SMART Union
WASHINGTON Two Senate committee chairmen asked the secretaries of transportation and energy on Thursday to take “prompt and decisive action” to resolve recent safety problems with crude oil transported by rail.
A series of fiery derailments, including a deadly wreck in Quebec last summer and a near-miss last week in North Dakota, have gained the attention of lawmakers, who until this point had said little about the issue.
Read the complete story at the Ledger-Enquirer.
Two former leading U.S. transportation officials who left the Obama administration in recent months were named on Wednesday to new private-sector posts.
Ray LaHood, the former U.S. Secretary of Transportation, will join a Washington, D.C-based advocacy group, where he will push for Congress to fund improvements in the nation’s roads, bridges, airports, rails and ports.
Read the complete story at Reuters.
The Massachusetts Department of Transportation’s board of directors today unanimously voted to accept the T’s recommendation that Keolis, a French rail company, take over operation of the state’s commuter rail system, winning the state’s largest operating contract in history.
MBTA General Manager Beverly Scott recommended Keolis as the winning bidder, after the board listened to roughly two hours of public comments.
Read the complete story at the Boston Globe.
On Dec. 30, BNSF Railway executive chairman Matthew Rose told the Dallas Business Journal that his sprawling 32,000-mile railroad would move 1 million barrels of crude oil every day by the end of 2014, nearly a seventh the total amount that was produced in the United States in 2012.
For railroad companies, including BNSF, the movement of oil-by-rail has become an economic windfall. In 2008, Class 1 railroads, which include the largest rail companies in America, transported just 9,500 carloads of crude oil. Five years later, in 2013, they were projected to move 400,000 carloads, due in large part to the Bakken oil boom in North Dakota. Some of those cars travel across Northwest Montana everyday, through communities like Columbia Falls, Whitefish and Libby.
Read the complete story at the Flathead Beacon.
WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Heidi Heitkamp called on the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) to release information on its inspections of the rail where a train recently derailed in North Dakota.
Noting that four derailments have occurred in the Casselton area in nine years, Heitkamp also called on the FRA to review the track quality near the community.
Read the complete story at PoliticalNews.me.
OMAHA, Neb. – Union Pacific Jan. 8 announced that Joseph O’Connor and D. Lynn Kelley will assume new positions within the organization.
O’Connor, currently vice president of purchasing, has been named vice president of labor relations. He will lead the organization responsible for negotiating labor agreements and managing the day-to-day relationship with the company’s represented employees.
O’Connor joined Union Pacific in 1987 as a capital planning analyst in the company’s finance organization. During his career, he held several positions in finance and network design and integration before being named vice president of purchasing in 2003.
He will succeed William (Rick) Turner, vice president of labor relations, who is retiring in March.
Kelley, currently vice president of continuous improvement, will take on the added responsibility of the company’s supply organization. As vice president of supply and continuous improvement, she will be responsible for purchasing, strategic sourcing, and the company’s industrial engineering activities.
Kelley joined Union Pacific in 2011 from Textron, where she was vice president of operational excellence. Prior to joining Textron, Kelley was a professor at the Madonna University School of Business and served as chief operating officer of Doctor’s Hospital in Detroit, Mich.
“Lynn and Joe have proven themselves as effective leaders at Union Pacific and I am pleased that they have agreed to take on these important roles for our company,” said Jack Koraleski, Union Pacific president and chief executive officer. “Both of these functions are a key part of our ongoing commitment to creating value for our customers and great financial returns for our shareholders. We all wish Rick Turner the best of luck in retirement. In his 32 years of service to the railroad, Rick has served our company well in a series of key assignments including vice president of Premium Operations and vice president of the National Customer Service Center.”
Kelley and O’Connor will assume the new responsibilities effective Feb. 1.
Pursuant to Title 49 of the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) § 211.45, the Federal Railroad Administration’s (FRA) administrator, Joseph C. Szabo, has determined that current conditions of extreme cold, ice, and severe winter weather in various parts of the United States constitute an “emergency event” as related to railroad operations.
In making this determination, the administrator notes that the National Weather Service has documented severe winter weather effects stretching across the nation that include record low temperatures, large amounts of snow and strong winds.
Therefore, the administrator has activated the Emergency Relief Docket (FRA-2014-0001) as of January 7, 2014, and the emergency relief provisions of 49 CFR § 211.45 are in effect.
The provisions of 49 CFR § 211.45 can be found here.
WASHINGTON – U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer on Jan. 6 called for an overhaul of old rail tank cars used to carry crude oil after a spate of explosive derailments over the past year.
The New York Democrat joined a growing number of politicians concerned about the safety of transporting large volumes of oil by rail across the country, calling for a phase-out or retrofit of old tankers that do not meet current safety standards and are prone to puncture.
Read the complete story at the Chicago Tribune.
It’s freezing cold outside. Here are some tips from OSHA to keep you safe when you have to work outside in this extreme weather. https://www.osha.gov/as/opa/cold_weather_prep.html
SMART Transportation Division Auditor Stephen A. Noyes has retired, effective Dec. 31, 2013, after 42 years of continuous membership.
The duties formerly performed by Noyes will now be shared by Transportation Division Auditors Bobby Brantley and Mike Araujo.
Local treasurers who have questions regarding SMART TD’s Winstabs program, federal taxes, Internal Revenue Service forms and local treasurers’ duties should contact Brantley at (216) 502-7225, or by email at bbrantley@smart-union.org, or Araujo at (210) 710-4213, or by email at maraujo@smart-union.org.