The Transportation Trades Department of the AFL-CIO has written letters to all six Class I railroads (download below) urging them to join the Federal Railroad Administration’s (FRA) voluntary Confidential Close Call Reporting
U.S. rail traffic for the week ending Aug. 12, 2023 (Week 32) dipped 4.2% from the same week last year, the Association of American Railroads (AAR) reported Aug. 16.
BNSF has donated an alternative fuel testbed locomotive, most recently operated by the railroad as a hydrogen fuel cell switcher in Southern California, to the Oklahoma Railway Museum (ORM). Built as Canadian
For the first 31 weeks of 2023 (ending Aug. 5), total U.S. weekly rail traffic dipped 4.1% from the same point last year, according to the Association of American Railroads’ (AAR) Aug. 9 report. Both Canada and the U.S. saw declines, while Mexico saw an increase.
The Surface Transportation Board (STB) has determined that the cost of capital for the railroad industry was 10.58% for 2022.
The three highest-volume intermodal weeks of 2023 were the three July weeks not including Independence Day, AAR Senior Vice President John T. Gray reported Aug. 2. Also, while carloads of chemicals rose in July for the first time in nearly a year, the month was “exceptionally weak” for grain carloadings, he noted during the release of the association’s traffic report for July 2023 and the week ending July 29, 2023.
The Railroad Retirement Board’s (RRB) ability to process retirements and sickness benefits for railroad employees and retirees “living in every state and every congressional district” would be “severely” impacted by the limitation on RRB’s administrative funding included in the fiscal year (FY) 2024 House Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies (Labor-HHS) appropriations bill, the Association of American Railroads (AAR), American Short Line and Regional Railroad Association (ASLRRA), and Transportation Trades Department, AFL-CIO (TTD) told Congress in a July 31 letter expressing their opposition.
For the first 29 weeks of 2023 (ending July 22), total U.S. weekly rail traffic dipped 4.2% from the same point last year, according to the Association of American Railroads’ (AAR) July 26 report. Both Canada and the U.S. saw declines, while Mexico saw an increase.
U.S. rail traffic for the week ending July 15, 2023 (Week 28) was 478,153 carloads and intermodal units, down 2.4% from the same week last year, according to the Association of American Railroads’ (AAR) July 19 report. Total carloads were 225,609, up 0.9%, while intermodal volume of 252,544 containers and trailers fell 5.3%. Year-to-date, carloads improved 0.5%, but intermodal dropped 10.0% from the prior-year period.
Two rail industry associations and two unions teamed recently to encourage Congressional support of the Railroad Employee Equity and Fairness Act (REEF Act; H.R.2785/S.1274), which they said would “eliminate cuts to railroad unemployment and sickness benefits.”
