RWU
News & Information Service
Rail Workers Weekly News Digest
Number 23 - August 27, 2019
Below is a series of articles compiled over the previous week.
They are of interest to railroad workers.
_____________________________________________
2019-23  Article 1

Union Pacific worker dies in Texas, pinned between 2 tankers


8/21/19 3:56 PM
BEAUMONT, Texas — Investigators say a Union Pacific worker has died after being pinned between two railway tanker cars in Southeast Texas.

The Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office  says  39-year-old Travis Andrepont of Louisiana was killed before dawn Tuesday in Beaumont. Officials didn’t immediately provide a hometown for Andrepont. He died at the scene.

Sheriff’s Capt. Crystal Holmes says the accident happened near a chemical plant. Further details on the investigation weren’t immediately released. Read more ...

See article below as well
2019-23 Article 2

Travis “Bowie” Andrepont Killed in Rail Accident in Beaumont, Texas.


T ravis “Bowie” Andrepont, the secretary/treasurer of Local 1947 in Lake Charles, La., was killed before dawn on Tuesday, Aug. 20, in a rail accident in Beaumont, Texas.Andrepont, 39, of DeQuincy, La., had worked for Union Pacific for 16 years, a UP company spokeswoman told The Associated Press.

Brother Andrepont became a member of SMART Transportation Division in January 2006 and had been the local’s S&T since January 2018. A conductor, he also was secretary of LCA 577 (sUnion Pacific-MP).

“His love for his wife and his children, surpassed everything else,” his obituary read.
He is survived by the love of his life, Paiton Andrepont; one son, Riley; two daughters, Shiloh and Amelia; his mother, Lesa Russell and step father, J. Russell; grandparents, Walton and Dellie Baggett and Audrey Andrepont, all of DeQuincy; one brother, Brian Andrepont of Houston; two sisters, Dawn Lewis and husband David of DeRidder, and Ashley Broussard and husband Jason of Lake Charles. Read more ...

2019-23  Article 3
Hunter Harrison’s Train Overhaul Starts Running Out of Steam

Legacy of industry’s hard-nosed late savant won’t indefinitely prop up railroad operators faced with mounting business challenges


By  Lauren Silva Laughlin

Aug. 23, 2019 5:30 am ET

Until recently, the train business was more than chugging along.
An industrywide move to implement “precision-scheduled railroading”—a system for trimming down wait times and boosting cargo efficiency devised by late railroading savant Hunter Harrison—led to widespread improvements in recent years. This model has been a boon for shareholders of America’s big listed railroads: Union Pacific, Norfolk Southern and CSX.

You must subscribe to read this article ...
2019-23  Article 4

Trump scheming to ship volatile liquid gas by train across U.S.



WASHINGTON—Remember the Lac-Mégantic rail disaster in Quebec six years ago? Donald Trump apparently doesn’t, but rail workers, citizens, and lawmakers concerned about the danger of a natural gas explosion do – and that’s one big reason they’re trying to stop a Trump scheme to ship liquified natural gas by rail in its tracks, literally.

At issue is a plan from Trump’s Transportation Department, specifically from its Pipelines and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA), to let miles-long trains of tank cars filled with liquified natural gas roll through towns and cities.

In an executive order, Trump told DOT on April 10 to draft a rule to let those LNG tank-car trains roll. Liquified natural gas usually goes long distances by pipelines. So does crude oil, but it went by train in Lac-Megantic. Catastrophe ensued.

On July 6, 2013, a 72-car oil train’s brakes failed and it started to roll seven miles downhill from the siding where it was parked until it crashed, derailed, exploded, and blew up downtown Lac-Mégantic. The center of town was destroyed and 47 people died.

Liquified natural gas, also known as methane, is more dangerous, Railroad Workers United – an organization of rank-and-file union freight rail workers nationally – told the PHMSA. So did most of the 2,947 comments on the Trump scheme, which one transportation publication said Trump promulgated at the behest of energy companies and the railroads.

So did Reps. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., chair of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, and Tom Malinowski, D-N.J., whose district is crisscrossed by rail freight lines. DeFazio called Trump’s LNG shipment scheme “beyond absurd.” Read more ...

2019-23  Article 5

Union Pacific Stock Up 22% YTD on Cost Cut & Other Factors


Union Pacific Corporation UNP has been gaining traction from stringent cost-cutting measures. Additionally, the company’s efforts to reward its shareholders through dividends and share buybacks are encouraging.

Owing to these tailwinds primarily, shares of the company have rallied 21.9% so far this year, outperforming the industry’s 19% rise.
Let’s delve into the details.

Union Pacific’s cost-containment moves are driving the company’s bottom line. Evidently, the company’s earnings rose 15% and 12.1% each during the first and the second quarter from 3% and 7% decline in operating expenses in the respective quarters. Moreover, operating ratio (operating expenses as a percentage of revenues), a key measure of efficiency, has improved 2.2 points to 61.6% in the first half of 2019. The metric is expected to improve further in the second half of the year as can be gauged from the fact that full-year operating ratio is expected to be below 61%. Moreover, the same is anticipated to be below 60% by 2020. Notably, lower the value of operating ratio, the better. Read more ...

2019-23 Article 6

Freight rail service forums set for northern Wisconsin and Michigan’s UP


Northern Wisconsin businesses with a beef about freight rail service will have an opportunity to talk about it next week. State Senator Tom Tiffany (R-Minoqua), who represents the 12th District in northern Wisconsin, said inadequate, uncompetative service from Canadian National Railway is a problem for businesses in the region.

“But it also drives more traffic onto our roads, has an effect on our transportation infrastructure. There’s a number of harmful things that happen to us, as a result of not having good rail service,” Tiffany said.

Tiffany cited a specific example of a business that he said has been harmed by inadequate freight rail service.

“Johnson Timber operates the Park Falls paper mill which was recently closed. They have been citing these very high rates that they’ve been having to pay, and the lack of service. That has not helped them in being able to keep their doors open on that Park Falls paper mill. It is a perfect example of how this can do great harm to our economy in northern Wisconsin.” Read more ...

2019-23 Article 7

Report: BNSF challenges Oklahoma grade-crossing law


(Editor's note: JUst like with the case of numerous states ado[pting two-person crew laws, the Class One railroads are attempting to circumvent such state safety laws).

BNSF Railway Co.  is challenging in federal court an Oklahoma law that requires railroads operating in the state to minimize blocking grade crossings for longer than 10 minutes without good reason, an Oklahoma newspaper reported today.

The suit, which the Class I filed yesterday in Oklahoma City, targets Oklahoma's elected corporation commissioners and two cities' police departments that have cited the railroad for violations so far,  The Oklahomanreported .

BNSF asserts that railroad operations are governed by federal agencies.

2019-23 Article 8

Probe centers on how CSX trains collided on Ohio route with PTC



Investigators are trying to determine why two CSX Transportation trains collided earlier this month in Ohio on a line protected by positive train control, the multibillion-dollar safety system designed to prevent collisions.

The probe by the Federal Railroad Administration and CSX includes an examination of the proper activation, operation, and functioning of PTC on the territory as well as any human factors that may have contributed to the Aug. 12 wreck.

PTC was active on the line at the time of the predawn collision near Carey, Ohio, on CSX’s former Chesapeake & Ohio route between Columbus and Toledo, according to people familiar with the matter.

But the safety system had been disengaged on the northbound train, Columbus-Willard local H702, that slammed into the side of southbound unit frac sand train W314 at the end of a passing siding, sources tell Trains.

PTC “is on that line and active. The rub being the crew that blew the signal had the PTC disengaged for switching purposes,” a person familiar with the matter says.  Read more ...

Railroad Workers United
Solidarity -- Unity -- Democracy