Rail & Labor News from RWU
| | Weekly Digest Number 40 - September 30th, 2025 | | Welcome to the RWU Rail & Labor News! This news bulletin is produced and emailed out each Tuesday morning. We hope you find each week's news and information useful. If so, please share with co-workers, friends, and colleagues. If you like, you can sign them up to get all the news from RWU HERE. Or forward them the link. Got a hot tip? Please forward the article and a link to raillabornews@gmail.com. Note: If you read over this news bulletin each week, you will be sure to never miss the important news of what is going on in the railroad world from a worker's perspective! | | THIS WEEK'S RAIL AND LABOR NEWS | | Editor's Note: The gilded architects of this latest merger would have you believe that binding two leviathans together will birth a golden age of efficiency. They forget.. or pretend to forget, that the railroads were never built for stock tickers but for people, towns, and industries that depended on them. Rose reminds us that today’s consolidation fever is not the byproduct of necessity but of boardroom vanity. No crisis demands it, no shipper asked for it, and no worker will be spared its fallout. A transcontinental railroad may look majestic on a PowerPoint slide, but on the ground it risks being too big to operate, too fragile to endure, and too indifferent to serve. | |
Trains Turntable: Commentary from Matthew K. Rose / September 22
Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern railroads have proposed a merger — what could possibly be wrong with a transcontinental railroad?
First, there exists no financial crisis in the rail industry, like that which drove the significant consolidation in the freight rail industry over the last 30 years. The proposed merger is driven by management and a micro-minority of activist stockholders, not for the benefit of shippers, employees, or even most investors.
Second, risk of merger integration and ongoing operational failures of a nationwide rail network is significant. Transcontinental railroads, given their size, are too big to run but not too big to fail.
Finally, the merger puts industrial and commodity shippers at a disadvantage — the very U.S. industries that President Donald Trump is seeking to promote. Let me explain.
| | Editor's Note: Joe Hinrichs did something rare in today’s industry.. he walked the yards, spoke to crews, and earned a measure of trust from the people who keep CSX running. That counted for little once Ancora, an activist fund with a taste for mergers and boardroom blood sport, demanded change. The directors complied, trading a leader who listened for one groomed in the gas trade, prized for his deal-making pedigree rather than his bond with the rank-and-file. Workers lose a voice they could reach, replaced by a figure meant to please markets and prime the railroad for consolidation. Once again, the men and women on the ballast are reminded that Wall Street’s hand on the throttle pulls harder than theirs ever will. | | |
Stuart Chirls / September 29
CSX Corp. today announced that its Board of Directors has named Steve Angel as president and chief executive, effective Sept. 28.
Angel, former CEO of gas and engineering giant Linde who had served as chairman of that company since 2022, succeeds Joe Hinrichs, who had been president, CEO, and board member.
Angel was also appointed to the CSX (NASDAQ: CSX) board.
The move comes as a surprise, as Hinrichs on Friday had hosted a high-profile media event to mark the re-opening of the Howard Street tunnel, a linchpin in the railroad’s plans to expand intermodal traffic into the Port of Baltimore.
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Stuart Chirls / September 24
Union Pacific this week traded job protections for the backing by its largest union of its proposed takeover of Norfolk Southern.
The tie-up would create a transcontinental freight rail colossus with more than 50,000 employees operating 52,000 miles of track in 43 states. About 80% of those workers are unionized.
That could be problematic as far as job guarantees are concerned, since a railroad typically assigns an employee just about anywhere on its system, particularly if that person, such as SMART-TD train crew and yardmasters, is lower down on the seniority list.
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| Editor's Note: Seven straight months of decline tell the story: rail’s share of North American trade is slipping even as total freight holds steadier. Behind the numbers are shippers shifting lanes, supply chains rerouting, and a network unable.. or unwilling, to compete for its own future. | |
Bureau of Transportation Statistics
Transborder freight moved by rail between the United States, Canada and Mexico in July fell 10.1% to $14.4 billion in value compared to July 2024, the U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics announced yesterday.
The value of total transborder freight moved in July between the three North American countries declined 1.1% to $132.6 billion of freight moved by all modes of transportation. July 2025 is the bureau's latest month of transborder freight data. The value of freight moved by rail between the United States and Canada in July totaled $6.5 billion, while the value of freight moved by rail between the United States and Mexico totaled $7.9 billion.
July is the seventh consecutive month in 2025 that the value of North American transborder freight moved by rail between the three nations has declined.
| | Editor's Note: Ninety-three engineers, three and a half percent. It is progress, yes, but measured in inches while the cost of living runs miles. Still, even the smallest contracts are reminders that nothing moves.. not a commuter line, not a nation, without the hands on the throttle. | |
Progressive Railroading
The Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (BLET) announced yesterday it has reached a tentative agreement with Chicago commuter railroad Metra.
If ratified, the pact would provide 93 BLET members with a 3.5% general wage increase.
The agreement covers BLET members who operate the Metra-UP Lines and are represented by the Union Pacific Northern Region General Committee of Adjustment, BLET officials said in a press release yesterday.
| | Editor's Note: The non-profit Go Rail is a front for the rail industry. We desperately need investment in freight rail, for sure. But to invest in Class One physical plant infrastructure is corporate welfare, pure and simple. The freight railroads have generated hundreds of billions in profits in recent decades, yet little is invested in much of what is listed here in terms of what is needed. Oh, and notice that the GoRail industry apologists slip in "rejection of economic re-regulation that could stifle private rail investment," as if to say that the Class Ones would be investing heavily in the railroad ... as long as the government stays out of their business and lets them regulate themselves. What a joke. | |
Progressive Railroading
Hundreds of local, state and national leaders from 48 states and the District of Columbia are urging Congress to prioritize investment in freight rail in the upcoming surface transportation reauthorization bill.
In a group letter coordinated by national nonprofit GoRail, the leaders asked House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee and the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee members to consider the role freight-rail systems have in the U.S. economy as federal lawmakers prepare legislation to reauthorize federal spending on surface transportation programs. The existing law, the Infrastructure and Investment Jobs Act of 201, expires on Sept. 30, 2026. The group letter was signed by state legislators, mayors, county commissioners, business leaders, economic development officials and former U.S. transportation secretaries of transportation.
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Open Access railway operation is a divisive topic. Whilst there have been undoubted success stories with major communities such as Hull and Bradford previously sidelined by the big operators suddenly being reconnected with through services to London, there have been challenges. How much do Open Access services abstract from existing operators, and can they really claim to be operated entirely at the risk of the open access operator, free from public subsidy?
Richard went to Taunton to meet GO-OP Chair Alex Lawrie and Vice Chair David Northey to find out.
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Progressive Railroading
The Canadian Transportation Agency (CTA) has received the official application for developing the Lac-Megantic rail bypass, moving the long-awaited project a step closer to construction, federal Transport Minister Steven MacKinnon announced last week.
The application includes environmental studies, consultation reports, as well as a well monitoring plan. The documents will be made available online as part of the public consultation process, which will be launched shortly, according to a Transport Canada press release.
When completed, the 8-mile bypass will route railroad traffic away from downtown Lac-Megantic, Quebec, where a train derailment in 2013 led to the deaths of 47 people and destroyed the city's downtown area.
| | NEWS FROM AROUND THE LABOR MOVEMENT | | Each week, RWU includes a few articles about advances and developments in the larger labor movement that are of interest to railroad workers. Got an artcile to submit for possible inclusion next week? Email it along to raillabornews@gmail.com. Thank you! | |
Shawn Fein
This month marks two years since the United Auto Workers’ (UAW) “stand-up strike.” We made history as a union with that fight. But we’ve got more to win, at the Big Three and beyond.
Our Big Three contract expiration in 2028 is less than a thousand days away. So it’s time to talk about how far we’ve come, how far we have left to go, how we’re going to fight differently so we can win differently, and how we’re going to finally win justice for what the working class lost in the Great Recession — starting with retiree pensions and health care.
| | Editor's Note: More and more, powerful employers - like Class One railroads - think they have a right to discipline and fire workers for expressing their opinions, even when the views expressed by an employee are not on-duty or on the property. Free speech is in the interest of all workers and all unions and must be staunchly defended. But be careful out there, and have your local chairman close at hand if/when you run afoul of your employer. | |
Labor Notes / September 18 / Bill Barry
Today’s firings present a new challenge for union stewards because each case becomes public, playing out on social media and on the national stage. Nonetheless, the same principles hold. Here are some basic steps a steward should take to investigate a possible grievance.
Can a worker be fired simply for expressing an opinion that the boss or a political group finds objectionable? These days online attackers often campaign to pressure employers to fire workers for political speech—even speech that took place on their private social media pages. Stewards have a number of tools at their disposal to defend members from these attacks
| | Editor's Note: Dozens of major U.S. unions - along with groups like Railroad Workers United - have signed on in support of this movement. We urge rail workers to turn out on October 18th and protest the anti-worker, anti-union agenda that has taken hold in Washington. Look for an action near you and join the working class in mass protest on October 18th! | | |
SOUTHERN WORKERS ASSEMBLY | SEP 25
The billionaires are on the offensive, launching attack after attack that’s impacting every section of the working class. Beyond their immediate objectives, they hope that the furious pace of attacks, their consolidation of power, and the uncertainty, division, and fear that is gripping every part of society will keep workers paralyzed and unable to independently intervene to fight back.
On October 18, a “No Kings” national day of action has been called, and demonstrations are being planned in dozens of cities and towns across the United States.
| | WEEKLY DERAILMENT DEPARTMENT | | Each Tuesday in this news bulletin, RWU does our best to present a picture of what has been happening over the course of the previous week in terms of derailments in North America, and investigation determinations of previous accidents. NOTE: This list is by no means comprehensive. Smaller and less consequential mishaps are generally not reported here. If the wreck results in injury or fatality, or is especially damaging/extreme, a full article will appear as a feature in the dozen or so rail articles above. Know of a train wreck? Please feel free to forward a link to raillabornews@gmail.com for possible inclusion next week. Thanks! |
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