Mulvey filed a dissent in the previous 2-1 decision granting the exemption, saying that the outward written commitments imposed by the parties require more information, “particularly when they contain outright bans on interchange with third party carriers or, as here, economic incentives that can only be evaluated with the provision of additional information.”

Specially, the UTU and the BLET ask the STB to reconsider its granting of the exemption for the following reasons:

  • Competition and reasonable rates: The transaction, as proposed, would exclude third party carriers (other than NS) from operating over the line, and limit interchange to and from other carriers. Also, the transaction, as proposed, appears to limit competition in order that Jackson & Lansing be able to increase freight rates to fund upgrades to the leased track and facilities. This would be in violation of congressionally imposed national rail transportation policy that supports rail-to-rail competition and fair and reasonable freight rates.
  • Safety: The so-far known facts of the transaction suggest it is highly unlikely either the holding company or its shortline, Jackson & Lansing, currently have sufficient funds and cash flow to upgrade the leased track and facilities to provide safe and reasonably timely operations. As expected carloadings will contain industrial waste, track and rail operating safety must be of significant concern.
  • Fair wages and working conditions: In the current economy — especially in Michigan, where unemployment is twice the national average — the affected employees and their families, and the State of Michigan, will suffer significant economic harm. By granting an exemption from regulatory scrutiny, the STB is permitting the transaction to move forward without imposing labor protection.

This also would violate national rail transportation policy, as it requires “fair wages and suitable working conditions.” The STB is obligated to consider (which can only be done by revoking the exemption and investigating the transaction) whether the new entity will impose substandard wages and working conditions, thereby significantly circumventing the terms and conditions of current collective bargaining agreements under which the affected employees are now covered.

Click here to read the joint UTU/BLET filing.

UTU bus members know the violence aboard school buses all too well.

The latest shocking outbreak occurred on Long Island, N.Y., last week, when a 14-year-old boy was beaten aboard a school bus over allegations he is gay, according to Longislandpress.com.

The UTU is working with other transportation labor unions and the Transportation Trades Department of the AFL-CIO to pressure school districts to provide monitors on school buses and provide more training for drivers in the handling of school-bus violence.