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union_pacific_logoOMAHA, 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.

FRA_logo_wordsPursuant 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.

oil-train-railWASHINGTON – 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.

laptopSMART 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.

LOS ANGELES — Gov. Jerry Brown of California is riding into an election year on a wave of popularity and an upturn in the state’s fortunes. But a project that has become a personal crusade for him over the past two years — a 520-mile high-speed train line from Los Angeles to San Francisco — is in trouble, reeling from a court ruling that undermined its financing, and from slipping public support and opponents’ rising calls to shut it down.

Mr. Brown and his advisers have strongly affirmed their support for the planned $68 billion rail line, the most ambitious government project attempted in California since the eastern section of the Bay Bridge in San Francisco was completed last year. They urged the public to weather the setbacks that are almost inevitable for projects of this scope.

Read the complete story at The New York Times.

RENO, Nev. – Lawyers for a trucking company are accusing two railroad companies of tampering with evidence about a June 2011 collision between a tractor-trailer and an Amtrak train that killed six people in northern Nevada.

Lawyers for John Davis Trucking Co. say they have evidence the companies tampered with a video of the crash and are hiding or have destroyed the crossing gate arm.

Raed the complete story at The Tribune.

The Massachusetts Bay Commuter Railroad Co. is crying foul at what they are calling a flawed procurement process that included few substantial conversations, a complaint lodged with the MBTA before the Globe reported Saturday that the T will recommend that the company’s sole competitor be awarded the state’s lucrative commuter rail operating contract.

In a statement from the company Sunday, accompanied by a letter that had been sent to Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority’s general counsel Thursday, the company alleged that only one in-person discussion had been held between T officials and the MBCR during months of investigations and vetting — not enough, MBCR officials said, to provide the company with any real chance to explain the new ideas it had planned if it were to continue running the commuter train system.

Read the complete story at The Boston Globe.

DM&E_logoPIERRE, S.D. – The company buying the west end of the Dakota, Minnesota & Eastern Railroad line will keep all parts of the track open, a company official said Friday.

Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd. announced Thursday it is selling the line to Genesee & Wyoming Inc. for about $210 million.

Read the complete story at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

oil-train-railRail-safety advocates and members of Congress are calling for stricter tank-car safety standards in the wake of a major oil-by-rail accident this week, an appeal that took on new urgency Thursday with the release of a federal advisory that oil from North Dakota’s Bakken formation may be more flammable than other types of crude.

A train carrying crude oil from the Bakken ran off the rails near Casselton, N.D., on Monday, leading to a voluntary evacuation of nearby residents. The accident occurred when freight cars carrying crude oil struck a train that had derailed earlier in the day. No injuries were reported but the crash sparked an inferno and reignited concerns over the potential dangers of shipping oil by rail.

Read the complete story at the National Journal.

On the first day of November, Bruce Corgiat tried to log on to the Union Pacific Railroad’s employee web page just as he’d done most other mornings.

“They’d already blocked me,” he said.

Wow, that was quick. On Halloween, Bruce officially retired from the railroad, as did his father and three brothers before him. But his was different from the others, and getting blocked from the website represented the exclamation point.

Read the complete story at the Modesto Bee.