Author: Frank N. Wilner

STB Chairman Martin J. Oberman
Commentary

STB’s Torment of Precautions

WATCHING WASHINGTON, RAILWAY AGE, NOVEMBER 2023 ISSUE: Napoleon Bonaparte observed that “the torment of precautions often exceeds the dangers to be avoided.” Union Army General George B. McClellan was so tormented that he failed to pursue the Confederate army more aggressively. Most recently, the Surface Transportation Board (STB) appears afflicted with the torment—immobilized to take definitive action to protect captive shippers (those lacking effective transportation alternatives to a single railroad) from rail market power abuse.

Commentary

Budget Hocus Pocus Targets Rail Workers

WATCHING WASHINGTON, RAILWAY AGE, SEPTEMBER 2023 ISSUE: Deep within the enigma of the federal budget process is a paradoxical scheme to reduce—without actually reducing—red ink. While congressional fiscal hocus pocus is not

Commentary

Will Supreme Court Defang STB, FRA?

WATCHING WASHINGTON, RAILWAY AGE AUGUST 2023 ISSUE: What the Supreme Court giveth, the Supreme Court taketh—its reach and grasp primed to terminate or limit four decades of judicial permissiveness that grants federal regulatory agencies, such as the independent Surface Transportation Board (STB) and Executive Branch Federal Railroad Administration (FRA), license to interpret what is ambiguous or unclear in statutes they administer.

Commentary

‘Shockah’: UP Pursues Self Interest

“Shockah” as they might say in “Bahsten” about Union Pacific’s (UP) May 3 federal court filing asking that the Surface Transportation Board’s (STB) approval of a Canadian Pacific-Kansas City Southern marriage creating

Commentary

RIP Bud Shuster: A Railroad Friend, Indeed

Former Rep. Elmer Greinert (Bud) Shuster (R-Pa.), who served in Congress as a House member for almost 30 years, and who is best remembered for his leadership of the Transportation and Infrastructure (T&I) Committee, died April 19. He was 91.

Gus A. Owen, a former Republican Member of the ICC and its successor STB, died last month at age 89.
  • News

Former STB Member Owen Dies

Gus A. Owen, a Republican Member of the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) and its successor Surface Transportation Board (STB) from Oct. 4, 1994 to Dec. 31, 1998, died Dec. 17, 2022 at age 89.

Commentary

Socialists Eyed in BLET Prez Loss

Dennis R. Pierce is out as President of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (BLET) following his election defeat by Edward A. Hall, who will take office Jan. 1. Although an

Pierce Out as BLET President (Updated)

Official as of Dec. 17, three days after his opponent—Edward A. Hall—declared victory, Dennis R. Pierce is out as President of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (BLET) following 12 years

Commentary

Rail Labor’s Risky Gambit

“Biden stabs unions and workers in the back,” shouted a headline describing rail labor’s reaction following the President’s Dec. 2 signing into law of a congressional resolution (H.J. Res. 100) imposing on