Surface Transportation Board

Precision scheduled railroading again took center stage during a roundtable concerning rail service.

Recent filings to the board from various parties focus on wo bears the burden to show if or how Amtrak service between Mobile, Alabama, and New Orleans would affect freight operations.

The Surface Transportation Board’s Office of Environmental Analysis studied the potential environmental impacts resulting from a merger between Canadian Pacific and Kansas City Southern.

A Democrat-backed bill in the U.S. House of Representatives addresses rail service concerns raised during recent hearings by the House transportation committee.

While headcount for train and engine employees is up for the first six months of 2022 compared with the same period in 2021, the freight rail headcount across all categories hasn’t risen.

Senators and two U.S. House representatives from Illinois object to the railway merger between Canadian Pacific and Kansas City Southern as currently proposed, saying the Surface Transportation Board should respond to their constituents’ concerns.

The Surface Transportation Board will conduct a three-day hearing in late September to find out from Canadian Pacific and Kansas City Southern directly about issues related to the railways’ proposed merger.

The STB is sifting through hundreds of pages on the perceived advantages and disadvantages of a merger between Canadian Pacific and Kansas City Southern.

Railroad crews are facing “all-time low” morale. They could legally strike in July, worsening supply-chain congestion.

Data from June reflects how rail service challenges persist into summer. Meanwhile, higher headcount levels and macroeconomic uncertainties await the rails for the remainder of this year.

Congressmen back calls from fertilizer and agricultural products shippers to improve freight rail service, plus news about a new federal grant program to eliminate railroad crossings and updates on CN and Canadian Pacific.

The Transportation Trades Department wants Congress to modify the language to ensure freight railroads provide adequate service.

Amid soaring inflation and supply chain crunches, the United States’ key rail regulator has been mired in political antics.

Three commissioners of the Federal Maritime Commission contend a merger between Canadian Pacific and Kansas City Southern would result in diverting U.S.-bound intermodal traffic to Canadian ports.

Foster Poultry Farms asked STB last week to order UP to improve rail service to two poultry processing plants in California. The board agreed to that request.

The Surface Transportation Board wants BNSF, CSX, Norfolk Southern and Union Pacific to submit additional information on their rail service recovery plans after finding that the initial plan submissions “were perfunctory” and lacked detail.

AskWaves defines what the common carrier obligation is and why the concept has garnered attention lately.

A bipartisan group of U.S. senators wants the Surface Transportation Board to take action to address service delays and congestion on the freight rail network.

The board could adopt reciprocal switching and first-mile and last-mile data collection, according to comments made by STB Chairman Marty Oberman at a U.S. House subcommittee hearing last week.

Rail investors and observers think the Class I railroads’ efforts to bolster train and engine crew counts will improve rail service in the second half of this year. But geopolitical, economic and regulatory uncertainties also abound.