When one rounds up the usual suspects in official Washington—bureaucrats, lobbyists, policy wonks, attorneys—culled are the tourists, often identified by psychedelic art attire, conjuring among children of the ’60s recollections of Dr. Timothy Leary (“turn on, tune in, drop out”).
RAILWAY AGE, AUGUST 2020 ISSUE, ANNUAL WINTER PREPAREDNESS REPORT: Winter preparedness is essential for avoiding frozen equipment, malfunctioning cars, service delays or even suspended operations.
Fail to prepare for winter’s harsh conditions and your railroad will be running on ice—literally and figuratively. One railroad that prepares for winter’s onslaught is BNSF, which has some of the most rugged territory in North America.
A 58-year veteran of the railroad industry, Vincent “Vin” Terrill, 94, died on June 24 at his home in Manchester, Mass.
Mexico has a freight railway system owned by the national government. However, the trains and the network are operated and managed by various private entities under concessions (charters) granted by the national government. Today, Mexico has service from eight concessionaire railway companies. Beyond Kansas City Southern de México, and Ferromex, are the smaller, but important Ferrosur, Ferrovalle, Coahuila-Durango, Ferrocarril Chiapas Mayab, Ferrocarril del Istmo and Ferrocarril Tijuana-Tecate.
RAILWAY AGE, AUGUST 2020 ISSUE: Precision Scheduled Railroading (PSR), as we know it today, is rapidly reaching an inflection point. Escalating trade disruptions, rail strikes, blockades, weather events and the COVID-19 pandemic have highlighted the urgency to make supply chains more resilient. Weaknesses in international supply chains have been exposed, and escalating domestic transportation turmoil demonstrates the need for end-to-end approaches, standards, solutions, and greater service level accountability and safety. PSR has been applied to some Class I’s and has yet to be applied widely to Class II, Class III, tenant and passenger railroads in North America. This gap represents 40% of North American route-miles.
“Permanent changes in trade flows will likely cause the Port of LA to permanently lose about 15% of its market share to Gulf and East Coast ports, a clear negative for Union Pacific but favorable for CSX, Kansas City Southern and Norfolk Southern. COVID-19 has had as large of an effect as the Great Recession. Peak season expectations were mixed to positive, with retail inventory replenishment likely needed.”
“A resuscitation of a long-futile push for railcar scrappage tax subsidies may be under way. While the effort is in its infancy, and the outcome remains speculative, we see success as less of a long shot than it has been at any time in the past. This would be positive for railcar suppliers, including Trinity and Greenbrier, and metals companies such as Schnitzer Steel, Commercial Metals Company, Nucor Corporation and Steel Dynamics.”
Progress Rail, a Caterpillar company, has developed a new battery-powered switcher locomotive, the EMD® Joule, working in collaboration with its South American customer Vale. Progress Rail anticipates global availability of the new switcher locomotive in early 2021.
Nothing burnishes an image like death. Ask Richard Nixon, not that you can, and that’s part of the beauty of the whole process. Once he or she is effectively and permanently silenced, memory can go to work blurring those hard edges, air brushing away those unfortunate blemishes on what some call a soul. And we’re left with “the great contributions.”
The U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) and the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA), in consultation with the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA), issued on June 19 a final rule authorizing the
