Category: Uncategorized
Lake Terminal Railroad employees ink six-year deal
SMART Transportation Division-represented trainmen, engineers and yardmasters employed by Lake Terminal Railroad have ratified a new six-year agreement by a unanimous vote. The agreement provides for six annual wage increases, beginning July 1, 2013, and rolls in previous cos [...]Train derails in Mer Rouge, La., two injured
Update: KNOE 8 News has learned that the two railroad employees injured in Sunday’s train derailment are now both being treated for their injuries in a Shreveport hospital. Mer Rouge Police Chief Mitch Stevens says the train engineer has a compound fracture to his leg [...]CP sees profit doubling with longer trains
Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd. (CP) plans to more than double profit in four years as Chief Executive Officer Hunter Harrison seeks to improve efficiency by running longer, faster trains at Canada’s second-largest railroad. Revenue will probably climb to C$10 billion ($9 billi [...]Search is on for rail congestion cure
A soybean farmer from southwestern Minnesota and an official of a taconite mine in the northeast, and more than a dozen others, came to the same conclusion: Significant railroad delays throughout the Upper Midwest are hurting nearly everyone in business. Bill Gordon, who farm [...]Oil, rail industries want seven years to fix tank cars
The oil and railroad industries are urging federal regulators to allow them as long as seven years to retrofit existing tank cars that transport highly volatile crude oil, a top oil industry official said Tuesday (Sept. 30). The cars have ruptured and spilled oil during colli [...]Inspectors find scores of defects on CSX rails in Va.
In the days after a train carrying highly flammable oil to Yorktown plunged off its tracks in downtown Lynchburg, dumping 15 cars into the James River and sparking a fire so intense that emergency crews had to simply let it burn itself out, federal track inspectors found more [...]
Education, Strength, Unity
Thanks to all of the delegates, members, guests and staff that made the First SMART General Convention a resounding success. I have been involved in this union for 45 years. There has never been a more outspoken, honest, and hardworking General Executive Council than the one [...]Crude oil train safety regulator steps down
The head of the federal agency tasked with improving the safety of crude oil transportation by rail is stepping down. Cynthia Quarterman, who has led the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration since 2009, will leave an agency that recently proposed sturdier co [...]