Opinion

Commentary
  • News

Federal hazmat regulator AWOL from North Dakota oilfields

Whatever the unrevealed reasons for Cynthia Quarterman’s (pictured) Oct. 3, 2014 departure as head of the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA), a change at the top may reverse the federal regulator’s much-criticized lethargy in fixing the core cause of exploding oil trains.
Commentary

Rockefeller’s last stand; RSIA Déjà vu, Volume Two; PRIIA Redux

Congress is about to adjourn for its single-most-important function these days as mid-term elections loom: getting re-elected. That means it’s time to get down to some serious last-minute, constituent-coddling activities, like proposing legislation beating down the big, bad, monopolistic freight railroads, which, along with their passenger-carrying counterparts, are fundamentally unsafe and need to be policed, constantly, and—yet again—reforming Amtrak.
Commentary
  • News

Calatravasaurus Wrecks?

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey’s massive World Trade Center PATH transportation hub in Lower Manhattan, designed by famed architect Santiago Calatrava, is about one year away from completion—eight years behind schedule and, at a cost of up to $4 billion by some accounts, $2 billion over budget. The New York Post has dubbed the structure, which is supposed to resemble a bird spreading its wings, but which at this stage of construction looks more like the dinosaur exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History, the “Calatravasaurus.”
Commentary

Rail revenue adequacy? Well, sort of

The Surface Transportation Board (STB) ruled Sept. 2 that five Class I railroads—BNSF, U.S. affiliates of Canadian National and Canadian Pacific, Norfolk Southern and Union Pacific—are revenue adequate. That is, they achieved a rate of return on investments used to provide railroad service that is at least equal to the average cost of that investment capital.

Commentary

BLET in catbird seat over crew consist

News item: Vouchsafed to work jointly in gaining legislation or regulation mandating two crew members on every freight train are the Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Union (SMART) and the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (BLET).

Commentary

What history can tell us about things to come

In February 1882, Joseph Osgood allowed shortsightedness to steer him wrong. As newly-appointed chief engineer for the California Southern Railroad (which would later become part of the Santa Fe Railway), he was tasked with constructing a new rail line that would link the seaport city of San Diego with one—or both—of the transcontinental lines that were building their way toward Los Angeles.
Commentary

When you get a good deal, take it

Arbitrator Robert O. Harris told the United Transportation Union (UTU) and railroads in 1991, then unable to agree at the bargaining table, “Welcome to the oldest established craps game in Washington. Like the suckers in ‘Guys and Dolls,’ you are risking your futures on the roll of the dice [when you fail to make a voluntary agreement].”
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