Category: News

Services announced for Metro bus operator Gamboa

June 25, 2013 Services for SMART Transportation member and Los Angeles Metro bus operator Olivia Gamboa, 47, who was killed June 12 in a head-on crash with a speeding flatbed tow truck while operating her bus, have been finalized, Bus Vice President Bonnie Morr reports. A viewing will be h [...]

Tags bus operator, LA Metro, Local, Olivia Gamboa

N.D. sees record oil shipments by rail

June 21, 2013 BISMARCK, N.D. — The percentage of North Dakota oil shipped by pipelines has dramatically slipped in the past year as producers have turned to trains to reach faraway U.S. refineries where premium prices are fetched based on foreign crude prices. But state and industry offici [...]

Tags oil

Alaska Railroad announces new management team

June 21, 2013 As part of a reorganization, the Alaska Railroad Corp. (ARRC) recently realigned its top-level management team, including the appointment of William O’Leary as chief operating officer and Barbara Amy as chief financial officer.   ARRC’s vice president of finance a [...]

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NARP: House appropriators declare war on trains

June 20, 2013 The following release was issued June 18 by the National Association of Railroad Passengers. The National Association of Railroad Passengers announced that it will fight implementation of the House Appropriation Committee’s Fiscal Year 2014 transportation funding levels. The [...]

Tags Amtrak, House Appropriations Committee, NARP

TTD issues statement on Teamster raids

June 20, 2013 The following statement was issued by AFL-CIO Transportation Trades Department President Edward Wytkind regarding the raiding of union membership by the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. “As many of you are aware, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT) has inc [...]

Tags IBT, raid, Teamsters, TTD

NTSB: Eye problems likely cause of 2012 train crash

June 19, 2013 TULSA, Okla. — An engineer killed in a fiery train collision in the Oklahoma Panhandle last year suffered from serious vision problems for much of his life, underwent several corrective procedures in the years leading up to the crash and even complained that he couldn’t [...]

Tags Hersman, NTSB, train crash, Union Pacific

UTUIA announces 2013-14 scholarship winners

June 18, 2013 The following students have been awarded scholarships from the United Transportation Union Insurance Association for 2013-2014 academic year. Fifty continuing $500 scholarships are awarded each year to UTUIA policyholders, their sons, daughters and grandchildren. District 1: [...]

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Bus drivers say pesticides are making them ill

June 18, 2013 Los Angeles County bus drivers say they are regularly becoming ill — sometimes while behind the wheel — from pesticides sprayed inside their vehicles by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. At least 14 Metro drivers are pursuing workers’ compensation claims, and m [...]

Tags bus operator, Los Angeles Metro

Crude by rail ‘more flexible, economical’

June 18, 2013 BNSF Railway Co. expects to begin moving unit trains of crude oil from a Carlsbad, N.M., transload facility later this year after an expansion project is completed at the facility.   The project at the Cetane Energy L.L.C.-owned facility calls for adding track to accommodate [...]

Tags BNSF, crude oil

Conductor ‘makes every day a good day’

June 18, 2013 Gordon Bowe doesn’t become personal friends with all of his passengers. But after more than three decades of walking the aisles as a conductor on Metra trains to and from Chicago, Bowe, known by many as “Gordo,” has come to know those who ride the trains from Elburn through L [...]

Tags conductor, Gordon Bowe, Metra