Rail & Labor News from RWU
| | Weekly Digest Number 41 - October 7, 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: By any measure, this was less a termination than an exorcism. The financiers have driven out another mortal who mistook stewardship for service instead of servitude to Wall Street. Ancora celebrates “shareholder accountability,” but what they’ve really done is tighten the collar on every crew that keeps this machine moving. They call it reform; labor knows it as conquest. The board may think they’ve reclaimed control, but the rails have a long memory.. and they don’t run on hedge fund permission. | |
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Stuart Chirls / September 29
The activist investor that called for CSX to dump Chief Executive Joe Hinrichs got its way Monday, and said the company is now positioned to find its own rail merger partner.
“We applaud the CSX Board of Directors for heeding shareholder feedback and terminating former CEO Joe Hinrichs,” Ancora Holdings said in a statement. “This follows Ancora’s disclosure of its August 2025 letter that laid out the facts about Mr. Hinrichs’ value-destructive tenure and urged the Board to terminate him if he could not quickly position CSX to catch up to the railroads that have embraced the need for transcontinental service in the United States.”
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| Editor's Note: There was a time when railroads spoke for themselves. Now even giants like BNSF appeal to the public for protection from the appetites of larger empires. When a carrier warns of lost competition, it isn’t sentiment.. it’s survival. The monopolists call it a merger; working people know it as the slow burial of choice beneath capital’s weight. The Surface Transportation Board may yet hold a hearing, but the verdict has been written for years: fewer railroads, fewer voices, and the same handful of folks counting the cars and the profits. | |
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Progressive Railroading / October 2
BNSF Railway Co. is encouraging its customers to share their views about preserving rail competition as the Surface Transportation Board prepares to evaluate Union Pacific Railroad's proposed acquisition of Norfolk Southern Railway in an $85 billion deal.
In a Sept. 29 customer notification posted on BNSF's website, BNSF Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer Tom Williams asks customers to voice concerns over issues including how the merger would impact their industries and facilities and the potential for service disruptions.
"The STB cannot assume the full impact of this merger — they need to hear directly from stakeholders like you," Williams wrote. "Your feedback will help ensure that the Board has a clear understanding of the practical implications for shippers, industries and communities."
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| Editor's Note: The dismissal of Robert Primus isn’t bureaucracy.. it’s burglary. An independent board stripped of independence is no board at all, just another lever for those who mistake ownership for authority. Primus’s removal tears at the last thread of democratic oversight in an industry already stitched together by monopoly. The law says board members serve fixed terms; power says otherwise. This fight isn’t about one seat.. it’s about whether regulation still means anything when capital can buy the referee. | |
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Democracy Forward / October 1
Unlawfully dismissed Surface Transportation Board (STB) member Robert E. Primus filed a lawsuit against President Donald Trump and his administration today, asking a federal court to allow him to do his job on the independent board that oversees the economic regulation of railroads and other interstate land and water transportation. Primus was removed from his position on the STB on August 27, 2025, a move that undermines the board’s historic independence. Democracy Forward and Justice Legal Strategies represent Primus in this matter.
Primus has served on the STB since January 7, 2021, and his current term expires on December 31, 2027. Board members are nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate, and are bipartisan as no more than three of the five members can be from the same party.
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| Editor's Note: Given that this merger will be the biggest and most complex in the history of North American railroading, and being that for more than a generation, these mega-mergers have been effectively "off the table" after numerous massive service failures ("melt-downs") in the wake of big mergers in the 1990s, we call on concerned parties to push for as lengthy as review period as possible to allow the time unnecessary to make an informed decision on this matter. | |
Progressive Railroading / September 30
The Surface Transportation Board is seeking public comments on its proposed procedural schedule for reviewing the case of Union Pacific Railroad's proposed $85 billion acquisition of Norfolk Southern Railway. Comments are due Oct. 16.
UP and NS informed the STB on July 30 of their intent to file their proposed merger application before Jan 29, 2026. The railroads proposed to the STB that it will complete its review of the application within a 390-day window. The railroads' proposed schedule also called for a longer comment period than the one listed in STB procedural requirements.
| | Editor's Note: Amtrak was born to save what private railroads abandoned.. and half a century later, it’s still begging for the tools to do the job. The nation wants trains, but Washington funds them like a hobby. Executives promise ridership miracles while passengers ride 40-year-old coaches held together by resolve and duct tape. Doubling demand without doubling investment isn’t ambition, it’s arithmetic fraud. The railroad to the future can’t be built on yesterday’s scraps. | |
| Editor's Note: The rail craft unions continue to play the asinine game of siding with one CEO or another, one group of Board members or another, and one investment group or another. Last year we saw the spectacle where some rail unions sided with NS CEO Shaw, while others came out in favor of the Ancora hedge fund group. At least one union even did an about face in the midst of the squabble! STOP IT! Whoever happens to run the rail corporation is NOT our friend. We should be focusing on organizing our members and our unions to combat these people, not be lured into whipsawing against one another as to who is a better or worse boss. | | |
The union representing maintenance-of-way workers has penned a public letter of support for departed CSX CEO Joe Hinrichs, just days after SMART-TD general chairmen issued a statement critical of Hinrichs’ three-year tenure at the railroad.
“Recent articles have painted Joe Hinrichs harmful to both rail labor and the railroad industry,” the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employes wrote in a Thursday statement. “We believe those portrayals are narrow, shortsighted, and ultimately serve as little more than disinformation. Our union has committed to being truthful and transparent with BMWED members, and that means giving credit where it is due.”
“As a union, we seldom comment on leadership changes within Class I railroads. However, several developments during Joe Hinrichs’s tenure at CSX had a direct and positive impact on BMWED-represented members. Under his leadership, CSX became the first Class I carrier to voluntarily bargain and agree to provide paid sick leave to its unionized workforce,” the union said.
| | Editor's Note: RWU Trustee Ron Kaminkow will join a panel to speak about the UP-NS Merger at this annual conference on Friday, November 14th, noon to 4 Central Time. | |
Rail Users Network
The Rail Users Network is holding its FALL 2025 Virtual Conference on Friday, November 14, 2025 from 1-5 pm est. The conference will focus on new passenger rail and transit rail starts that are already happening or will take place within the next decade. The program also includes a panel presentation on the proposed merger of Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern.
Be sure to register by November 8 so that we can send along the info needed to attend RUN’s Virtual Fall Conference. To register, please go to our web site to register at conference.
| | Editor's Note: The ink on a $600 million settlement was barely dry before the truth began to seep through it. When victims accuse their own lawyers of concealment, it’s not just a legal dispute, it’s a crisis of faith in the system meant to protect them. Norfolk Southern may have written the check, but it seems the cost was paid in silence. A railroad poisons a town, a courtroom certifies the cleanup, and the people of East Palestine are left to prove.. again.. that their pain wasn’t paperwork. Justice delayed is one thing; justice brokered is another. | |
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Mike Gauntner / October 3
A federal judge has given attorneys for East Palestine train derailment victims and the defendant, Norfolk Southern Railway Co., one week to respond to allegations that the landmark $600 million class action settlement reached more than a year ago was secured through fraud and concealment.
The move follows a filing last week by a group of class members who opted into the personal injury portion of the settlement, alleging that their own legal representatives, referred to in court documents as Class Counsel, intentionally hid crucial information regarding health risks.
The development sets the stage for the first detailed defense from the attorneys who negotiated the settlement and from Norfolk Southern, nearly a year after the court granted final approval to the agreement.
The motion, filed on behalf of class members by attorneys Jedidiah I. Bressman and David A. Bressman, contends that the Final Approval Order, entered on Sept. 26, 2024, should be nullified.
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| Editor's Note: How long before a driverless car hits a driverless train? Neither mode can yet be safe without a driver. | |
Econo Times / September 30
Two U.S. senators are pressing federal safety regulators to investigate potential failures in Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (FSD) system, warning of catastrophic risks at railroad crossings. Senators Ed Markey and Richard Blumenthal raised concerns in a letter to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), citing reports of near-collisions where Tesla vehicles allegedly struggled to detect and respond to oncoming trains.
Tesla markets its FSD software as a system capable of handling nearly all driving tasks—from navigation to lane changes and parking—though it still requires driver supervision. The senators cautioned that mistakes at train crossings pose far greater dangers than missed traffic signs or improper lane changes, potentially leading to multi-fatality crashes involving vehicle passengers, train riders, and rail workers.
| | 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! | |
Labor Notes
During their 2023 Stand-Up Strike, the United Auto Workers set the union’s contracts at the Big 3 automakers – General Motors, Stellantis, and Ford – to expire on May 1, 2028. UAW President Shawn Fain called on the rest of the labor movement to join forces by setting their contracts to end on that same day.
Is a coordinated strike the right tactic?
Many of us have experimented with a variety of tactics to fight back: protests, boycotts, legislative efforts. All of these are important tools, but they haven’t delivered the changes we need to win a world where people can thrive, not just survive.
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Labor Notes
Are you and your co-workers organizing against attacks on our democratic rights as workers?
Are you, like an estimated 250,000 workers so far, committing to heed United Auto Workers president Shawn Fain’s call for a coordinated strike?
Are you already planning other ways to be part of a nationwide show of power less than three years from now?
Visit May2028.org for new Labor Notes guides on organizing with your fellow union members, co-workers, and members of your community.
| | 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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