WASHINGTON — There is a lot of talk, hope and hype about high-speed rail in the United States, but savvy policy analysts, planners and economists expect only a very few of those projects to move forward in the near future. One such project high on the list of pragmatist [...]
Decades ago, the chairman of New York Central Railroad complained that while freight could move cross country without being transferred from one boxcar to another, transcontinental passengers often had to change trains in Chicago. Even today, on Amtrak, passengers must change [...]
WASHINGTON — Two friends of labor — Democratic Senators Kent Conrad (N.D.) and Joseph Lieberman (Conn.) — say they will retire at the end of the 112th Congress in 2012. Conrad is completing his fifth six-year term; Lieberman completing his fourth six-year te [...]
When we talk about Class I railroads (the largest of railroads with annual freight revenue of at least $378.8 million), most of us can name the carriers in a matter of seconds. They are BNSF, Canadian National, Canadian Pacific, CSX, Kansas City Southern, Norfolk Southern, an [...]
The following update on Amtrak negotiations is from UTU General Chairperson Roger Lenfest (GO 769), who is the UTU lead negotiator. The UTU International is not participating in the talks. Under the UTU’s guarantee of craft autonomy, the International participates in on [...]
WASHINGTON — The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) says it will sue Arizona, South Carolina, South Dakota and Utah, seeking to invalidate those states’ recently passed constitutional amendments prohibiting workers in the private sector from saying “union [...]
Following an eighth negotiating session in mid-January with the National Carriers’ Conference Committee (NCCC), UTU International President Mike Futhey said, “We continue to make progress through interest-based bargaining toward developing a common framework recog [...]
WASHINGTON — Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas, the senior Republican on the Senate Commerce Committee, announced she will retire at the end of 2012, when her third six-year term ends. The Senate Commerce Committee has oversight of many rail, transit, air and bus issue [...]
Rail traffic continued its torrid growth the first week of 2011, with the Association of American Railroads (AAR) reporting freight carloadings were up more than 20 percent versus the same week in 2010, and intermodal (trailers and containers on flat cars) were up almost 9 pe [...]
In the wake of the horror of Tucson, which reawakened among Americans of all races, religions and cultures the knowledge that there is more that binds us in our hopes and dreams than divides us in our politics, the words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., in his “I Have a D [...]
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