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Rails sticking to their bets on oil boom

As 57,000 miles of U.S. crude pipelines threaten to lure business from railroads, Burlington Northern Santa Fe and Union Pacific Corp. are sticking to their bet on the nation’s energy boom. Domestic oil that was significantly cheaper than imported crude for the last two years [...]

Winners of PAC contest announced

The SMART Transportation Division PAC contest recently concluded this past Labor Day with a total of $30,445 raised in PAC contributions. The person who raised the most amount for PAC was James E. Carrico, Jr., of Local 333 of North Vernon, Ind., with $5,660 raised. Coming in [...]

BNSF spending $125M on Okla. projects

Railroad operator BNSF Railways Co. announced plans Monday to spend $125 million expanding and improving their system in Oklahoma. The projects include a new bypass connection at the Cherokee Yard in West Tulsa and extending a siding area on their tracks near Mannford. Read t [...]

Bankrupt Maine railroad seeks help with legal fees

The trustee for Montreal, Maine & Atlantic Railway Ltd. wants U.S. taxpayers to pay the bankrupt railroad’s legal fees, according to a motion filed Monday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court. The motion asks the court to carve out $5 million of the anticipated proceeds from se [...]

RRB benefit reductions by retirement age

Railroad retirement benefits are subject to reduction if an employee with less than 30 years of service retires before attaining full retirement age. While employees with less than 30 years of service may still retire at age 62, the age at which full retirement benefits are p [...]

A message from FRA chief Joe Szabo

The following message was sent to the UTU National Legislative Office from Federal Railroad Administrator Joe Szabo Friends: The winners of TIGER 2013 grants were announced last week, and rail was again a big winner. Of the $474 million in funding awarded to 52 projects in 37 [...]

Opinion: Imagine a multimodal Northeast Corridor

Creative vision in Washington, D.C., is not quite an oxymoron, but seemingly only extraordinary external events cause it to materialize. Perhaps there was prediction of a month of Sundays when Congress authorized land grants for a transcontinental railroad; expectation of hel [...]

Railroads’ suits say Tenn. diesel unfair

Two of the nation’s largest railroad companies — CSX and BNSF — have filed suit against the state of Tennessee in federal court claiming they are being forced to pay millions of dollars in taxes on diesel fuel that their highway- and water-based cargo-hauling competitors don’ [...]

Oil in Quebec train disaster was mislabeled

TORONTO – The oil carried by a freight train that derailed and exploded in Quebec this year had been misclassified as a less dangerous type of crude, Canadian officials said Wednesday, and they urged U.S. and Canadian regulators to ensure dangerous goods are accurately labele [...]