Editor's Note: Amtrak plans to divide its operations into three subsidiaries, a restructuring with potentially significant consequences for railroad workers and the traveling public. Its board has generously allotted the public two minutes apiece to comment, while making clear that no questions will be answered and no discussion entertained. There is something profoundly revealing about an institution supported by public money treating public accountability as a one-way conversation. The people who operate, maintain, fund, and depend upon this railroad deserve considerably more than the privilege of speaking into the silence.

Trains Pro / October 24th

WASHINGTON — Amtrak’s board of directors will hold an online meeting on Nov. 10 to hear public comments on its plan to restructure the company into three divisions.

The meeting will be held from 2 p.m. to 3 p.m. ET. It will offer the public the opportunity to speak on a first-come, first-served basis, with up to 2 minutes to deliver remarks. Amtrak’s announcement says the board will not provide an update or presentation on its “Transformation Initiative,” answer questions, or respond in real time to public comments.



Advance registration is required and can be completed here. Access details will be provided closer to the meeting.

Editor's Note: While the author focuses on these three routes, the entire Amtrak network is experiencing unprecedented growth and passenger demand in recent years. Unfortunately this comes at a time of severe capacity constraints - especially among the "long-distance" trains - as for decades, each Amtrak administration has fought to simply keep the system operating and fending off attacks from hostile politicians (e.g Regan, Bush II, and Trump), kicking the can down the road when it came to spending on new modern rolling stock. The company is paying dearly for that now with these endless capacity constraints, sold out trains, and the loss of millions of would-be passengers if they could only obtain an accomodation aboard to travel.

TrainsPRO / October 19th

Fact-finding expeditions on Amtrak’s far-flung long-distance network usually reveal positives and negatives of a complex operation and its aging Superliner equipment. A recent trip aboard the Coast Starlight and California Zephyr, substituting for a planned journey aboard the Empire Builder, was no exception.

The eastbound Builder remains especially challenged because mechanical maladies and BNSF congestion in Montana seldom leave enough time for equipment from a late-arriving westbound No. 7 to meet its scheduled 5½-hour turn for the eastbound departure. So it was inevitable that investigating that service would have to wait when No. 8 was canceled outright on Oct. 1, after the westbound train got stuck for 12 hours behind a freight derailment at Minot, N.D.

Editor's Note: The author brilliantly lays out how the privately held rail system in the U.S. has managed to put the kibosh on the successful expansion of passenger rail. His conclusion? Public ownership of the railroads - as Caltrain has done from San Fran to San Jose - is the solutiuon. RWU would go one step further and state that the privately held rail industry has not only dramatically thwarted the expansion of passenger rail, it has proven to be a major impediment to the growth and development of rail freight as well. Remember, for twenty years now, freight rail loadings are down, moving less than 80% of what was hauled in 2006, a generation earlier.

Climate & Transit YouTube Channel / October 3rd

Editor's Note: As referenced in a separate article in this issue of the Rail & Labor News, North American rail freight has experienced a surge in traffic this past year, partly due to dramatically rising fuel costs. Imagine if the orgy of profit making by the Class Ones in recent decades had been - instead of going towards hundreds of billions in stock buy-backs, huge dividends and all the rest - invested in electrification (like the rest of the world's railroads). We could at this point truly be experiencing a railroad renaissance in North America.

Editor's Note: Whether attempting to merge or not, North American Class One rail freight carriers are more profitable than ever. Ironically, it is not because of their brilliance but in spite of it. The escalating truck driver "shortage," combined with numerous trucking company bankruptcies and record fuel costs, have all combined to drive countless carloads of freight off the highways and onto rail this past year. The tariffs - or more likely threat of tariffs - has caused a huge spike in imports this past year as retailers stock up, again resulting in more rail freight. The rail industry has been the beneficiary of all of these factors beyond its control. Minus these external factors, one would have expected the same lackluster performance, losing market share to other transport modes.

FreightWaves / October 22nd

Union Pacific reported record third-quarter revenue and profits as higher volume, pricing, and efficiency gains more than offset the impact of rising fuel prices and inflation.

“Union Pacific’s third-quarter results demonstrate our ability to safely deliver the service we sold our customers while efficiently handling 6% volume growth,” Chief Executive Jim Vena said on the railroad’s (NYSE: UNP) earnings call today.

Editor's Note: Union Pacific CEO Jim Vena likened negotiations over the proposed Norfolk Southern merger to a game of poker, as though the future of the nation’s railroads were his to wager. The tracks were laid, the freight moved, and the wealth accumulated through generations of labor, yet those who built and sustain this industry are left to question what their future holds. When a corporation seeks unprecedented control over the nation’s rail network, transparency is an obligation, not a bargaining chip. The working people whose livelihoods depend upon these railroads deserve a voice in their future, not a seat at a table where their interests are treated as part of the stakes.

Stop the Rail Merger Coalition

WASHINGTON, D.C. — During UP’s earnings call this week, Jim Vena, CEO of Union Pacific, made a series of provocative comments that are likely to draw additional scrutiny as regulators continue reviewing the proposed Union Pacific–Norfolk Southern merger.

Asked by analysts about Surface Transportation Board (STB) Member Richard Kloster’s recent criticism of the merger application, Vena questioned whether Kloster had fully reviewed and understood the company’s application:

Editor's Note: There are a lot of trains, tracks, and roadways on a largely flat landscape in Ohio. Together with the legal statute known as "federal preemption" (see below), and it comes as not surprise that the Buckeye state is mired in blocked crossings.

Editor's Note: The rail industry block road crossing coast-to-coast with reckless abandon. It knows that federal judges - and politicians - are there to rescue it from state legislation designed to thwart the practice. Under this process known as "federal preemption," the rail carriers have little to no incentive to move their trains off of public roadways.

Editor's Note: The rail carrier did not comment on this incident. Blown turbo charger perhaps? These sorts of line-of-road failures due to lack of maintenance are all too common these days. They go mostly of course unnoticed. This one just happened to be on a high profile train - the "Director';s Special."

Editor's Note: RWU has been a member of RUN for nearly a decade now. We are proud of our efforts to build alliance with passenger train advocacy groups like them as well as the Rail Passengers association. Rail workers and our unions must come together with environmentl and community groups as well to more effectively win our objectives.

Editor's Note: CSX has eliminated another 109 management positions in its engineering department, following 166 management layoffs earlier this year, all in the familiar pursuit of a more efficient railroad. Fifty-one employees have been offered severance, while the company assures the public that its ability to safely maintain the network will remain intact. But the physical demands of maintaining a railroad do not diminish simply because fewer people are employed to oversee the work. Efficiency measured by positions eliminated tells us remarkably little about the condition of the tracks, the burdens placed upon those who remain, or the true cost of decisions made far from the right-of-way.

Editor's Note: Union Pacific and Metra are locked in a dispute over the price of operating commuter trains on three Chicago-area rail lines, with UP demanding a $618 million financial guarantee while Metra proposes a fraction of that amount. The railroad is entitled to fair compensation for the use of its tracks, but the public also has a legitimate interest in a rail network that serves more than the financial ambitions of its owners. Generations of railroad workers built and maintained these lines, and thousands of commuters depend upon them to earn their living. When the essential machinery of public transportation becomes the subject of such extraordinary financial demands, we are reminded how much of the public good remains subject to private control.

TrainsPRO / October 19th

WASHINGTON — Union Pacific and Metra have dramatically different views of what the commuter operator should pay while the Surface Transportation Board settles their dispute over fees for operating commuter trains on UP tracks in the Chicago area.

Metra is essentially seeking to maintain the terms that existed under a purchase of service agreement that expired in June 2025. It says that until a compensation amount is settled, it should continue paying UP according to that contract, which it has been doing. Union Pacific, meanwhile, argues that Metra should pay according to the contract UP imposed on July 1, 2025, as well as back pay beginning in September 2025.

Editor's Note: Back to Ohio, yet again! Here is a recent incident where a blocked crossing resulted in a huge delay to emergency services' arrival on the scene of a house fire. Due to their late arrival after a lengthy detour arounbd the train, a house suffered more severe damage and a life was lost.

Editor's Note: Countless rail insiders - including the former STB Chair Marty Oberman - are weighing in on the proposed merger. At the STB, Oberman held the industry accountable for its hostility to passenger rail, its self-inflicted melt-down in 2022/23, and called the industry out for some of its most aggregious failures.

Stop the Rail Merger Coalition / October 19th

Former STB Chairman Martin J. Oberman says merger application falls short of the 2001 rules’ “show me” standard on benefits, truck conversions, and competition.