Transportation News

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RRB announces additional pre-retirement seminars

Additional locations have now been added to the U.S. Railroad Retirement Board’s (RRB) schedule of Pre-Retirement Seminars for railroad employees and their spouses. Designed for railroad employees and spouses planning to retire within five years or less, the seminars will fam [...]

Simon’s direction at LIRR leads to win-win deal

After over four years of battling with New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority during a difficult and highly publicized contract dispute, SMART Transportation Division members have prevailed on Long Island. The MTA was seeking net zero wage increases, major pension r [...]

Conductor makes special delivery boy will never forget

CLINTON, 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 fathe [...]

Local 1701 takes labor dispute to city council

MONTEBELLO, Calif. – SMART Transportation Division Local 1701 bus members here July 9 picketed outside Montebello City Hall prior to and during a meeting of city council to bring attention to their dispute with city over wages, rest periods, meal periods and payment of pensio [...]

Will U.S. railroad service ever get better?

“I just returned from a trip to Europe, and really enjoyed riding the high-speed Eurostar and TGV. Why can’t we have something like that here in the U.S.?” So asked a reader, and the fundamental answer is simple: The United States, as a nation, does not and [...]

Videos embody theme of ‘Strong, Proud, United’

The theme of the SMART Transportation Division’s Convention in San Diego, Calif., June 30-July 2, was “Strong, Proud, United,” and videos were presented to the delegates and attendees each day during the convention that embodied those concepts. SMART Transpo [...]

LIRR strike averted, tentative deal reached

A tentative deal has been reached to avoid a strike at the nation’s largest commuter railroad, sparing hundreds of thousands of commuters the headache of finding alternate routes to and from the city, Gov. Cuomo announced Thursday. The agreement, which still must be rat [...]

LIRR unions, MTA end another day of talks

NEW YORK – With a Long Island Rail Road strike potentially set to start Sunday, the unions and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority returned to the bargaining table Wednesday and talked for several hours without reaching a deal. But both sides were set to work through th [...]

Blumenthal wants to convene Senate PTC hearing

WASHINGTON – A group of Connecticut lawmakers is calling for action on rail-safety technology that could prevent future train collisions like the fatal “deadman’s curve” crash late last year in the Bronx. The Positive Train Control technology, or PTC would o [...]

LIRR union coalition forced to set strike time

International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers Long Island Rail Road General Chairperson Anthony Simon has issued the following statement on the deteriorating labor situation at the commuter railroad: “I regret to report that negotiations have [...]