Rail News

Railroads are hoping winter storms are the main reason freight traffic has slowed since November, but there are growing concerns that a new chill may have taken hold of the broader recovery.

Net profit at Kansas City Southern dropped 63 percent to $69 million in 2009, as the company came through a business environment in the first five months that Chairman and CEO Michael R.

Work on a high-speed rail network connecting U.S. cities is set to accelerate as President Barack Obama awards $8 billion in stimulus act high-speed rail funding to 31 states.

Canadian Pacific Railway improved its net profit in the fourth quarter by 3 percent year-over-year to $182 million with the help of some unusual tax benefits.

Norfolk Southern Railway’s fourth-quarter net income fell 32 percent from a year earlier to $307 million, as revenue fell 16 percent to $2.1 billion.

Eastern-U.S. railroad CSX Transportation said customers last year “committed to 92 new or expanded facilities” along CSX tracks, which represent $3.2 billion in investments.

President Obama is expected to award the long-delayed $8 billion in stimulus grants Thursday to develop high-speed rail systems and expand passenger train use along numerous freight rail corridors, ac

Canadian National Railway, bouyed by lower tax rates from Canadian provinces and receipts from selling some track to a transit agency, posted fourth-quarter net income of $548 million, up 1.6 percent

BNSF Railway implemented service improvements that cut scheduled trip times for 60 percent of its premium domestic intermodal traffic, saving shippers up to half a day on their long hauls, the company

Claude Mongeau, who took over this year as Canadian National Railway’s president and CEO, named his top operations and marketing executives as he builds out his leadership team.

Through the worst freight recession in decades and despite fierce trucking competition to keep loads on the highway, the domestic intermodal industry has held up pretty well.

European Union competition regulators Jan. 25 approved the takeover by France’s state railway SNCF of Geneva-based Ermewa, a leading railcar and rail container leasing firm.

By issuing a final regulation on automated train equipment, or positive train control, the Federal Railroad Administration cleared a path for railroads to spend billions of dollars on what is la

The U.S.

Like the first few raindrops after a long drought, the freight rate increases ocean and surface carriers are beginning to nail down are not enough to slake their thirst.

The 88,322 shipments picked up by small North American railroads in the latest week were the most since the week of Nov. 21 and were up 1.2 percent from the same point last year.

The National Transportation Safety Board wants the federal government to “require audio and image recorders in the cabs of all locomotives,” after determining that a commuter train operato

BNSF Railway plans to spend $2.4 billion in 2010 on capital improvements including track upgrades and freight cars, a drop of 10 percent from 2009 as it expects to make fewer purchases of locomotives.

BNSF Railway, in likely its last earnings report as a public company, saw it’s net profit fall 12.8 percent in the fourth quarter from a year earlier, to $536 million, but the company showed str

Freight equipment leasing firm GATX said its net profit fell 25.6 percent to $21.5 million in the fourth quarter as a decline in rail shipping demand pushed pushed the profit in railcar lease op

New freight carload and intermodal pickups by major U.S. railroads rose in the week ending Jan. 16, but remained below their recent highs.

The largest U.S. freight railroad, Union Pacific, came out against the version of the rail regulatory bill that cleared the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee last month.

Western-U.S. carrier Union Pacific Railroad saw fourth-quarter profit fall 17 percent from a year earlier to $551 million, while net income for all of 2009 fell 19 percent to $1.9 billion.

President Obama is nominating Jeffrey R. Moreland, a former senior attorney with BNSF Railway and Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway, to join Amtrak’s board of directors.

With some Chicago suburbs still mounting legal challenges to the acquisition by Canadian National Railway of a short line railroad around the city, the Surface Transportation Board said it is now aski

CSX Corp., parent company of the nation’s largest eastern railroad, reported $2.32 billion in revenue for the fiscal fourth quarter ending Dec.

A Surface Transportation Board case involving a new 80-mile rail line in Alaska suggests a potential fissure between the railroad industry’s three key economic regulators even as Congress debate

MONTREAL — Canadian National Railway on Monday announced it will make an initial donation of C$100,000 (US$97,500) to the Red Cross in support of the agency's relief efforts in Haiti.

A panel that brings together rail officials, some of their customers and government officials to help shape U.S.

The impact on rail operations from heavy winter storms across much of the U.S. Midwest and South last week curbed traffic at major U.S.

Eastern-U.S. rail giant CSX Transportation is telling employees it will match dollar for dollar any donations they make to the American Red Cross to aid earthquake relief efforts in Haiti.

Small railroads across North America started 2010 with traffic near the levels of mid-December but below the recent November peaks, according to the RMI RailConnect index of short lines and regional c

Intermodal logistics provider RoadLink named L. Michael Shelton as president, reporting to CEO Mike Haley.

Union Pacific Railroad over the weekend tested an ultra-long 18,000-foot double-stack train on a run from Texas to Southern California, but the railroad apparently does not intend to run such long tra

DB Schenker Rail acquired an additional 11 percent of the Italian rail freight operator NordCargo, bringing its total stake in the Milan-based company to 60 percent.

While North American rail hauls of intermodal equipment fell 14.6 percent in 2009 to 11,670,350 units, largely due to a shrinking ocean container market, the biggest part of the domestic rail-truck bu

The two recession years of 2008 and most of 2009 left carloads of bulk materials and equipment at major U.S. railroads down 18.2 percent from 2007, said the Association of American Railroads.

A new federal rule issued Tuesday on automated train management systems allows railroads to wrap up their implementation plans in time for an April deadline, the Federal Railroad administration said.<

The Amtrak passenger rail service will buy more than 100 locomotives, along with hundreds of new passenger cars, in what it is billing as a &ldquo;major equipment purchase.&rdquo;