WASHINGTON – The nation was on the brink of a crippling national strike by railroad workers in the summer of 1963 when Congress stepped in to settle a years-long battle over how many men it took to safely operate a train. The bill, signed by President John F. Kennedy in Augus [...]
CALGARY – The tug-of-war between railroads and pipelines in North American oilfields is only just getting started. In recent months, the popularity of moving crude on tracks has sapped commercial support for new pipelines from oil fields in West Texas to North Dakota’s Bakken [...]
As a young child, Greg Wiseman had the world in his view. Sitting on the lap of his grandfather – a train engineer – Wiseman was given an up-close look of life on the tracks. Nearly 50 years later, walking down the aisle of the South Shore Line commuter train headed from Mich [...]
Improving and maintaining American transportation infrastructure is critical to the nation remaining economically competitive in a global marketplace, U.S. House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Bill Shuster (R-Pa.) told a gathering of community and busine [...]
Labor Day, the first Monday in September, is a creation of the labor movement and is dedicated to the social and economic achievements of American workers. It constitutes a yearly national tribute to the contributions workers have made to the strength, prosperity, and well-be [...]
District of Columbia State Legislative Director and SMART Transportation Safety Team member Willie Bates has been invited by Federal Railroad Administrator Joseph Szabo to serve on the Stakeholder Review Panel for the agency’s new Clear Signal for Action safety program. The C [...]
WASHINGTON – The Federal Railroad Administration’s (FRA) Railroad Safety Advisory Committee (RSAC) met today in an emergency session to begin consideration of additional regulatory or other safety measures following the derailment in Lac-Megantic, Quebec, Canada earlier this [...]
U.S. rail-safety regulators began a “Bakken blitz” of inspections of crude oil tank cars this week as they seek to prevent a railroad disaster in the U.S. similar to July’s fatal inferno in Quebec. Inspectors from the U.S. Federal Railroad Administration and Pipeline and Haza [...]
The head of a rail safety group compared a widely used train tank car to the recalled Ford Pinto in urging U.S. regulators to require upgrades that would prevent accidents like a Quebec derailment that killed 47 people. Karen Darch, the co-chairman of a coalition of communiti [...]
WASHINGTON – A federal panel heard comments Wednesday on the adequacy of safety regulations for railroads, during the first of two meetings that will focus on last month’s deadly train derailment in Lac-Megantic, Quebec. Fatigue is the top safety concern among train cre [...]
