BNSF Railway Monday announced the release of two new online tools —Carload Shipping Advisor and Serving Carrier Reciprocal Switch Inquiry— that it says “allow customers to compare shipping options by price, equipment, and route for multiple origins and destinations.”
BNSF posted a letter on its website Wednesday warning its customers that a strike threat still faces the railroad industry and asking for their help in averting it.
The Surface Transportation Board issued a decision Tuesday denying a petition of the Western Coal Traffic League (WCTL) asking the Board to institute mediation on a new coal dust tariff issued by BNSF Railway. Instead, the decision is instituting a new proceeding “to consider the reasonableness of the new tariff’s safe harbor provision.”
Railroad officers attending the JP Morgan Transportation conference in New York Wednesday expressed optimism that the slide in railroad traffic has been arrested, but in their presentations expressed deepening concern that re-regulation sentiment is growing in Congress and could slow railroad recovery.
Montana House Bill 422, advanced by those seeking to weigh down short line Tongue River Railroad’s efforts to extend its right-of-way to coal deposits, has stalled. The bill, backed by some state landowners and by environmentalists, seeks to make eminent domain procedures more difficult.
The intermodal partnership that began with a simple handshake between railroader Mike Haverty and trucker J.B. Hunt marked its 20th anniversary yesterday.