CP ratifies DM&E BLET agreement

Canadian Pacific Railway on Dec. 3, 2015 ratified a multi-year collective agreement with the 300 locomotive engineers, assistant engineers, conductors and brakemen on CP U.S. subsidiary Dakota, Minnesota & Eastern Railway (DM&E) represented by the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (BLET).

FRA C3RS program implemented in Boston

Keolis Commuter Services, the Federal Railroad Administration, the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority and union leaders from the American Train Dispatchers Association, Transportation Communications Union, Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen and SMART Transportation Division on May 8, 2015 signed a memorandum of understanding to implement the FRA’s voluntary Confidential Close Call Reporting System (C3RS).

Metra, unions implementing a C3RS

Management and transportation unions at Chicago’s Metra regional/commuter rail system have entered into an agreement to create a Confidential Close Call Reporting System (C3RS) designed “to proactively address safety issues and create a more positive safety culture,” the agency said.

BLET in catbird seat over crew consist

News item: Vouchsafed to work jointly in gaining legislation or regulation mandating two crew members on every freight train are the Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Union (SMART) and the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (BLET).

BNSF, SMART seek historic crew consist revision

A gutsy, proactive, and far-sighted collaboration between BNSF and a general committee of its largest labor union has produced a tentative agreement to allow freight trains equipped with Positive Train Control (PTC) to operate as early as next year with a lone engineer in the cab and no conventional on-board conductor between specific territories in the Midwest and Pacific Northwest.

BLET ratifies Metra contract

The Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen has ratified a new five-year collective bargaining agreement with Chicagoland’s Metra, affecting approximately 200 locomotive engineers, who operate trains in more than 100 communities at 241 stations in the Greater Chicago area.

SEPTA braces for regional rail strike

SEPTA management appears willing to endure a strike to its regional rail system, possibly beginning this Saturday, June 14, 2014, rather than delay such action until winter, when weather is more severe and system ridership is higher.

Two unions ponder SEPTA strike

Engineers employed by SEPTA’s regional rail operations plan to vote on authorizing a strike against the five-county authority, the national office of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen said Friday, May 16, 2014.

UTU-SMART, BLET to take two-person crew laws to the state level

As part of their ongoing effort to secure a law mandating a minimum of two crew members in all locomotive cabs, the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (BLET) and the United Transportation Union-Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers (UTU-SMART) have provided their state legislative boards with model legislation to secure minimum crew size laws on the state level.

Data drought haunts FRA crew-size mandate

By the Federal Railroad Administration’s own congressional testimony, the years 2012 and 2013 were among the railroads’ safest on record, while the relatively few train crashes were mostly the result of human error and track defects.
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