Know your colors and words: Canadian Pacific has filed a preliminary proxy statement and accompanying “BLUE” proxy card with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to be used to solicit votes of Kansas City Southern (KCS) shareholders to vote “AGAINST” the proposed CN-KCS combination at a scheduled Aug. 19, 2021 KCS special shareholders meeting.
Four organizations representing private freight car owners have petitioned the Surface Transportation Board to institute a rulemaking that would update the demurrage and accessorial rules governing the railroads’ use and handling of their equipment.
Surface Transportation Board (STB) Chairman Martin J. Oberman has called on the CEOs of the seven North American Class I’s to provide information on the extent of congestion at key U.S. container terminals and on their policies and practices for assessing container demurrage fees, citing reports of “substantial charges being levied by the railroads for container storage at these terminals.”
CN followed potential merger partner Kansas City Southern (KCS) in reporting financial results for second-quarter 2021, noting C$3.598 billion in revenues—an increase of 12% over the prior-year period—and a 13% increase in revenue ton-miles (RTMs).
Northern California’s Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit (SMART) has assumed freight operations and common carrier duties from Northwestern Pacific Railroad Company in Marin, Napa and Sonoma counties, after acquiring right-of-way from the North Coast Railroad Authority.
CSX and Norfolk Southern (NS) are calling on the Surface Transportation Board (STB) to deny “as moot” Amtrak’s renewed request for an interim order requiring the Class I railroads to provide track access between New Orleans and Mobile so Amtrak can prepare for proposed Gulf Coast service.
In 1913, three years prior to taking his seat on the Supreme Court, Justice Louis Brandeis wrote in Harper’s Weekly that “sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants; electric light the most efficient policeman.”
Amtrak on July 8 said it will renew its request that the Surface Transportation Board (STB) intervene on its behalf if CSX and Norfolk Southern (NS) don’t cooperate on hosting new passenger service between New Orleans and Mobile.
Kansas City Southern (KCS) stockholders will vote on the railroad’s proposed combination with CN on Aug. 19.
President Biden on July 9 will sign an Executive Order directing federal regulators to “confront consolidation and perceived anticompetitive pricing” in the railroad and ocean shipping industries, among many others, “as part of a broad effort to blunt the power of big business to dominate industries,” according to a July 8 Wall Street Journal story by reporters Tedd Mann and Andrew Restuccia.
