A private equity firm has completed its acquisition of Coach USA and its subsidiaries, it was announced on April 15.
Both the bus carrier’s U.S. and Canadian operations was purchased for $271.4 million by Variant Equity from prior owner Stagecoach Group plc.
Coach USA operates intercity bus, public transit, employee transportation, campus shuttle and airport transportation services throughout the United States. It and Coach Canada has more than 4,500 employees and 2,200 buses throughout the United States and Canada.
Read the press release about the acquisition here.
Author: bnagy
Two-person crew legislation endorsed by our union progressed ahead in two state legislatures late last week.
In Illinois, S.B. 24 was passed by the state Senate by a party-line 36-19 vote on Thursday. The state House of Representatives’ Rules Committee has received the bill, which establishes a minimum crew size of two individuals, and will consider it. The bill’s primary sponsor in the Illinois House is state Rep. Jay Hoffman (D – Dist. 113).
“Thanks to everyone who contacted their state senator, this couldn’t have been done without you,” The Illinois State Legislative Board said in a post on its Facebook page. “The General Assembly will now go on a two-week holiday break so please be ready to reach out to your State Representatives in their district offices.”
If you are a resident of Illinois, follow this link to find your state legislators and help to keep up the momentum for S.B. 24.
As previously reported here, the Nevada State Assembly’s Committee on Growth and Infrastructure passed A.B. 337, 8-4. The bill now moves to the full Assembly for consideration.
If you are a Nevada resident, you can find your state legislators by following this link.
A two-person crew bill also has been passed in Maryland and awaits the action of Gov. Larry Hogan.
Nationally, the Safe Freight Act two-person crew bill introduced in the U.S. House (H.R. 1748) by U.S. Rep. Don Young of Alaska continues to gain sponsors through the vocal support of SMART Transportation Division members and retirees alike, the national legislative office in Washington reports.
National Legislative Director John Risch said that more than 1,500 messages from members and retirees have been sent to members of the House in support of the Safe Freight Act and the bill has been gaining co-sponsors.
“Hearing from their voters goes a long way to opening the door to our message in the halls of Congress,” Risch said. “This is a team effort, so keep up the emails and phone calls.”
To send an email in support of the national Safe Freight Act, follow this link.
The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) will have some major shoes to fill with the April 13, 2019, retirement of Robert “Bob” Lauby, the agency’s chief safety officer.
Lauby had served in that capacity for FRA since September 2013. He was a frequent presenter at SMART Transportation Division regional meetings and worked to provide regulatory oversight for rail safety in the United States while overseeing the development and enforcement of safety regulations and programs related to the rail industry.
“Serving as the associate administrator for Railroad Safety and FRA’s chief safety officer is one of the highlights of my career,” Lauby said. “The job has been both challenging and fulfilling.
“Over the years, we grappled with many important issues and have significantly changed the industry for the better.”
Lauby had a hand in several regulatory safety efforts at FRA such as Positive Train Control, conductor certification, training requirements, drug and alcohol testing for maintenance of way employees, roadway worker protection, passenger equipment standards, system safety and others.
Other safety oversight improvements happened as a result of major accidents. Some of the major ones included crude-oil accidents at Lac Megantic, Ontario, Canada; Mount Carbon, W.Va.; and other locations; commuter train accidents at Spuyten Duyvil and Valhalla, N.Y.; and Amtrak passenger train accidents in Philadelphia and Chester, Pa.; Dupont, Wash.; and Cayce, S.C.
“No matter the challenges swirling around him, Bob had safety in mind,” said National Legislative Director John Risch. “He’s been great to work with and one of the most committed, level-headed professionals in the rail industry.”
Lauby said that he treasured any interaction he could have with members of rail labor as these helped to broaden his perspective about whom he was working to protect.
“I always took time to talk to the SMART TD membership to get their complaints, opinions, and perspectives on the latest industry issues,” Lauby said. “I often left enlightened or with a new perspective.
“Railroad managers are experts on what is supposed to happen. SMART TD members are experts on what actually happens. They always know what works and what does not work.”
In his more-than-40-year career, Lauby’s railroad and transit experience included safety, security, accident investigation, project management, project engineering, manufacturing and vehicle maintenance.
He joined the FRA in August 2009 as staff director of its newly established Passenger Rail Division in the agency’s Office of Safety and was later promoted to deputy associate administrator for regulatory and legislative operations at FRA. One of his responsibilities in that role was to oversee the Rail Safety Advisory Committee (RSAC).
Prior to his time at FRA, Lauby was director of the National Transportation Safety Board’s Office of Railroad Safety, overseeing hundreds of rail accident investigations for NTSB and coordinating with our union’s Transportation Safety Team in many investigations. He was NTSB’s representative on RSAC.
“At our regional meetings, I would introduce Bob and tell the troops that Bob was the big gun and can handle all the tough questions, which he always did,” Risch said at a party celebrating Lauby’s retirement in late March.
Lauby said he took his multiple presentations at TD regional meetings, including at the Seattle regional meeting last July, seriously — he felt he owed it to the attendees to give them useful information.
“I looked forward to the meetings each year and spent hours preparing my presentation and preparing for the questions I would get at the end – during the Q and A session,” he said. “I wanted the material I presented to be timely and useful to the membership, and I always tried to include the inside scoop – the stuff nobody else would talk about!”
But the benefits from his visits and interactions went both ways, he said, and showing up at the meetings gave him a fresh perspective on the industry.
“I always enjoyed speaking to the SMART TD membership – both at the Regional Meetings and when they were on their jobs,” Lauby said. “Whenever I traveled by train, I tried to spend time with the train crew or ride the head end to find out the issues of the day.
“I learned more about railroading from the working men and women of the railroad industry than from anyone else.”
Lauby’s departure is leaving a vacancy that FRA will have a difficult time filling, Risch said.
“No one will really fill your shoes because there is no one with the knowledge and experience to do that,” he told Lauby at his retirement party. “You committed your working life to rail safety, you have been a good friend of mine and a good friend to railroad workers everywhere.
“We wish you all the best as you enter this next stage of your life.”
Lauby said his career leaves him with a sense of gratitude.
“I will always be grateful to have had the opportunity to work in the industry I love, in a role where I felt I could make a difference,” Lauby said. “I will miss the thousands of people I interacted with each year. That includes the FRA employees and railroad industry labor and management … all the folks I dealt with at the various RSAC meetings. People are the most important part of any organization and the railroad industry is no different.”
An executive order signed by President Donald Trump on Wednesday, April 10, tasks the Federal Department of Transportation with creating a new rule in a little more than three months’ time that permits super-cooled liquid natural gas (LNG) to be transported by rail.
“The Secretary of Transportation shall propose for notice and comment a rule, no later than 100 days after the date of this order, that would treat LNG the same as other cryogenic liquids and permit LNG to be transported in approved rail tank cars,” the order states. “The Secretary shall finalize such rulemaking no later than 13 months after the date of this order.”
Natural gas trade and rail carrier groups have lobbied for years for the ability to supply LNG to the northeastern U.S. via rail. Current Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) safety rules do not allow the transport of LNG in rail tanker cars.
It is transported by truck and pipelines with one exception — Alaska Railroad was given a special authorization in 2015 to transport LNG by rail in portable containers transported on flatcars, Bloomberg News reports.
Read a Bloomberg News article on the order.
Read the executive order.
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) ruled last month on the probable cause of a fatal accident in June 2017 that killed both a CSX conductor and a conductor trainee.
The men were struck from behind at 11:18 p.m. June 27, 2017, by an Amtrak train while walking to the cab of their train in Ivy City, a neighborhood in Washington, D.C.
The men had just completed a railcar inspection.
The NTSB report, released April 9, stated that there had been no rail traffic for about an hour on the active tracks upon which the men were walking as they returned.
As they walked, a pair of Amtrak trains, one northbound and one southbound, approached the men, the report stated.
NTSB said the northbound Amtrak train approached the men from the front on tracks to the left of those upon which they were walking, and that both trains sounded their horns and bells at virtually the same time in attempts to alert them.
“Given the simultaneous and similar horn and bell sounds from the two trains, the conductors may not have discerned two sources of the sounds and, consequently, concluded that the sounds originated from only one train — the one that they had detected ahead of them.
“As a result, it appears the conductors were unaware that a second train was approaching them from behind,” the report stated.
NTSB issued a new safety recommendation to the two carriers involved in the accident at the conclusion of its report:
“Prohibit employees from fouling adjacent tracks of another railroad unless the employees are provided protection from trains and/or equipment on the adjacent tracks by means of communication between the two railroads.”
Read the full NTSB report here.
The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) announced Tuesday, April 9, that the Rail Safety Advisory Committee (RSAC) will meet later this month for the first time since its reinstatement last autumn.
According to a notice published in the Federal Register, RSAC is scheduled to meet 9:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Wednesday and Thursday, April 24 and 25, 2019, at the National Association of Home Builders, National Housing Center, 1201 15th Street NW, Washington, DC 20005.
RSAC is composed of 40 voting representatives from 29 member organizations, including SMART Transportation Division and other rail labor groups, representing various rail industry perspectives.
The meeting’s agenda is scheduled to include opening remarks from FRA Administrator Ron Batory, updates on the industry’s implementation of Positive Train Control and FRA presentations from its Passenger Safety and Tourist and Historic Railroads working groups, the Federal Register notice stated.
Planning and procedures of future RSAC activities also will be on the agenda, which is subject to change.
The meeting is open to the public on a first-come, first-served basis, and is accessible to individuals with disabilities. Persons who wish to submit written comments for RSAC’s consideration during the meeting must submit them no later than Friday, April 19, to ensure transmission to RSAC members prior to the meeting. Comments received after that date and time will be distributed to the members but may not be reviewed prior to the meeting.
Those seeking additional information should contact Kenton Kilgore, RSAC designated federal officer/RSAC coordinator at the FRA Office of Railroad Safety at 202-493-6286; or Larry Woolverton, executive officer of the FRA Office of Railroad Safety at 202-493-6212.
RSAC was rechartered for two years in September 2018 after a period of dormancy. The committee, in existence since 1996, advises the FRA administrator and makes recommendations on matters relating to railroad safety, resulting in a process that allows stakeholders, including labor and industry representatives, to collaborate before proposed rules are submitted. It last met in May 2017.
Amtrak as we know it is in the budget crosshairs again, and if proposed cuts go through, it could have a lasting effect on not only our nation’s communities, but Railroad Retirement benefits as well.
President Donald Trump’s budget request proposes a $1.06 billion reduction in funding to Amtrak. Service to rural and mid-sized city destinations would be drastically affected with the adoption of this plan, and 15 routes classified as long distance could eventually lose federal funding due to a change in how funds are allocated.
“We hope that, like last year, this budget is a non-starter,” said Jim Mathews, president and CEO of the Rail Passengers Association (RPA). “But we note with some concern that this time around, the administration appears to be getting a little smarter in its approach — and that approach could yet endanger our trains.”
Rather than cutting the routes outright, as has been proposed in previous Trump budgets, the 2020 plan would shift the money available to fund long-distance routes from Amtrak’s annual outlay to a competitive process. Over a four-year period, the administration would choose the routes that received funds with states applying for funding through the Restoration & Enhancement grant program.
“The Trump Administration seems to be taking a page from anti-long-distance factions in Washington, looking to pit National Network services against the Northeast Corridor. And by moving it to a competitive grant program — controlled by the White House — the administration gets to choose the winners and losers,” Mathews said.
The plan doesn’t sit well with the RPA’s Mathews, and it shouldn’t sit well with SMART Transportation Division rail members. Reducing Amtrak’s long-distance service will result in fewer people at work for the carrier. Fewer people working for the carrier means fewer railroaders paying into Railroad Retirement — a Railroad Retirement Board analysis of Trump’s 2018 budget proposal that would have cut Amtrak’s long-distance routes said an estimated 10,000 rail jobs would go away with the routes’ elimination.
For long-distance rail service to continue, the 2020 budget document suggests that the 23 states that the routes run through begin footing the bill rather than the federal government, which handed many corporations a major tax reduction at the end of 2017.
“In 2020, the Department of Transportation, Amtrak, states, and affected local Governments will collaborate to rationalize the Long Distance network to more efficiently serve modern market needs as a series of shorter-distance, high-performing corridor services where passenger rail as a transportation options (sic) makes sense,” the 2020 budget proposal states on page 78.
The budget goes on to say that “low population areas along the routes will be better served by other modes of transportation, like intercity buses.
“Over time, Federal support for Amtrak would be significantly reduced as Amtrak is able to right-size its network and States play a larger role, as they do now for State-supported and Northeast Corridor services,” the budget proposal concludes.
Hoosier State on the brink
But what happens to smaller places like Indiana, where routes are already in jeopardy?
Mayor Dennis Buckley’s city of Beech Grove is home to one of three Amtrak repair facilities nationwide. The Indianapolis-area shop employs approximately 525 workers and is served by Amtrak’s Hoosier State line that transports passengers from Indianapolis to Chicago as well as Amtrak cars to the Beech Grove facility for repairs.
The state’s Legislature and the governor are looking to defund the route, Buckley said, and he finds himself having to fight for the jobs created by both Amtrak and by the businesses that have sprung up around the repair facility in his city of almost 15,000 people.
In a letter to state legislators urging them to support the route, Buckley said that Amtrak brings $100 million to the economy of central Indiana and Beech Grove’s Marion County.
“Amtrak must also become more competitive in the business of local mass transit,” Buckley said, but eliminating the four-stop, 196-mile route would be a severe blow to his community.
“Budgets should be set up to continually fund the Hoosier State line for years to come,” Buckley wrote to legislators, “I certainly recommend that the State of Indiana invests in our future. Our livelihood depends on it.”
As part of his effort, Buckley has reached out to Indianapolis media outlets. He would welcome it if SMART TD members who are Indiana residents talk to their legislators and state Gov. Eric Holcomb about maintaining the route’s funding.
Repeat performance
The targeting of Amtrak’s long-distance routes is not new.
In addition to the administration’s yearly call to eliminate long-distance service, there was a battle waged last year over the Southwest Chief. Amtrak leadership had sought to replace portions of the route between Dodge City, Kan., to Albuquerque, N.M., with bus shuttles because of a lack of Positive Train Control (PTC) technology.
Communities on the Chicago-to-Los Angeles daily route mobilized, and the activism of workers, passenger rail advocates, politicians and others preserved the route’s funding and operation as-is through 2019.
Similar action might be needed yet again to prevent any proposed harmful cuts to Amtrak’s long-distance routes as the federal budgeting process continues. SMART Transportation Division will keep members apprised.
To find out who represents you in Congress, visit the SMART TD Legislative Action Center.
Willard James Moody, Sr., a well-regarded attorney and former state legislator who served as a longtime Designated Legal Counsel (DLC) for the United Transportation Union (UTU) and advocated on behalf of railroad workers in the court of law throughout his life, passed away March 27. He was 94.
“Willard devoted his professional life to securing and strengthening the FELA (and) seeking justice for thousands of injured railroad workers over a career that spanned seven decades,” said James A. Stem, retired SMART Transportation Division/UTU national legislative director and executive director of the Academy of Rail Labor Attorneys. “We all stand on his shoulders.”
Born June 16, 1924, Moody was a U.S. Army veteran and served in World War II in Europe. Upon his return home, he attended college, then law school, before founding what is now the Moody Law Firm in Portsmouth, Virginia.
Moody turned his attention to politics after establishing his practice and was elected to the Virginia House of Delegates, serving there from 1956 to 1967, then in the Virginia Senate from 1968 until 1984. He never lost an election.
In addition to serving as a DLC, Moody donated to the UTU’s political action committee and later founded the Railroad Museum of Virginia in Portsmouth. His legal career culminated with his induction into the National Trial Lawyers Hall of Fame in April 2014.
Moody is survived by his wife of 71 years, Betty Covert Moody; daughter, Sharon Edwards, and her husband, Stephen; two sons, Willard “Will” Moody, Jr., who continues his father’s legacy as a current SMART TD DLC, and his wife, Courtney; and Paul Moody and his wife, Sarah; three sisters, Bertha Foster, Sue Bell and Mary Ellen Romanczyk; six grandchildren; six great-grandchildren; and a host of extended family and friends.
Visitation will be 3 to 5:30 p.m. March 31 at Sturtevant Funeral Home, Portsmouth Boulevard Chapel, 5201 Portsmouth Blvd., Portsmouth, VA 23701. A funeral service will be 11 a.m. Monday, April 1, 2019, at Green Acres Presbyterian Church, 3135 Hanley Ave., Portsmouth, VA 23703, by the Rev. Elizabeth Hilkerbaumer. Burial will follow in Greenlawn Memorial Gardens. Following the burial, a reception will take place at the home of Will and Courtney Moody, 4201 Manchester Road, Portsmouth, Virginia.
In lieu of flowers, memorial donations may be made to the Railroad Museum of Virginia.
Read the complete obituary or leave condolences at the funeral home’s website.
Illinois commuter carrier Metra, in conjunction with Operation Lifesaver, has embarked on a series of educational safety blitzes to raise awareness of the importance of safe behavior around its trains and tracks.
The carrier reported in a March 26 news release that the state of Illinois ranked second in the nation in rail fatalities at highway-rail crossings and fifth in the nation in trespassing fatalities. Last year, 47 people were killed and 51 more were injured in Illinois in incidents at grade crossings or along railroad rights-of-way.
Fourteen of the state’s fatalities involved Metra trains, with six occurring at rail crossings. The fatality statistics do not include deaths ruled as suicides or suspected suicides, the carrier said.
“These safety blitzes allow us to reach our customers directly to ensure that they understand the need to stay vigilant about safety around the railroad,” Metra CEO/Executive Director Jim Derwinski said.
The blitzes began in mid-February, and a complete schedule is available here.
The carrier said that its Police Department will also conduct additional enforcement blitzes throughout the region’s six counties and 242 Metra stations. During the enforcement blitzes, citations and warnings will be issued to pedestrians and drivers who ignore gates and warning devices.
Metra also is considering a draft policy that would evaluate station use and is seeking public input, the suburban Daily Herald newspaper reported.
The plan is open for public comment until April 15 and seeks to measure the use and sustainability of the transit system’s stations in relation to ridership.
Most stations labeled as “unsustainable” with less than 10 percent median ridership are on Metra’s Electric Line, but others include Rosemont and Schiller Park on the North Central Service, Mannheim on the Milwaukee District West, and Kedzie on the Union Pacific West, the Daily Herald reports.
The carrier will use the information to make potential changes to improve ridership in the underused stations or in the worst cases make decisions to close stations and create new access points to the system.
More information on the station evaluation policy can be found at this link.
An article published March 28 on the website of the Sightline Institute follows up on an Associated Press report from over the winter about the Department of Transportation’s repeal of the Federal Railroad Administration’s electronically controlled pneumatic (ECP) brake rule for tanker cars.
In late December, the AP reported that the Trump administration did not consider in its calculations the most-common type of derailment.
In addition to the AP findings, writers Aven Frey and Eric de Place for the Seattle-based Sightline Institute, which advocates on sustainability and environmental issues in the Pacific Northwest, also said that “PHMSA and the FRA low-balled their predictions for oil train numbers, an assumption that tilted the analysis in favor of the industry.”
SMART Transportation Division has been in favor of the installation of ECP brakes on tanker cars, with National Legislative Director John Risch calling them “the safest, most advanced braking systems in the world.”
The Sightline Institute piece notes that the ECP rule’s repeal “put rail-side communities at substantial risk across the Northwest, particularly because we can expect to see oil train shipping to significantly increase again.”
In response to the repeal of the ECP rule, legislators in the region have taken note.
The Washington State Senate has passed legislation that requires crude oil to be transported by rail to be conditioned to meet a vapor standard that reduces the potential for explosive ignition.
Also, U.S. Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler, a Republican from Battle Ground, Wash., has twice introduced legislation that reinstates the ECP rule. The current version of the Oil and Flammable Material Rail Safety Act is H.R. 851 and was introduced in January.
Read the entire Sightline Institute article here.