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Train cars ignite; engineer uncouples locomotive
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Train cars ignite; engineer uncouples locomotiveRICHMOND, Va. - Two train cars carrying used railroad ties caught fire in Richmond yesterday, prompting the engineer to disconnect the locomotive, authorities told the Times-Dispatch. About 40 firefighters hurried to the scene just north of th...
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Rail, air accidents linked to drowsy operators
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Rail, air accidents linked to drowsy operatorsAviation regulators dont screen commercial pilots for sleep disorders that can trigger deadly mistakes linked to serious accidents in aviation and other forms of transit, according to investigators and sleep experts, the Gannett News Service rep...
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Update on hours of service regulations
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Update on hours of service regulationsNew hours of service regulations go into effect July 16. Although the Rail Safety Improvement Act of 2008 contemplated implementing agreements to be in place in order to coordinate the new law with governing agreement rules, the carriers have largely resist...
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Death by train: A special report
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Death by train: A special reportNEWARK, N.J. -- After all these years, Tom Donovan can't shake the sound, The Star-Ledger reports. "Like hitting a pumpkin," he says. It's the sound of a 400-ton train striking human flesh, a person who, just moments before, had been walking and talking an...
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Out in the yard...
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...two short blasts of the horn! What the..? A few seconds later, hoot-hoot! Sure they're switching, but why two shorts? A few seconds break...then again! Then again! Bastards start at 0530, and continue all day! Fuckin' yard...ain't shit out there, so why are they movin'? They can't be buildin' tr...
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Then there's this. As if we hadn't noticed...
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...with all the furloughs, laid up cars, and sidelined power. But especially the laid off workers. This can be scant comfort ta folks waiting calls. June carloads down 19.7%, intermodal off 18.2% U.S. railroads moved 255,668 fewer carloads of freight in June than they did in June 2008. Total volume...
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Fallen Brother
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UTU member dies in Alabama derailment ALBERTVILLE, Ala. -- UTU member Dustin Moles, 33, a conductor on short line Alabama & Tennessee River Railroad, was killed late Wednesday (June 24) when the train on which he was riding derailed while being switched into a shipper facility, reports the G...
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BNSF & Tacoma Rail collide!
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Trains collide in switch yard Tacoma A BNSF Railway spokesman said two slow-moving freight trains collided Monday evening in a Tacoma switching yard, injuring one person, derailing a locomotive and damaging some containers. Spokesman Gus Melonas said about 1,500 gallons of diesel fuel spilled...
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MBTA may try again to cut secondary train operators
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MBTA may try again to cut secondary train operators (The following story by Noah Bierman appeared on the Boston Globe website on June 14, 2009.) BOSTON They sit in special compartments, surrounded by screens, knobs, and levers. But the employees who work in the rear of MBTA trains have about as much d...
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Ten Years
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Ten years ago today, Conrail disappeared into two other railroads. 'Cept for the shared assets, of course. Nothing has been the same since.
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Railroads cut 697 jobs in April
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Railroads cut 697 jobs in April (The following story by John D. Boyd appeared on the The Journal of Commerce website on June 2, 2009.) WASHINGTON, D.C. If there is good news for rail labor in the latest report on job cuts, its that the decline of freight railroad employment slowed from mid-March to mid-...
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HOS Record Keeping
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The following is a comprehensive FRA doc on the new HOS reporting, record keeping. the PDF is worth the read. PDF via e-mail from my Division Prez
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Metrolink might hire its own crews in wake of deadly crash
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Metrolink might hire its own crews in wake of deadly crash (The following story by Rich Connell and Robert J. Lopez appeared on the Los Angeles Times website on May 28, 2009.) LOS ANGELES In the latest fallout from last year's Metrolink disaster, the Southern California commuter rail agency could be...
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Conductor certification moving forward
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Conductor certification moving forwardThe Rail Safety Improvement Act of 2008 provides that no later than April 2010, the FRA must conduct a rulemaking to determine the principles, elements and methods of conductor certification. The FRA says it is now prepared to move forward on that rulemaki...
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Ohio rail commission OKs stimulus dollars for 22 rail projects
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Ohio rail commission OKs stimulus dollars for 22 rail projects (The following appeared on the Progressive Railroading website on May 26, 2009.) Last week, the Ohio Rail Development Commission (ORDC) approved a plan to administer a package of 22 rail projects funded through federal stimulus doll...
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Railroads seek $70M to ease congestion
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Railroads seek $70M to ease congestionFORT WORTH, Texas -- Two of the nation's largest railroads are seeking $70 million in federal stimulus money to lay tracks at the notoriously congested Tower 55 rail intersection near downtown Fort Worth, the Star-Telegram reported. Construction of a third...
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Metrolink installing video cams in cabs
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Metrolink installing video cams in cabsLOS ANGELES Video cameras will be installed in Metrolink train engines by September to improve safety and to avoid crashes like the one that killed 25 people and injured 130 others in Los Angeles last year, reports the Associated Press. The Metrolink board of...
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FBI searches for railroad bomb suspect
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FBI searches for railroad bomb suspectCHICAGO -- A pipe bomb exploded inside a railroad switching hut shortly before 2:00 am on Tuesday morning, Web site www.myfoxchicago.com reported. The blast gutted the electronics inside the hut, bent the steel latches on the door, and shattered concrete. I...
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Train crew safety bill becomes law in Arkansas
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Train crew safety bill becomes law in Arkansas CLEVELAND, May 14 Railroad workers in Arkansas will now ride in off-duty vehicles with a greater peace of mind, thanks to the combined efforts of the BLETs Arkansas State Legislative Board, their counterparts in the United Transportation Union and th...
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Fallen Brother
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UTU member killed in CSX yard accidentBETHLEHEM, N.Y. - Officials are investigating a fatal accident Sunday (May 10) in the CSX rail yard in Selkirk that killed UTU member Jerod Boehlke, according to news reports. Boehlke died after he was hit by a train in the yard just before 7 p.m. Boehlke, 33, was a...
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Parsec Florida yard employees face layoffs
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Parsec Florida yard employees face layoffsMIAMI - The company that operates Florida East Coast Railroad yards in Miami Springs, Fort Lauderdale and Jacksonville has notified the state that if it loses its contract with Florida East Coast Railroad (FEC), it will have to lay off 142 of its employees...
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Police investigate fatal worker fall in Jersey City
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Police investigate fatal worker fall in Jersey City (The following story appeared on The Star-Ledger website on May 13, 2009.) NEWARK, N.J. Police were investigating the fatal fall of an iron worker last night from a NJ Transit railroad bridge, according to a report on ABC Channel 7. The report said...
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CSX signal maintainer struck and killed by truck
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Rail signalman killed by truck in PennsylvaniaMIDDLETOWN TWP., Pa. A tractor-trailer driven by a 56-year-old New Jersey man yesterday struck and killed a railroad worker who was rewiring a flashing railroad crossing light at the tracks on Big Oak Road, police told the Trenton, N.J., Trentonian....
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Shack
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Police charge conductor in assaultPORTAGE, Ind. -- A conductor on northern Indiana's South Shore commuter rail line has been charged with battery after he allegedly threw a passenger off his train, the Associated Press reported. Forty-eight-year-old Gregory Beach of Valparaiso was charged wi...
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Metrolink settles with chatty employee
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Metrolink settles with chatty employeeLOS ANGELES -- The Southern California regional rail authority that runs Metrolink commuter trains has agreed to pay $135,000 to a former spokeswoman who resigned after announcing the probable cause of a crash that killed 25 people, the Associated Press re...
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