Tag: Union Pacific

Home>News>Union Pacific

NTSB_logoLITTLE ROCK, Ark. – A federal investigator said Tuesday (Aug. 19) that a signal that would have given a final instruction to the crew of a railroad train involved in a fatal head-on collision was damaged in the accident but could still hold clues as to what happened.

Crews are hopeful they can recover data from the signal, which was alongside a Union Pacific track near Hoxie in northeastern Arkansas. Two railroad workers died in the accident Sunday morning and two others were injured.

Read the complete story at the Houston Chronicle.

Two Union Pacific Railroad employees were killed and two others were injured when two UP trains collided early Sunday (Aug. 17) morning in Hoxie, Ark.
SMART Transportation Division member and conductor Roderick A. Hayes, 31, and engineer Chance Gober, 40, were both killed on the southbound train, according to a report by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
Injured on the northbound train were SMART Transportation Division member and conductor Aaron P. Jeffery and engineer Michael Zompakos.
Hayes and Jeffery both belonged to SMART Transportation Division 656 at North Little Rock, Ark.
Details on the conditions of Jeffery and Zompakos are not yet available.
The National Transportation Safety Board is now investigating and General Chairperson James Herndon and Georgia State Legislative Director Matt Campbell of the SMART Transportation Safety Team have been assigned to assist in the investigation.
The SMART Transportation Safety Team (TST) is comprised of 17 members of the SMART Transportation Division, each of whom is on call 24 hours a day to assist in determining the facts in rail-related accidents.
Hayes was a SMART member for 20 months and Jeffery has been a SMART member for approximately 10 years.
 

HOXIE, Ark. – The National Transportation Safety Board is now investigating a deadly train crash in Lawrence County.

Sunday, Two Union Pacific freight trains collided head on, near the tracks off Highway 67. Two crew members were killed, another two members were injured.

Read the complete story at Television Station WREG.

HOXIE, Ark. – Officials are investigating on the scene of a freight train collision in Lawrence County that claimed the lives of two individuals and injured two others.

At around 3 a.m. Sunday (Aug. 17), Arkansas State Police were notified of a collision between two Union Pacific freight trains in Hoxie, which is about 25 miles northwest of Jonesboro.

Read the complete story at www.thv11.com.

Union Pacific Corp. says in a court filing that it and employees overpaid federal railroad retirement taxes by $74.8 million, and that refunds are in order for both the company and workers.

The Omaha-based freight railroad made its case in a civil complaint filed this week in U.S. District Court in Omaha. The complaint names the U.S. government and seeks $44.2 million in refunds to the railroad and $30.6 million to workers who also overpaid via payroll withholding.

Read more from Omaha.com.

BNSF_Color_LogoDALLAS – BNSF Railway Co., the only U.S. railroad ordered by the regulator (Surface Transportation Board) to provide weekly service updates, is losing market share to Union Pacific Corp., its main competitor, as train speeds slow and on-time deliveries drop.

The shift in market share had shown up in carload statistics, Union Pacific Chief Executive Officer Jack Koraleski said Thursday. During the second quarter, the Union Pacific’s loads rose 8.2 percent while those of BNSF, owned by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc., gained 4.9 percent.

Read the complete story at Fort Worth Business Press.

union_pacific_logoCLINTON, Utah – A simple act of kindness is something a 12-year-old boy with an autism spectrum disorder is going to remember for the rest of his life.
Matthew Mancil loves trains.
“I don’t know how it started, but he just absolutely loves them,” Aaron Mancil, Matthew’s father, said.
Read the complete story at the Deseret News.
(Do you know who this conductor is? Email us at news_TD@smart-union.org.)

MAPLE PARK, Ill. – After viewing a video provided by Union Pacific Railroad, Maple Park Police Chief Mike Acosta said it’s likely a 14-year-old boy was engaging in an activity called “breezing” when the teen was fatally struck by a train last month in Maple Park.

Parker Wolfsmith, an eighth-grader at Kaneland Harter Middle School, died May 31. He was struck at about 9:30 p.m. that night at the North Liberty Street railroad crossing in Maple Park. Acosta said he viewed the video at 10:45 a.m. Wednesday, along with representatives from Union Pacific and the Kane County Coroner’s Office. Acosta said he learned of the term breezing from the Union Pacific representative.

Read the complete story at the Daily Chronicle.

oil-train-railBILLINGS, Mont. — U.S. railroads forced to turn over details of their volatile crude oil shipments are asking states to sign agreements not to disclose the information. But some states are refusing, saying Thursday that the information shouldn’t be kept from the public.

Federal officials last month ordered railroads to make the disclosures after a string of fiery tank-car accidents in North Dakota, Alabama, Virginia and Quebec, where 47 people died when a runaway oil train exploded in the town of Lac-Megantic.

The disclosures due midnight Saturday include route details, volumes of oil carried and emergency-response information for trains hauling 1 million gallons or more of crude. That’s the equivalent of 35 tank cars.

Read the complete story at The Washington Post.

Two railroad companies want to prevent the public from getting details about oil shipments through Washington state, information the federal government ordered be given to state emergency managers after several oil-train accidents.

But restricting such information violates the state’s public-records law, so the state has not signed documents from the rail companies seeking confidentiality, said Mark Stewart, a spokesman for the Washington Military Department’s Emergency Management Division.

Read the complete story at The Seattle Times.