Year: 2013

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triple_trailerThe SMART Transportation Division’s legislative officers attended a public-input meeting held by the U.S. Department of Transportation May 29 to study truck size and weight limits.

Written testimony from the legislative office included the complete survey results from a poll conducted by the SMART TD in Indiana and Missouri regarding truck size and weight limits.

A portion of that survey was published in the May 2013 SMART TD News.

In written testimony submitted to the DOT, Alternate National Legislative Director John Risch stated: “By very large margins, these surveys show that the public at large opposes any increase in truck size and weight.

“Our labor union opposes increasing the size and weight of trucks as well because doing so will divert traffic from privately owned and maintained railroads to our already overburdened publicly built and maintained highways.

“Bigger trucks will increase highway congestion and further damage our inadequate infrastructure, and will put railroads at a further competitive disadvantage than they already are.

“Transporting freight by rail is more fuel efficient, saves our nation’s highways and produces far less pollutants than does transporting freight by trucks.

“Public policy decisions should encourage more freight to be moved by rail, not less.”

To view the SMART TD’s complete polling results from the Indiana and Missouri surveys, click here.

To view the DOT’s survey worksheets, click here.

The train operators at the Sprinter Rail Facility in Escondido, Calif., chose SMART Transportation Division representation in a May 28 vote.

In a unanimous vote, the Sprinter operators opted for representation under the SMART umbrella.

The Sprinter line is a 22-mile long light rail train system between Oceanside, Vista, San Marcos and Escondido, Calif., serving 15 stations.

The Sprinter runs every 30 minutes in each direction, Monday through Thursday, from approximately 4 a.m. to 9 p.m. Friday and Saturday trains run later.

It is managed Veolia Transportation Services, Inc., a major operator of commuter and regional rail services worldwide.

SMART TD Director of Organizing Rich Ross thanks all involved for “this complete team effort.”

SMART Transportation Division-represented train and engine workers employed by Lake Superior and Ishpeming Railroad Company have ratified a new five-year agreement by an overwhelming 89 percent majority.

The agreement provides for substantial wage increases equal to the 2011 national UTU agreement, including percentage increases to crew consist payments, full back-pay and increases in training pay.

The agreement also provides improved bereavement leave, establishes a Rule-G bypass agreement and establishes a health and welfare benefit package that replicates the National Health and Welfare package, including the Early Retirement Major Medical Benefit Plan.

SMART TD International Vice President Dave Wier, who assisted with the negotiations, congratulates International Organizer W.W. Lain, General Chairperson Dan Beckman and committee members John Hytinen, Tim Thomas and Jake Sinclair for “the effort put forth in bringing the members concerns’ to the bargaining table and negotiating an agreement with substantial improvements in wages and working conditions.”

Lake Superior & Ishpeming’s primary business is the transportation of iron ore over a 16-mile short line from the Empire-Tilden Mine, operated by Cliffs Natural Resources, south of Ishpeming, to Lake Superior for transport.

The Lake Superior and Ishpeming Railway was organized in 1893 as a subsidiary of Cleveland-Cliffs Iron Company (now Cliffs Natural Resources), the iron ore mining company. From its beginning, the railroad’s primary business was the transport of iron ore from the Marquette Iron Range, west of Marquette, to docks on Lake Superior, from which the ore could be shipped to steel mills on the lower Great Lakes.

In a May 29 decision long dreaded by union coal miners, a bankruptcy court in St. Louis agreed that Patriot Coal has the right to void its collective bargaining agreements and cancel its pension and retirement obligations to 20,000 workers and family members.

The United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) argued in court that Patriot should not be let out of its debts, charging that its parent company, Peabody Energy, had designed Patriot to fail as a ploy to get out of $1 billion in retiree obligations. According to a financial analysis by Temple University Professor of Finance Bruce Rader, Patriot Coal was spun off from Peabody Energy with 42 percent of Peabody’s liabilities, but only 11 percent of its assets.

Read the complete story at In These Times.

 

You might remember the TV commercial: A single locomotive pulling doublestacked containers through a pastoral landscape, a logjam of trucks and autos on the adjacent roadway, everything moving uncharacteristically slow, but the message conveyed with undeniable clarity: Trains move goods more efficiently than trucks.

That same scenario is played out every day in countless locations: A mile-and-a-half-long train carrying more than 200 trailers and containers, making 60 mph or better across the wide open spaces, out-performing truckers on the nearby interstate who are moving freight trailers one, two, maybe three at a time. Or a throng of rush-hour motorists, six lanes wide, inching forward at a stop-and-go crawl in suburban Southern California. They can only watch as other commuters whisk by on a train that’s L.A.-bound at close to 90 mph.

Read the complete story at Railway Age.

 

BRIDGEPORT, Conn. — A trust fund should be established to ensure the upkeep and safety of the nation’s rail system, U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal said Wednesday, labeling the recent derailment in Connecticut and other accidents a call to action.

Blumenthal, fellow U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy, U.S. Rep. Jim Himes and Bridgeport Mayor Bill Finch appeared at news conference held in response to the May 17 collision near the city that injured more than 70 people on two commuter trains.

Read the complete story at The Washington Post.

The following editorial by The Washington Post’s editorial board was published by the newspaper May 29, 2013.

In today’s Washington, it’s strange enough to see a burst of bipartisanship. Odder still is that the unexpected cooperation might lead to the first major environmental law enacted since the 1990s.

The Toxic Substances Control Act, which was supposed to give the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) the authority to regulate potentially dangerous chemicals, has been on the books since 1976. Yet it is such a shambles that, in all that time, the agency has used it to ban only five chemicals. The law allowed thousands of chemicals to stay on the market with no review, and it made the process of vetting new ones so difficult that they have been barely regulated at all. The EPA can’t even demand testing without undergoing a grueling rule-making process and demonstrating that a chemical is risky. The agency — somehow — has to provide data to get data. And even with alarming information on a particular chemical, the EPA must clear a very high legal bar to ban or limit its use. In 1991 a court threw out the EPA’s ban on asbestos, a notorious carcinogen.

Read the full editorial at The Washington Post.

The following editorial by The New York Times’s editorial board was published by the newspaper May 29, 2013.

A bill co-sponsored by eight Democrats and eight Republicans was introduced in the Senate last week to revise the Toxic Substances Control Act, which governs the regulation of chemicals used in consumer products and manufacturing processes. Almost everyone agrees that the law, enacted in 1976, is badly flawed because of the complexity, costs and delays it imposes on regulating chemicals.

Previous efforts to improve it have gone nowhere. The new bill, the Chemical Safety Improvement Act of 2013 — introduced by Senators Frank Lautenberg, a Democrat of New Jersey, and David Vitter, a Republican of Louisiana — is designed to break the logjam. It deserves to be passed because it would be a significant advance over the current law.

Read the full editorial at The New York Times.

CSX_logoA huge fire outside Baltimore, triggered by the collision of a freight train carrying chemicals and a trash truck, raged for 10 hours before being brought under control, officials said early Wednesday.

A dark, thick plume of smoke could be seen for miles after two of 15 derailed cars from a CSX-owned train caught fire.

Read the complete story at U.S. News on NBC News.com.

A recent incident discussed by the Federal Railroad Administration reveals just how important it is for railroad workers to abide by all federal regulations, even those that might not seem especially critical or safety related. As the unfortunate episode reveals, failure to do so can result in termination.

The case occurred in Montana and involved a locomotive engineer who took a photograph while inside the engine of a train that was in motion. The picture reveals that the camerawork did not take place while the train was racing at fast speeds; the photo shows that the speed was only 13 miles per hour.

Read the complete story at The Legal Examiner.

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Joe Szabo

The following message was sent to the UTU National Legislative Office from Federal Railroad Administrator Joe Szabo:

Friends:

We know well the population growth, mobility, and environmental challenges revealing a clear need to invest in passenger rail, and of passenger rail’s skyrocketing ridership – be it intercity, commuter, light, or heavy. But rail is not only integral to Americans rethinking how they travel; it’s at the very center of their desire for more livable communities.

Just last week, the Urban Land Institute released America in 2013, a report revealing how changing demographics are reshaping development patterns by increasing demand for mixed-used communities offering convenient access to public transportation. According to the survey, 62 percent of Americans planning to move in the next five years would prefer to settle in mixed-use communities offering access to transportation alternatives.

And while support for mixed-use communities and public transportation access is strong throughout all generations, the Urban Land Institute’s report notes its strongest supporters are among the group that is both the largest and most likely to impact development patterns: Generation Y, or the Millennial Generation, which includes young adults ages 18 to 34. In the survey, 76 percent of Generation Y respondents place a high value on walkability; 62 percent prefer mixed-use development; 59 percent prefer diversity in housing choices; and 55 percent prefer to live in a community offering public transportation.

All of this underscores the need to continue building more integrated rail systems, with intercity rail operators, transit systems, and the stations they serve working together to offer travelers more choices and answer a rising call for more compact communities. It’s why we continue to work hard overseeing this Administration’s historic investments in passenger rail – which includes investments in upgrading 40 stations – and why we’re proposing a long-term plan in our Fiscal Year 2014 Budget Request to continue investing in stations and intercity passenger rail.

It’s as simple as listening to the people.