At Railway Age’s Eighth Annual Rail Insights Conference, to be held virtually June 23, Surface Transportation Board Chair Martin J. Oberman will cover freight railroad service, reciprocal switching, supply chain congestion, labor shortages and Amtrak access—among the controversial issues the Board has been addressing during recent hearings.
We hosted another Suds with Seidl event featuring leaders across the railroad industry. Rail service continues to be severely challenged, although there have been some slight improvements in recent weeks. Rails continue to have tremendous pricing freedom, and are capitalizing despite service metrics. Intermodal demand remains high, although the recent Blume Global supply chain management platform cyberattack outage has impacted service.
FreightCar America closed first-quarter 2022 with “significantly improved results” in spite of “persistent inflationary and supply chain challenges,” President and CEO Jim Meyer said during a May 10 earnings report that also announced his 2023 retirement.
The May 2022 issue of Railway Age is available digitally, showcasing the honorees of our third-annual Readers’ Influential Leaders poll and covering signal failure avoidance, North American locomotive fleet stats, and more.
Newly released data from the Railway Supply Insitute American Railway Car Institute Committee (ARCI) shows orders and deliveries remaining steady in Q122. The total backlog grew by approximately 7.4%, to 46,208, compared to
Columbus, Ohio-based Cathcart Rail has signed an agreement to purchase The Andersons’ railcar repair business. The deal is expected to close this summer; terms were not disclosed.
David Shannon has been selected as the first General Manager of RailPulse, a coalition of railcar owners, builders and operators whose aim is to “facilitate and accelerate the adoption of GPS and other telematics technology across the North American railcar network to significantly increase visibility, efficiency and safety.”
American Industrial Transport, Inc. (AITX) has appointed Eric Baltz as Chief Financial Officer. Baltz joins AITX following 14 years with coal producer Peabody Energy, most recently as Senior Vice President and Chief Accounting Officer.
Trinity Industries, Inc. reported first-quarter results “highlighted by strong orders and deliveries,” according to President and CEO Jean Savage.
North American railcar utilization higher than 99% and lease renewals of 80% helped drive a solid first-quarter 2022 for GATX. Net income and diluted EPS more than doubled, compared to the year-ago period.
