WASHINGTON — Speaking to labor’s rank-and-file via an AFL-CIO electronic town hall meeting last week, Vice President Joe Biden warned of “barbarians at the gate” of working families as attacks on collective bargaining and union membership move forward [...]
WASHINGTON — Two commuter railroads — Los Angeles Metrolink and Chicago Metra – get it. They recognize that commuters aren’t hogs and logs on freight trains, and passenger and crew safety is paramount. Unfortunately, 24 other commuter railroads don’t g [...]
WASHINGTON — At a hearing of the House Rail Subcommittee March 11 into prospects for privatizing portions of Amtrak, rail labor and Amtrak sounded a warning that intercity rail passenger operations in the U.S. cannot succeed or continue without a an adequate, consistent [...]
WASHINGTON — Amtrak reported March 9 that it has marked 16 consecutive months of ridership growth, and that February was the best on record, with 2.1 million passengers. “The ridership increase shows the continued popularity of rail travel and the need for continu [...]
WASHINGTON — U.S. House of Representatives Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy of California, the third-ranking House Republican, told McClatchey Newspapers March 8 that California should not be the recipient of additional federal funds for construction of a high-speed rail li [...]
WASHINGTON — The Federal Railroad Administration has agreed to a request by railroads to scale back the number of rail route miles over which positive train control (PTC) must be implemented before January 2016. Railroads asserted that since the Rail Safety Improvement [...]
WASHINGTON — Late Friday, March 4, U.S. District Court Judge John Bates issued several rulings regarding the pending cases regarding the UTU and the Sheet Metal Workers International Association — SMWIA v. UTU and Murphy et al. v. SMWIA. Initially, Judge Bates gra [...]
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 [...]
WASHINGTON — Mexican buses and trucks operated by Mexican drivers would be permitted to cross into and travel through the United States under an agreement reached March 3 between President Obama and Mexican President Felipe Calderon. Congress, however, must approve the [...]
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- [...]
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