North-American rail

The Maritime Administration’s final rule establishing its Marine Highway program broadens the concept from earlier proposals, in ways that could add more port facilities and types of cargo that

U.S. railroads will be able to tap into a new $50 million government grant program to help install expensive collision avoidance and locomotive control systems.

Backers are calling it their “cold train,” a four-day-a-week run of refrigerated intermodal cargoes from the Port of Quincy, Wash., to Chicago that starts moving this week.

CSX Transportation and the United Transportation Union reached a tentative labor deal covering UTU train conductors and yard workers on CSX southern lines.

BNSF Railway and Canadian National Railway signed new track sales accords with large commuter rail operations, in which they sold line and property for over $100 million each but retained some freight

Canadian National Railway sold a section of track to a government-owned agency responsible for the Toronto area transportation network.

Canadian Pacific Railway reached a new one-year agreement with Teck Coal, a major shipper of high-heat coal needed for steelmaking furnaces, to haul the fuel from Teck’s mines in southeastern Br

Traffic jumped at the largest North American railroads as March ended, powered by shipments of finished vehicles and equipment along with materials at earlier stages from metallic ores to metal produc

U.S. sales of new automobiles are strengthening for all the largest car manufacturers, and generating sharp increases in shipments for materials, car parts and finished vehicles.

Union Pacific Railroad “will continue to generate core price increases of roughly 4-6 percent over the next few years,” said stock analyst Lee A. Klaskow of Longbow Research.

Mid-March loadings of basic road and site construction materials by the largest U.S.-owned railroads reached their highest levels since August.

The Supreme Court may have to decide whether or not ocean carriers will be considered “railroads” for cargo liability purposes after oral arguments on Wednesday morning.

Employment grew slightly in February among the seven largest U.S. railroads, for the first time since last July and only the second time since October 2008.

Unionized locomotive engineers at Canadian National Railway will get an initial wage hike of 1.8 percent under a federal arbitrator's ruling setting wages and other terms for a three-year labor c

The largest U.S. railroads pushed their volume up another notch in the week ending March 13, as steady factory activity combined with demand for construction materials.

The Association of American Railroads quickly pushed back Thursday against the Chlorine Institute after the chemical shippers’ group urged regulators to fix a “faulty” study over the

Rail equipment supplier Wabtec bought the signal engineering and design services firm Xorail for $40 million in cash, equal to about one year’s worth of Xorail sales.

Large U.S.

U.S. freight railroad operations had their safest year ever in 2009, said the Association of American Railroads.

Norfolk Southern Railway will pay a $4 million penalty to settle alleged Clean Water Act violations, the government said, in connection with a catastrophic 2005 chlorine spill from a train accident in

Kansas City Southern bought the Puerta Mexico intermodal terminal facility about 40 miles west of Mexico City at Toluca, and plans soon to start running trains to it from the Pacific Ocean container p

New loadings of the type of bulk materials and equipment that ride in regular railcars pushed to its highest level in more than a year for major U.S.-owned railroads.

Competition between West and East Coast ports for Asian cargo has hit a point of equilibrium and market share probably won't change much in the coming years.

Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services gave a “BBB” rating to new CSX long-term debt notes, saying the eastern-U.S.

Freight traffic for major U.S.-owned railroads improved after two storm-stunted weeks, but remained below the pace of the last half of January.

Norfolk Southern Railway hopes to begin construction by July on new intermodal terminals in Memphis, Tenn., and Birmingham, Ala., now that it has a large stimulus grant to help pay for them.

CSX Transportation in the eastern United States and Union Pacific Railroad in the West will soon be jointly marketing a domestic intermodal service in jumbo-sized containers.

The seven largest U.S. railroads shed 1,116 jobs in January, bringing their total workforce to a new low of 145,609 positions.

Major U.S.-owned railroads saw their originations of bulk commodity and equipment traffic fall more than 20,000 carloads from the end of January to mid-February, a time when powerful winter storms hit

Intermodal service provider Pacer International posted a $10 million profit for the fourth-quarter in which it renegotiated a long-term contract with Union Pacific Railroad, up from a $64 million loss

BNSF Railway officially became part of Berkshire Hathaway Feb.

The purchase of BNSF Railway by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway will free up the railroad’s executives to focus more on developing rail assets for the long term, said BNSF Chairman, Pr

Stockholders of the corporation that owns BNSF Railway, North America’s second-largest railroad, approved the $26 billion bid from Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway to buy the 77 percent

The two major eastern-U.S. railroads – CSX Transportation and Norfolk Southern Railway – were starting to dig out late on Feb. 10 and on Feb.

The strong winter storms hitting the country this winter are sharply cutting stockpiles of coal held by electrical utilities, said Matthew K.

The international part of the U.S. intermodal market will be “weak” for most of 2010 because U.S.

BNSF Railway could become a wholly owned unit of investment firm Berkshire Hathaway this week if shareholders vote as expected Thursday to approve Berkshire’s $26 billion stock purchase.

This week’s severe winter storms prompted CSX Transportation to invoke the force majeure clause, for events outside its control, for service commitments on its important coal and automobile traf

Intermodal traffic on the BNSF Railway declined by double digits during last year's economic recession, but it is still one of the most important business units for the western railroad.

Norfolk Southern Railway lifted its force majeure service declaration early on Feb. 9 for traffic moving through eastern-U.S. areas hit hard by the huge weekend snowstorm.