Transportation News

Visit the digital archive of the SMART-TD News (PDFs)

We’ll keep pressing to improve, protect

By James StemUTU National Legislative Director January brings a new session of Congress and the start of state legislative sessions across the country. Our UTU legislative team in Washington and our state legislative directors will be on guard protecting the interests of our [...]

UTU-represented shortline has new owner

LONGVIEW, Wash. — UTU-represented train and engine employees of Columbia & Cowlitz Railroad here have a new employer in Patriot Rail Corp. after Patriot completed purchase of the shortline from paper manufacturer and forest products supplier Weyerhaeuser. Also inclu [...]

Fired. BNSF says workers are ‘too fat’

CHICAGO — At the BNSF Corwith intermodal yard here, the railroad has dumped a contractor and said it intends to hire its own workers to load and unload containers and trailers onto and off of flat cars, reports Chicago News Cooperative. This comes after BNSF told many o [...]

Rail traffic continues growth trend

U.S. Class I railroad traffic continued its growth trend through the Christmas holiday week, reports the Association of American Railroads. Carloads were up almost 30 percent versus the same holiday week in 2009, and intermodal (trailers and containers on flat cars) was up mo [...]

NS Crescent Corridor gains federal funds

Norfolk Southern has won final funding from the U.S. Department of Transportation for its long planned 2,500-mile Crescent Corridor linking New Orleans, Memphis and the Northeast, reports the Journal of Commerce. The Crescent Corridor improvements, when completed, will increa [...]

Isn’t it time to stop smoking?

What better gift to your health and your family’s health could there be than to resolve to stop smoking in 2011? Easier said than done. That’s for sure. But help is available. For UTU rail members covered by the national contract health plans, each of the medical benefi [...]

Former KCS GC Bob Martin dies at 80

SHAWNEE, Kan. — Robert G. Martin, a former UTU general chairperson (GO 457) on Kansas City Southern Railway, died here Dec. 24 at age 80. A native of Beaumont, Texas, he was a member of UTU predecessor Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen, and, later, UTU Local 20 in Beaumo [...]

UTU working to improve Rail Safety Act

By James Stem, UTU National Legislative Director The Rail Safety Improvement Act of 2008 (RSIA) was not all that rail labor wanted in a safety bill, but it was a good start, and contains much of what we have long sought. Work still needs to be done, including an end to limbo [...]

Illinois, Amtrak, UP agree on HSR project

Some $1.1 billion in federal grants for high-speed rail between Chicago and St. Louis are about to flow to the State of Illinois after the Illinois DOT, Amtrak and Union Pacific reached an agreement on how to accommodate freight and passenger trains on the affected track, rep [...]

2 pacts reached on Florida East Coast

Two tentative four-year agreements have been reached between the UTU and Florida East Coast Railway (FEC). One of the tentative four-year agreements covers FEC conductors, engineers, trainmen and yardmen represented by the UTU. The second tentative four-year pact covers FEC y [...]