Conductors assaulted on trains. Employee facilities that are filthy and infested with rodents. A culture where “an on-time train is better than a safe train.” An New Jersey Transit union official said Tuesday (April 8) there is no culture of safety at the statewide transporta [...]
Railroads are launching a new campaign to highlight the dangers of being near train tracks after a spike in rail deaths last year. At this time last year, the railroads were proudly calling 2012 their safest year ever as derailments and crossing accidents kept declining. But [...]
U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) yesterday announced that an effort to extend the short-line tax credit for two years cleared a first big hurdle by passing out of the Senate Committee on Finance as a part of the Expiring Provisions Improvement Reform and Efficiency (EXPIRE) [...]
From the towns of Lamar and La Junta on the Eastern Plains, south to Trinidad, the Southwest Chief has made stops since 1971 as it shuttles passengers between Chicago and Los Angeles. But soon the picturesque views of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains that passengers have enjoye [...]
Each year, tens of thousands of American workers are made sick or die from occupational exposures to hazardous chemicals. While many chemicals are suspected of being harmful, OSHA’s exposure standards are out-of-date and inadequately protective for the small number of c [...]
TWENTY-TWO PEOPLE were hospitalized yesterday after a violent crash sent a SEPTA bus careening into a building in Chinatown, authorities said. The collision happened just before 5 p.m. yesterday at the intersection of 11th and Vine streets, SEPTA spokesman Andrew Busch said. [...]
The Federal Railroad Administration announced a Final Rule (FR) amending its existing Passenger Train Emergency Preparedness regulations. The revisions make explicit that existing requirements for initial and periodic training, operational efficiency tests and inspections o [...]
Local Secretary & Treasurer Dale Biggs of SMART Transportation Division Local 240 at Los Angeles reports that the local’s next monthly meeting will be held Wednesday, April 9, at 7 p.m. at Ozzie’s Diner, upstairs. Biggs is compiling an email list to send out n [...]
The National Transportation Safety Board will announce this week that the Metro-North Railroad engineer at the controls last year during a fatal derailment in the Bronx had an undiagnosed sleep disorder, according to a person with knowledge of the planned announcement. The e [...]
In the March issue of the SMART Transportation Division News, we celebrate the 100th birthday of former President Al Chesser, the very first elected president of the United Transportation Union. This is a remarkable achievement for a remarkable man! Brother Chesser’s history [...]