The Surface Transportation Board announced Wednesday, April 2, 2014 that it is seeking written comments from the public in advance of a future public hearing “to explore both the Board’s methodology for determining railroad revenue adequacy and the revenue adequacy component used by the Board in judging the reasonableness of rail freight rates.”
A recurring and intractable thread tying together railroad history is that when the choice has been between economic liberty and government intrusion, selecting the latter has repetitively discouraged capital investment, diminished service quality, adversely affected safety, and sooner than later caused hand-wringing among those most dependent on rail transportation.
Compiled figures released by the Surface Transportation Board show Class I railroads employed 162,316 people in mid-February, up 0.05% from February 2013, and also up 0.02, or 30 employees, from the previous month of January.
On March 25-26, 2014, the Surface Transportation Board (STB) will hold a public hearing on a petition by the National Industrial Transportation League (NITL) to modify STB’s standards for mandatory competitive switching. The House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure has sent a bipartisan letter to STB Chairman Dan Elliot and Vice Chairman Ann Begeman indirectly urging them to consider the consequences for railroads should the Board accept NITL’s proposal, and strongly voicing the Committee’s intent to oppose such a policy change.
Compiled figures released Tuesday, Feb. 25, 2014 by the Surface Transportation Board show Class I railroads employed 162,286 people in mid-January, up a modest 0.15% from January 2013, but down 0.32%, or 524 employees, from the previous month of December.
The Surface Transportation Board announced Monday, Feb. 3, 2014 that it will hold a public hearing on March 25-26, 2014 “in Petition for Rulemaking to Adopt Revised Competitive Switching Rules, EP 711, to explore issues surrounding The National Industrial Transportation League’s (NITL) petition to modify the Board’s standards for mandatory competitive switching.”
Compiled figures released this week by the Surface Transportation Board show Class I railroads employed 162,810 people in mid-December, up a scant 0.10% from December 2012, but down 0.24% from the previous month of November.
A “support statement” filed with the Surface Transportation Board by Fresno Works, dated Dec. 20, 2013, urges STB to “expeditiously grant the petition for exemption” for construction of high speed rail between Fresno, Calif., and Bakersfield, roughly 114 miles in length.