FRA proposes crossing-hazards hotline

WASHINGTON — Railroads soon will be required by the Federal Railroad Administration to establish toll-free telephone numbers to allow the public to report malfunctioning highway-rail grade-crossing warning signals, disabled vehicles blocking crossings and other unsafe c [...]

CSX yardmasters ratify consolidation pact

CSX-employed yardmasters represented by the UTU have ratified a coordination-of-operations agreement affecting CSX eastern district (former Baltimore & Ohio) and northern district (former Conrail) lines. The agreement was negotiated in response to a CSX filing with the U. [...]

Is BNSF’s Matt Rose headed elsewhere?

BNSF CEO Matt Rose, 51, is said by the Ft. Worth Star-Telegram to be a possible successor to 80-year-old Warren Buffett as the next CEO of holding company Berkshire Hathaway, whose assets exceed $372 billion. The newspaper bases the speculation on a Securities and Exchange Co [...]

FRA: 20 employee fatalities in 2010

WASHINGTON — Figures released by the Federal Railroad Administration for 2010 show that 20 rail employees — eight of them UTU members — died in on-duty accidents in 2010. There were 16 on-duty employee deaths in 2009 — eight being UTU members. Highway- [...]

Signalmen official nominated for RRB seat

Walt Barrows, secretary-treasurer of the Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen since 1999, has been nominated by President Obama to fill the labor chair on the three-member Railroad Retirement Board, succeeding Butch Speakman, who is retiring. The nomination requires Senate confi [...]

New NS board member has familiar name

Former Clinton White House Chief of Staff Erskine Bowles has been elected a member of Norfolk Southern’s board of directors. His name is most associated with President Obama’s National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility, on which he served as co-chair with former [...]