Rail News
Green Gone from Canadian Pacific
May 17th, 2012Fred Green, formerly president and chief executive officer of Canadian Pacific Railway, has left the company, effective immediately, CP announced today.
Green has also resigned as a director and will not stand for re-election at the Company’s shareholder meeting later this morning. Five other directors - John Cleghorn, Tim Faithfull, Edmond Harris, Michael Phelps and Roger Phillips - also will not seek re-election.
Activist investor William Ackman, principal of Pershing Square Capital Management LP, has been calling for management change at CP since Pershing Square took a stake last year. The directors’ announcements clear the way for Pershing Square’s expected slate of seven directors to join the board; the composition of the board is anticipated to be as follows: William Ackman, Gary Colter, Richard George, Paul Haggis, Paul Hilal, Krystyna Hoeg, Tony Ingram, Richard Kelly, Rebecca MacDonald, The Hon. John Manley, Anthony Melman, Linda Morgan, Madeleine Paquin, David Raisbeck, Hartley Richardson and Stephen Tobias.
Ackman has indicated a preference for bringing in E. Hunter Harrison, former CEO of Canadian National, to run the smaller Canadian railroad.
BNSF Announces Capital Program Plans for Missouri, Kansas
May 17th, 2012BNSF Railway Company (BNSF) expects to invest an estimated $130 million on maintenance and rail capacity improvement projects in Missouri and an estimated $242 million on such projects in Kansas this year.
BNSF’s plans in Missouri include 1,507 miles of track surfacing and undercutting work, the replacement of 103 miles of rail and about 122,000 ties, and signal upgrades for federally mandated positive train control (PTC).
In Kansas, the railroad will continue construction of its Kansas City Intermodal Facility in Edgerton. Improvements to the Topeka locomotive shops and signal upgrades for PTC are also on the agenda, as are 619 miles of track surfacing and undercutting work, the replacement of 57 miles of rail and about 247,000 ties.
BNSF recently announced its planned capital program for Nebraska as well.
Schneider, BNSF Extend Intermodal Partnership
May 17th, 2012Schneider National and BNSF Railway have extended their intermodal partnership by signing a multiyear contract, giving customers of the latter “truck-like” reliability as over-the-road capacity tightens.
BNSF has been the primary Western rail provider for Schneider since 2008. Through the agreement, Schneider customers have two service level choices and daily service in all major lanes. The $3.9 billion BNSF plans to spend on capital projects, including the building of an intermodal facility in the Kansas City area, is expected to improve service.
“Schneider’s asset-based intermodal service expertise, combined with BNSF’s commitment to a technologically advanced and efficient rail system, provides customers a proven solution during a time of tight truckload capacity,” said Bill Matheson, president of intermodal services for Schneider National.
Schneider provides intermodal service in the East through a partnership with CSX Transportation, and at Canadian and Mexican border crossings through pacts with Canadian National and Kansas City Southern.
- Mark Szakonyi, The Journal of Commerce.
Railmark Launches New Heating, Lubricant Product Lines
May 16th, 2012Railmark Holdings Inc. has launched two new product lines: RAILheat™ and Ultralube®.
The company said that its RAILheat products include heating panels for crossing gate mechanism boxes, heating panels for locomotives and other equipment, heating wraps for pipes and water tanks in passenger cars and locomotives, heating for locomotive seats, and passenger car electric heating systems. The products employ Far Infrared technology for improved efficiency, Railmark said, with 95% of the energy source used for heat conversion and a 50,000-hour operational life. They contain no metal and have zero emissions, it added. The products are available for a variety of electrical inputs, both AC and DC.
Railmark also said its Railmark Track Works Inc. subsidiary is the exclusive supplier to the railroad industry for a new line of rail curve and switch lubricants manufactured from renewable crop-based oils. The company said the products have four times more lubricity than petroleum-based greases and oils and meet the Environmental Protection Agency’s Environmental Preferable Purchasing (EPP) criteria.
“We are excited to launch these ECO-SAFE products to the railroad industry that will improve operations and reduce our carbon footprint,” said B. Allen Brown, Railmark’s president and CEO, in the company’s announcement. “The promotion of these products coincide with our slogan and commitment to delivering A New Train of Thought….®.”
Amtrak Reorganizes Operations Management
May 14th, 2012Amtrak has announced it is moving forward with reshaping its Operations management structure by creating four business lines: Northeast Corridor Services, Long-Distance Services, State Supported Services and Commuter Services.
DJ Stadtler, the passenger railroad’s new vice president of operations, said that when the reorganization is complete, there will be fewer layers of management from top to bottom so things can happen faster with less bureaucracy.
“Operations is not about moving trains, it’s about moving customers who pay for our services and that must always be what drives our actions,” he said in a written statement.
The initial step in the transition process will be to hire general managers to run each of the four business lines. These general managers will have full accountability for profit and loss of their respective train services, Amtrak said.
Moreover, each major terminal will have a single manager responsible for all train and station services. That manager will be accountable “for ensuring customers arrive at clean stations with excellent ticketing and boarding services, trains depart on-time with superior customer service, and equipment is clean, comfortable and reliable.”
“We are creating ownership of our services within Amtrak and moving decision-making closer to the front-line, while keeping support functions centralized. This approach gives us the ability to better serve customers while maintaining efficiencies that will allow us to achieve our financial goals,” Stadtler said.
The reorganization will occur in phases over the next 16 month, with full transition to the new structure planned for October 2013.
L.B. Foster To Sell Shipping Systems Unit Acquired with Portec
May 14th, 2012L.B. Foster Co. (NASDAQ: FSTR) plans to sell its railway securement business, which it obtained as part of its acquisition of Portec Rail Products, Inc.
The rail supplier said the business unit, which manufactures chain, cable and strap tie down systems for vehicle and load securement in rail freight applications, has 35 employees and facilities in Chicago and in Kenova, W. Va.
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania-based L.B. Foster said it expects the transaction to be completed by the end of the second quarter but shared no other details of the sale.
Bombardier To Supply Seven TRAXX Locomotives for Scandinavian Freight Service
May 11th, 2012Bombardier Transportation has obtained an order for seven Bombardier TRAXX F140 AC locomotives, with delivery expected in the fourth quarter of this year.
Under the contract, which is valued at approximately 24 million euros (US$31 million US), Bombardier will supply the locomotives to Bure Equity AB, which has purchased them to lease to train operator RushRail AB. Bure earlier this week announced plans to obtain a 30% equity stake in RushRail.
RushRail will use the locomotives in freight service in Sweden and Norway. The company in April won a multi-year contract from logistics firm Trätåg AB under which it will transport timber and other forest products by rail from the timber terminals of Stora Enso and Korsnäs, which together own Trätåg, to their production sites around central Sweden.
Bombardier plans to build the locomotives at its plant in Kassel, Germany, although components will be manufactured at other sites in both Germany and Poland.
Rail Traffic Continues Mixed for Major U.S. Lines, AAR Reports
May 11th, 2012Rail traffic continued to be mixed on reporting U.S. railroads in the week ending May 5, 2012, the Association of American Railroads (AAR) said, as they originated 276,136 carloads, down 2% compared with the same week last year. Intermodal volume for the week totaled 239,031 trailers and containers, up 3% compared with the same week last year.
Short lines had year-over-year growth in traffic, according to RMI’s RailConnect Index of Short Line Traffic, continuing the pattern seen the previous week. Overall carloads - including intermodal - were up 2.9% to 127,635. Intermodal volume for short lines was up 14.4%, to 11,914 carloads, while other traffic was up 1.9% to 115,721 carloads.
The AAR said that major U.S. railroads reported increases for 14 of the 20 carload commodity groups compared with the same week in 2011, led by petroleum products, which were up 47%; motor vehicles and equipment, up 31.2%; and lumber and wood products, up 23.1%. Grain (down 22.7%), farm products excluding grain (down 11.9%), and coal (down 10.1%) saw the steepest declines.
Canadian and Mexican railroads reported higher carload and intermodal volumes. Mexican railroads originated 13,943 carloads for the week, up 0.1%, and 8,522 trailers and containers, up 9.7%. Canadian railroads reported 81,102 carloads for the week, up 4.1% compared with the same week in 2011, and 54,659 trailers and containers, up 9.4%.
For further details, consult the AAR’s weekly rail traffic charts and RMI’s RailConnect Index of Short Line Traffic.
LaHood Announces Changes to PTC Regulations
May 10th, 2012U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood on May 10 announced changes to regulations governing the installation of positive train control (PTC) equipment.
The Rail Safety Improvement Act of 2008 (RSIA) mandates installation of PTC systems by December 2015 on rail lines that carry at least five million gross tons of freight annually, on Class I railroads that ship PIH commodities, and on lines where intercity passenger rail and commuter service are regularly operated.
Under the revisions announced today, railroads will no longer have to conduct risk analyses to obtain approval to not install PTC or take other costly risk mitigation measures on an estimated 10,000 miles of track that will not carry passenger trains or poison inhalation hazard (PIH) commodities after December 2015.
The changes are a response to the government-wide review of regulations that President Obama called for earlier this year.
“These changes will provide significant regulatory relief, while ensuring that safety remains our highest priority,” LaHood said in the announcement.
STB Proposes New Demurrage Rule
May 10th, 2012Responding to a conflict among federal circuit courts in recent decisions, the Surface Transportation Board has proposed a rule intended to clarify responsibility for demurrage charges.
In its notice of proposed rulemaking, the STB observed that the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals, in Norfolk S. Ry. v. Groves (Groves), 586 F.3d 1273, 1278 (11th Cir. 2009), cert. denied, 131 S.Ct. 993 (2011), and the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, in CSX Transp. Co. v. Novolog Bucks Cnty. (Novolog), 502 F.3d 247 (3d Cir. 2007), had issued differing opinions on “virtually identical facts” regarding demurrage disputes, prompting the board to publish an advance notice of proposed rulemaking in December 2010 as it looked to resolve the conflict.
The STB has now proposed regulatory changes after consideration of comments received in response to that advance notice, in the form of a new 49 CFR Part 1333.
Under the proposal, any shipper or receiver of rail cars, whether designated as a consignor, consignee, or otherwise, may be subject to demurrage liability in accordance with the terms of the carrier’s demurrage tariff if it does not reject rail cars that the carrier has tendered, provided the shipper or receiver has received actual notice of the demurrage tariff. Moreover, a party acting as agent for another is not liable for demurrage if it has provided the rail carrier with actual notice of its agency status and of the identity of the principal for which it is acting.
“We expect this rule to bring clarity to what has become a murky legal area,” said STB Chairman Daniel R. Elliott III in the board’s announcement of the proposal. “It should simplify the roles and responsibilities of all parties in the chain of rail car movements, realigning them with actual industry practices and enhancing efficiency of movements.”
Comments on the proposed rule are due by June 25, 2012.
Content Sections
More Headlines
- BNSF Announces Capital Program Plans for Missouri, Kansas
- Schneider, BNSF Extend Intermodal Partnership
- Railmark Launches New Heating, Lubricant Product Lines
- Amtrak Reorganizes Operations Management
- L.B. Foster To Sell Shipping Systems Unit Acquired with Portec
- Bombardier To Supply Seven TRAXX Locomotives for Scandinavian Freight Service
- Rail Traffic Continues Mixed for Major U.S. Lines, AAR Reports
- LaHood Announces Changes to PTC Regulations
- STB Proposes New Demurrage Rule
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