Rail News

When Theo Zwygers went to the podium at a major rail industry conference in Chicago last month, the soft-spoken plastics industry executive hardly looked like a firebrand rising up against the nation’

European Union competition regulators on June 12 cleared the planned acquisition by Deutsche Bahn, the German state railway, of Poland's biggest privately-owned rail freight company.

The solution to freight corridor congestion may be through reducing commuter congestion, according to a new RAND Corporation study.

It may no longer be the worst of times in rail freight traffic, but it’s still close. U.S.

A key government measure of U.S. freight shipping fell to its lowest level in seven years in April, the government reported.

A Norfolk Southern Railway executive said his company is exploring the potential to eventually electrify some freight rail lines in connection with passenger rail corridors, but the chief executive of

As Union Pacific Railroad feels out today’s freight market and plans for when it might pull out of its downturn, Chairman, President and CEO James R. Young is cautious.

Leif Holm-Andersen, director of transportation and logistics at Arrow Electronics, has been using freight payment software for several years, and he wouldn’t dream of going back to old-fashioned proce

All that talk about the economy starting to turn around has a lot of rail industry officials scratching their heads, and wondering when they will be able to count on any strengthening in shipments tha

Railroads may have won one battle in their bid to fend off rail regulatory legislation, but shippers believe they’re closer to winning the war in Congress.

The decline in railroad jobs appears to have stalled in May, while trucking employment edged slightly higher.

The United States should quickly begin building high-speed rail systems for both passenger and freight systems, says a former head of the Federal Railroad Administration.

With a key holiday falling on what is usually the first business day of the week, major U.S. railroads posted their worst volume numbers of 2009 in the week ending May 30.

The Illinois state senate is now on record, formally asking President Obama to soon fill an empty board seat on the Surface Transportation Board with an experienced transportation hand who would also

BNSF Railway is touting recent gains for its intermodal service expansions in the wake of Hub Group’s decision to switch most traffic to rival Union Pacific Railroad, and a spokesman said BNSF d

Two of the Obama administration’s highest-level policy salesmen urged governors to push forward “bold” plans to develop high-speed passenger rail systems, and in the process unclog c

Intermodal shipper Hub Group will start shifting 8,400 domestic containers next week away from BNSF Railway and into the hands of rival Union Pacific Railroad, partly drawn by UP’s service of pr

Intermodal middleman firm Hub Group, one of the industry leaders, will shift the majority of its western-U.S.

Economic recovery will occur when consumer spending turns around, unemployment bottoms out and the business inventory-to-sales ratio improves, but that will take awhile, according to the chief economi

If there is good news for rail labor in the latest report on job cuts, it’s that the decline of freight railroad employment slowed from mid-March to mid-April.

A powerful shippers’ lobby, the National Industrial Transportation League, threw its weight behind a Senate bill to strip freight railroads of a limited antitrust immunity.

After months of delay and behind-the-scenes planning, Congress may be set to act on some major legislative goals of frustrated railroad customers.

Truckload executives say volumes are firming and rates stabilizing. Less-than-truckload and rail executives say demand is weak. And shippers expect volumes to decline further.

It is still early, but the signs aren’t looking good.

North American railroads are relatively unique in that they operate on rights-of-way that are generally privately owned.

For anyone wondering if shippers and cargo carriers could work together toward common goals, the Freight Stakeholders Coalition is a rare example of idealism in public policy.

When the 343 short line railroads that report to RMI’s RailConnect Index said their total loads rose by 2,031 units in the latest week, they may have punched through a low-hanging cloud.

Talks between at least two Senate staffs, representing different committees with separate legislation in the works to alter the freight railroads’ relationships with shippers and communities, co

FTR Associates is forecasting the economy will stabilize in the third quarter, followed by a moderate recovery in 2010 with GDP growth estimated to rise 2.7 percent, data the firm says suggests the wo

If this is the bottom, U.S. railroads are dragging along it with only a small hint at climbing out of the hole.

CN reached settlements on all outstanding charges related to derailments that occurred at Wabamun, Alta. on Aug. 3, 2005 and at Cheakamus, B.C. on Aug. 5, 2005.

In June, BNSF Railway will begin the first of five maintenance-of-way projects in South Dakota.

Some railroads and unions appear to be planning now for the day when business returns and skilled workers are called back from layoffs.

Canadian National Railway got permission last spring to acquire a suburban Chicago short line, closed the deal early this year and is already running a few trains there.

The Obama administration’s fiscal 2010 budget proposal includes more than $250 million in transportation spending cuts, but lawmakers and interest groups won’t let the programs go without a fight.

Despite some lift from intermodal volume, major U.S. railroads by two important measures had their worst week so far this year.

The Obama administration does not favor raising the federal tax on motor vehicle fuels as a way to bolster highway spending accounts, said Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood.

The Greenbrier, a West Virginia resort hotel that until May 6 was a money-losing drag on CSX Corp.’s railroad focus, is now cleared by a bankruptcy court for its new owners to try to revive it a

Representatives of Canadian National Railway, CSX Corp. and Norfolk Southern Railway say they expect agricultural products to be the first to bounce back after the recession.

June could be a key time for Congress to act on rail antitrust legislation and perhaps on changes in how economic regulations enforce competition among carriers, said a top official for an activist ra