Rail Workers Weekly News Digest
Number 27 - September 24th, 2019
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Below is a series of articles compiled over the previous week.
They are of interest to railroad workers.
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Article 1
Railroad Workers United adds a Rail Unity Petition to its Campaign for Coordinated Bargaining.
RWU urges all union rail workers in the U.S. to sign the petition urging rail labor union leaders to form a united front for upcoming bargaining
.
For nearly 150 years organized rail labor has been divided into craft unions. At one time, 26 different unions represented workers on the railroads of the U.S. alone! Through mergers and craft obsolescence, this number has been now reduced to the current 13 or so.
The history of this cumbersome and divisive quagmire of rail labor has often been one of ineffectual bargaining, sellouts, back-stabbing, and even union scabbing.
The failure of rail labor to unite and remain united when bargaining has historically been one of the greatest impediments to railroad workers achieving good contracts and job security.
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Article 2
NTSB investigation prompts safety recommendations to Class Is, ASLRRA
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) yesterday issued safety recommendations to Class Is and the American Short Line and Regional Railroad Association (ASLRRA) as a result of the agency's ongoing investigation into a fatal accident involving two Union Pacific Railroad trains in Wyoming last year.
The Oct. 4, 2018, accident occurred when a UP train collided with the rear of a stationary UP train in Granite Canyon, Wyoming. The engineer and conductor of the striking train were killed; three locomotives and 57 rail cars of the striking train and nine rail cars of the stationary train derailed, according to an NTSB report.
Prior to the accident, the crew of the striking train reported problems with the train's air brake system and radioed the UP Harriman Dispatch Center to advise officials that the train had accelerated to 50 mph and the crew was unable to stop it.
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Article 3
Rail and Trucks Go Head to Head as Teething Troubles With PSR Implementation Abate
Railroads are making headway with PSR implementation and may be re-introducing dropped intermodal routes. What will be the upshot for trucks?
Trucks are hearing the distant rumblings of an approaching freight train that they would rather see derailed. Precision scheduled railroading (PSR) may finally be paying off for railroads. Operating ratios have improved, and two rail companies are considering the reintroduction of intermodal routes, which could be to the detriment of trucks.
Here's the latest on freight and how PSR -- a system that streamlines operations and schedules -- has Union Pacific (NYSE:UNP) and CSX (NASDAQ:CSX) poised to upset trucks.
A decision is imminent among railroads on the reintroduction of intermodal routes that were dropped during PSR implementation. Intermodal shipping uses two modes of freight, such as truck and rail, to transport goods from shipper to consignee. A container is moved by truck to rail, then back to a truck to complete the process.
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Article 4
Alberta Premier wants to let oil producers exceed curtailments if they ship by rail
Alberta Premier Jason Kenney says it’s likely his government will allow oil producers to exceed their provincially imposed output caps if they can ship those extra barrels by rail.
Energy Minister Sonya Savage is in “very serious discussions” with producers this week on the idea of exempting incremental rail shipments from curtailment, and the plan is tied to the province’s sale of crude-by-rail contracts that were signed by the previous government, Kenney said in an interview in Bloomberg’s office in New York. The province is making progress on the crude-by-rail sale, which has attracted 16 bids, he said.
“If we can find a way out on that, we think can very likely find a way forward to exempting incremental crude by rail from curtailment through special production allowances,” Kenney said Monday.
Under the right circumstances,
Alberta oil producers could be shipping more than 300,000 barrels of crude by rail a day, up from the current roughly 150,000 barrels a day, he said. The province’s crude-by-rail shipping capacity is about 500,000 barrels a day
, he said.
Alberta last year introduced a curtailment policy as a supply glut, created by transportation constraints, depressed Canadian oil prices. Suncor Energy Inc., Canadian Natural Resources Ltd., Imperial Oil Ltd. and Cenovus Energy Inc. are the province’s top oil producers by volume.
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Article 5
The Shift to Electric Vehicles Factors In a Strike Against GM
Like other automakers, General Motors is preparing for a mostly electric future. The catch is that building those cars requires a lot fewer workers.
When United Automobile Workers members walked off the job at 33 General Motors sites around the US on Sunday morning, perhaps the most … striking detail was that they only numbered 46,000. The last time the UAW’s GM workers went on strike, in 2007, they were 73,000 strong. And that was a fraction of the 259,000 US hourly production workers GM employed in 1991.
UAW membership has ticked upward in recent years, recovering from its post-financial-crisis nadir. Now it faces a new threat from the next great shift for the auto industry. The electric car may be great for the planet and glorious for drivers, but it’s no good for jobs.
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Article 6
US rail traffic down for 7th straight month in August
Rail traffic was down for intermodal and carload volume in August compared to the same time last year, according to numbers from the Association of American Railroads.
U.S. railroads originated 1,055,386 carloads in August and 1,089,849 intermodal containers, which are down 4.6% and 5.4% respectively from the same period of time in 2018.
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Total U.S. freight carloads have fallen on a year-over-year basis for seven straight months, and that’s true even after excluding coal and grain, the major rail commodities least sensitive to overall economic health
," AAR Senior Vice President John T. Gray said in a statement.
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Article 7
California panel OKs bond issue for Virgin Trains' Las Vegas service
Virgin Trains' proposed project "will transform" transportation in Southern California and Las Vegas by providing a fast connection that reduces traffic congestion and air pollution, Ma said.
"But it will do far more," she added. "It's a regional kick starter that will usher in a new era of economic development in San Bernardino County by creating jobs, housing, retail and commercial activity."
Once built, Virgin Trains expects to eventually operate 32 trains from Victorville, California, to Las Vegas that would cover the 180-mile distance in about 90 minutes. The trains, which would carry up to 600 riders, would reach speeds of more than 150 mph.
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Article 8
Lawmakers' bill would require safety review of LNG by rail
House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) and U.S. Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-N.J.) have introduced legislation that would require a comprehensive review into the transport of liquefied natural gas (LNG) by rail tank cars.
The bill (H.R. 4306) follows President Donald Trump's executive order, issued in April, which called U.S. Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao to fast-track a process that would enable LNG to be moved through the United States in rail tank cars within 13 months.
In June, the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) and the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) took steps to allow LNG by rail "despite having little information about the possible risks to local communities," DeFazio and Malinowski said Sept.16 in a press release.
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