WASHINGTON — Freight traffic on U.S. railroads was down during the holiday week ended December 27 in comparison with the corresponding holiday week last year the Association of American Railroads (AAR) reported today.
Total volume was estimated at 21.4 billion ton-miles, down 20.1 percent from the same week last year.
Intermodal volume totaled 124,061 trailers or containers, [...]

FORT WORTH, Texas — Due to current volatility in the fuel markets, BNSF is postponing the fuel surcharge changes that had been scheduled to take effect in January and February 2009.
These changes would have extended the mileage-based fuel surcharge program and increased the strike price on carload shipments from $1.25 to $2.50 per gallon of [...]

MONTREAL — CN in November expressed disappointment in a Federal Court of Appeal of Canada ruling that lets stand a Canadian Transportation Agency (CTA) decision issued earlier this year to reduce rail revenue entitlement for grain transportation retroactively under the Canada Transportation Act.
The CTA in February 2008 cut grain rates by eight per cent under [...]

SAN ANTONIO — Southwest Gulf Railroad (SGR), a subsidiary of Vulcan Materials Co., announced it has received approval from the federal Surface Transportation Board to construct a 9-mile rail line in Medina County, Texas.
The STB’s approval allows three environmentally acceptable route options for the SGR line. The approval follows an extensive five-year review of the [...]

WASHINGTON — The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) has issued a Record of Decision for the Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) for the Portal Bridge Capacity Enhancement Project over the Hackensack River, between Secaucus and Kearny, N.J.
The FEIS, prepared in cooperation with Amtrak and New Jersey Transit, considered four build alternatives in addition to a No [...]

The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) has issued a Notice of Intent that it will prepare the Environment Impact Statement (EIS) and project Environmental Impact Report (EIR) jointly with the California High Speed Rail Authority for the San Francisco to San Jose section of the California High Speed Train (HST) system.
The preparation of the EIR/EIS will [...]

WASHINGTON — The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) has issued a final rule increasing the civil penalties for violations of a railroad safety statute or regulation.
The increase incorporates the new maximum civil penalty amounts authorized by the Rail Safety Improvement Act of 2008 and new minimum amounts required under the Federal Civil Penalty Inflation Adjustment Act [...]

WASHINGTON — The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) is moving forward with developing new rules that prescribe how railroads should implement Positive Train Control (PTC) systems to prevent train-to-train collisions, announced FRA Acting Administrator Clifford C. Eby.
“We are acting quickly and without delay because railroads will need guidance on how to create plans to deploy PTC [...]

WASHINGTON — An alternate route for freight rail traffic to and from the United States and Mexico to improve cross-border goods movement is one step closer to reality thanks to an agreement signed this week by the U.S. Department of Transportation and Kansas City Southern Railway, U.S. Transportation Secretary Mary E. Peters announced today.
The East [...]

ST. LOUIS — One of five finalist names will soon provide the moniker for Amtrak’s passenger rail service between St. Louis and Kansas City. Those names are Missouri Rail Blazer, Missouri River Runner, River Cities Corridor, ShowMeMO and Truman Service. Online voting begins today and goes through Jan. 23.
Contest judges selected five finalist names from [...]