Transportation News

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New battery chemistry may ‘green’ transit buses

A zero-tailpipe-emissions transit bus is in the works from GE Global Research, report canadiandriver.com and wired.com. The new technology, according to canadiandriver.com, combines an energy-dense sodium batter with a high-power lithium battery, and could “help acceler [...]

BNSF alleged to engage in ‘judicial misconduct’

“Over the past decade,” reports the Minneapolis Star Tribune, “court records show [that] judges around the country have disciplined BNSF after finding that the company or its lawyers broke rules aimed at ensuring fair legal proceedings in 13 cases involving [...]

UTU treasurers’ alert: IRS payment changes

All UTU locals are now required to make federal tax payments on-line using the Electronic Federal Tax Payment System (EFTPS). This is because the Internal Revenue Service announced that effective Jan. 1, 2011, it no longer will accept Form 8109 FTD (federal tax deposit) coupo [...]

COLA for national rail contract 2011 wages

A cost-of-living adjustment will be made Jan. 1 to UTU-member wages governed by the national rail contract. The amount of the COLA, based on a formula contained in the national rail contract, is three cents per hour. The COLA reflects a low rate of consumer inflation. By cont [...]

BNSF worker dies in Wisconsin accident

SUPERIOR, Wis. — A BNSF employee was killed at a taconite facility Dec. 1, reports the Duluth News-Tribune. Kelly Yadron, 43, “was found pinned between two steel beams beside a conveyer belt,” a Superior fire chief told the newspaper. He was a member of the Transp [...]

Remembering the lady who kept her bus seat

It has been fifty-five years since Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Ala., bus — “an act that challenged the moral conscience of an entire nation,” said President Obama Dec. 1 in honoring her legacy Most historians date the beginning of [...]

FRA safety specialist wins DOT honor

A Federal Railroad Administration safety specialist has been honored with an Excellence Award by the U.S. Department of Transportation for what Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood called “his role in uncovering the widespread failure of a Class I railroad to maintain th [...]

Rail Retirement payroll tax set for 2011

Railroad Retirement payroll taxes will remain at 2010 levels in 2011, reports the Railroad Retirement Board. For Tier I, carriers and employees each will pay 6.20 percent on a maximum of $106,800 of wages. For Medicare, carriers and employees each will pay 1.45 percent on all [...]

Federal jobless benefits expire for millions

WASHINGTON — Long term federal unemployment benefits expired Dec. 1 for hundreds of thousands of jobless as the lame-duck Congress failed to take action to extend them. Millions more will lose benefits if Congress does not act. Federal unemployment benefits had begun af [...]

Guns on Amtrak? Unloaded & bagged

Amtrak said that effective Dec. 15, it will accept unloaded guns in checked baggage at stations and on trains operating within the United States that offer checked baggage service.  This change in the Amtrak checked baggage policy is required by the Consolidated Appropriation [...]