Year: 2014

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The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) has set a Feb. 10 public hearing on a dispute between the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA) and its rail employees regarding a safety rule designed to limit fatigue on the job.

SEPTA wants the FRA to renew the authority’s waiver of the rule for two years. But Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (BLET) officials object and want SEPTA to follow the work rule, which involves the time workers spend traveling from home to start work somewhere other than their usual assigned location. SEPTA officials say the the rule, which requires that time to be counted as paid work time, is necessary to limit labor expenses, according to a report on Philly.com.

Read more from Progressive Railroading.

The SMART Transportation Division’s comments on SEPTA’s waiver request can be found here.

oil-train-railWith profit seemingly driving all business decisions, it shouldn’t be a surprise that the country’s major railroad companies are continuing their quest to reduce freight trains crews … to one person. Not surprising, but scary.

The railroad bosses are united in their desire for this change, citing technological advances. Labor groups, those living on rail lines and people interested in common sense are opposed. Rail “crews” are already down to two — an engineer who drives the train and a conductor who oversees the long line of cars, communicates with dispatchers and provides a second set of monitoring eyes.

The preceding editorial was published Dec. 29 by The Herald of Everett, Wash. Read the complete editorial here.

The Long Island Rail Road is on pace to close out the year, once again, as the busiest commuter rail system in the United States — this time by a much wider margin over Metro-North than last year.

Transportation experts attributed the LIRR’s widening lead over its sister MTA railroad to the recovering economy, LIRR’s investments in service, and a spate of safety-related incidents on Metro-North.

Read the complete story at Newsday.

The railroad industry is usually a good indicator of the underlying North American economy rising at a much faster pace over the last couple of years. In 2014, the key stories have been the rising crude-by-rail trend, stronger broad-based volume growth, rail consolidation, and network congestion problems. We believe these key themes will be pivotal to earnings growth in 2015.

Read the complete story at Guru Focus.

Labor negotiations are set to begin between Union Pacific, BNSF Railway and unions that represent about 10,000 railroad workers in Nebraska and Iowa.

Formal negotiations are scheduled for next month on a new collective bargaining agreement between the nation’s freight railroads and 13 unions representing about 143,000 workers. The most recent contracts were ratified in 2011 and 2012.

Read the complete story at the Omaha World-Herald.

Canada’s two biggest railroads aren’t letting winter go unchallenged.

Canadian National Railway Co. (CNR) is strengthening its network, increasing employees and engines to keep trains running smoothly prevent another winter of icy and prevent another winter of profit-sapping gridlock. Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd. (CP) is putting additional staff on standby, redeploying some equipment to “strategic” locations, and building new sidings in case below-average temperatures halt cargos.

“Last year was an extraordinary winter,” Canadian Pacific Chief Operating Officer Keith Creel said in a Dec. 15 interview in Toronto. “The rolling equipment, the air-brake systems, the steel that you ride the trains on, the locomotives that have to operate at 40 below zero — there are certain things that just don’t work when it gets this cold.”

Read the complete story at Bloomberg News.

 

Palmetto_rgb_webPalmetto GBA is conducting a Railroad Medicare Beneficiary Satisfaction Survey. The survey is designed to collect data on beneficiary satisfaction regarding its performance as Railroad Medicare’s contractor. The survey will be sent to a random sample of approximately 8,000 Railroad Medicare Beneficiaries.

The surveys will be included in an upcoming Medicare Summary Notice (MSN). Palmetto GBA is listening and wants to hear from you about the services we provide to you.

For additional information about the survey, click here.

The U.S. Class I workforce continued to enlarge last month. As of mid-November, the large railroads employed 169,845 people, up 0.4 percent from October’s level and 4.1 percent from November 2013’s mark, according to Surface Transportation Board employment data.

Only the transportation (other than train and engine) workforce sector registered a month-over-month decline, dipping 0.3 percent to 6,699. The other five sectors grew less than 1 percent: transportation (train and engine), 0.5 percent to 71,089; maintenance of equipment and stores, 0.5 percent to 30,476; executives, officials and staff assistants, 0.3 percent to 9,999; professional and administrative, 0.25 percent to 14,249; and maintenance-of-way and structures, 0.15 percent to 37,333.

Read more from Progressive Railroading.

Buried in the $1.1 trillion spending bill that President Barack Obama signed into law is a provision that would allow the benefits of retired truckers, construction workers and others who contributed to so-called multi-employer pensions to be cut for the first time.

This change — potentially affecting as many as 1.5 million current and future retirees in underfunded plans, mostly union workers — will undoubtedly set off volleys of finger-pointing to find a culprit for the accelerating collapse of the system. Many commentators will blame unions for extorting extravagant, unsustainable retirement packages from employers that are now falling apart. But it’s not so simple. In fact, the long, tangled history of U.S. private pensions is equally a story of how business sought to manage labor, conserve profits and block the expansion of a modern welfare state.

Research by historians such as Jennifer Klein and Steven Sass helps explain why the United States is almost unique in its reliance on private, company-sponsored pensions instead of comprehensive, government-sponsored benefits.

Read more from Chicago Tribune.

LISBON, N.Y. — A Lisbon Central School graduate is living his dream of working as a railroad conductor at age 19.

Matthew House, a 2013 graduate of LCS, is now conducting trains in Kansas City.

House has been fascinated by trains since age three and even formed a model train club while attending school in Lisbon. He said working on the railroad was something he had always hoped to do and it’s hard for him to believe he has already achieved that goal.

Read more from North Country Now.