Railroad

Marty Oberman has been appointed to serve as the chairman of the Surface Transportation Board.

Elevated numbers of CSX employees who contracted COVID-19 or are in quarantine have resulted in operational challenges to the railroad in the fourth quarter and into 2021.

KCS’ fourth-quarter 2020 net profit was $165.7 million, compared with $127.2 million in Q4 of 2019.

CSX’s fourth-quarter net income slipped 1% to $760 million amid a 2% decline in revenue.

Union Pacific has the network capacity to handle an anticipated rebound in rail volumes in 2021, executives said during the company’s fourth-quarter earnings call on Thursday.

Rail could leap forward with on-time management of shipper goods if it were bolder and faster at innovating.

Union Pacific’s net profit was $1.4 billion in the fourth quarter of 2020, on par with the fourth quarter of 2019.

The Western U.S. railroad expects to invest $2.99 billion in capital projects to maintain and upgrade its infrastructure and assets.

Kansas City Southern’s new, more stringent emission target will keep the company in line with the Paris Agreement emission goals.

U.S. weekly rail traffic rose nearly 6% last week amid a 43% increase in grain carloads and a 13% rise in intermodal traffic.

J.B. Hunt Transport Services’ fourth quarter came in better than expected. However, the company said it was reviewing long-term margin targets across all segments. Intermodal margin forecasts may be reduced but other units could see upward revisions.

Cortera report shows surge in business spending as the year drew to a close.

U.S. operations of the Class I railroads employed fewer employees in 2020 than in any year since at least 2012. Headcount was 14% lower than in 2019.

Medical records from UPS truckers and Norfolk Southern rail workers exposed as hackers leak data from a Virginia occupational health-care provider after an apparent ransomware attack.

Short line operator is seeking companies that might be interested in constructing facilities on sites located on the Georgia Woodlands Railroad, which interchanges with CSX.

The Federal Highway Administration, in coordination with the Federal Railroad Administration and the Federal Transit Administration, awarded grants to five commuter rail agencies for incident-prone areas.

The December rates subindex jumped 13% year-over-year, setting the stage for big rate hikes in 2021, according to Cass data.

Anticipated higher natural gas prices could prompt coal’s share in U.S. power generation to grow in 2021 and 2022, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said in its Short-Term Energy Outlook.

AAR disregards that straight electric locomotives are easier to maintain. Plus each electric locomotive could be as powerful as perhaps two diesel-electric units.

A towing vessel struck a CSX swing bridge near Slidell, Louisiana, very early Wednesday morning. Rail operations have since resumed at a reduced speed.