North-American rail

Union Pacific Railroad generated a profit of $517 million in the third quarter, down 26 percent from a year earlier as revenue fell 25 percent to $3.47 billion.

Intermodal marketing company Hub Group reported a $9.8 million profit in the third quarter, down 42 percent from a year earlier as revenue of $389 million fell 24 percent.

Jobs at major U.S. railroads got scarcer from mid-August to mid-September than at any other point in the recession so far.

Canadian National Railway is ordering 70 new high-horsepower locomotives, splitting them evenly between suppliers GE Transportation and Electro-Motive Diesel.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday agreed to hear a case that should clarify what laws apply when international shipments are damaged in transit within the United States.

Canadian National Railway’s net income slid 16.5 percent in the third quarter from a year earlier to $439 million, on an 18 percent drop in revenue to $1.758 billion.

Canadian National Railway said its trains blocked roadway crossings eight times during September when trains stopped for 10 minutes or more along the suburban Chicago rail line it recently acquired.

New intermodal loadings spiked at major U.S. railroads last week to their peak level so far this year, but carloads of bulk materials and heavy machinery or equipment slumped.

A well-known rail and intermodal analyst, Ed Wolfe of Wolfe Research, is projecting that Pacer International could end up renegotiating its cut-rate contract with Union Pacific Railroad by getting out

Surface transportation should show modest growth through 2010 and then take off strongly in 2011 with double-digit growth in volume, a Schneider Logistics executive said Tuesday.

J.B.

Eastern-U.S.

Executives of the Union Pacific and BNSF railroads will join representatives of the six major West Coast container ports to promote the ports as an efficient and environmentally-friendly gateway for A

The city of Beaumont, Texas should see a marked improvement in downtown traffic congestion thanks to the Port of Beaumont’s $10.5 million rail improvement project, now being reviewed by the stat

The lull suggested by recent carload freight loadings at major U.S. railroads was evident again in the latest week, as volume showed only a mild rebound from flood-depressed levels.

Kansas City Southern had predicted for months that finances for the rail company would improve after it wrapped up a costly track project near Houston and issued more stock.

If you’ve got a big complaint on rail issues to put before the Surface Transportation Board, federal regulators will now want to hear your argument, up close and personal.

An alliance between U.S.

The U.S. Department of Commerce awarded a $6 million Economic Development Administration grant to the Jacksonville Port Authority to help improve the Blount Island Marine Terminal railroad system.

Introduction of a rail regulatory reform bill in the Senate still awaits agreement with some shippers, said Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W. Va.

The Federal Railroad Administration will make grant awards this winter out of its $8 billion stimulus fund for freight and passenger rail systems.

A week-long curb on some shipments in and out of the U.S. Southeast, along with a fitfully slow freight recovery, combined to douse overall volume on small North American railroads.

The Federal Railroad Administration and state transportation departments are pushing small stimulus grants through to bolster the rail system even though there is no word yet on any of the larger gran

CSX Transportation launched intermodal train service between Buffalo, N.Y., and the seaports of New York City and Philadelphia, in a bid to win more container business from the East Coast to the Canad

The recovery in freight traffic hit some washouts at major U.S. rail operations in the week ending Sept.

The United Steelworkers’ Local 1976, based in Montreal, ratified a three-year contract deal with Canadian Pacific Railway that raises wages three percent in 2010 and 2011 but leaves pay unchange

A prototype switching locomotive that Norfolk Southern Railway showed off this week is a plug-in electric unit with 1,500 horsepower of pulling energy, zero exhaust and a pack of 1,080 batteries.

When E. Hunter Harrison retires at the end of this year as president and CEO of Canadian National Railway, one of CN’s key new facilities will bear his name in his old home town.

The Surface Transportation Board said railroads saw their capital costs rise to 11.75 percent in 2008 from 11.33 percent the year before, raising the amount carriers could recover in freight rates.

Rail freight traffic at North American short lines grew moderately in the middle week of September after the previous week saw a slowdown for Labor Day.

Bouncing back from a shortened week that included Labor Day, major U.S. rail operations had their strongest intermodal performance of 2009 in the week ending Sept.

Canadian National Railway reached agreement with a Chicago-area suburb that opposed CN’s acquisition of the Elgin, Joliet and Eastern Railway, which runs through several suburban communities tha

The Sept. 24 story “Canadian Pacific Seeking to Lure U.S.

Canadian Pacific Railway, looking to capitalize on the regulatory stability and supply chain collaboration Canada has developed, intends to help the Port of Vancouver increase its share of the lucrati

Norfolk Southern Railway got two major rail routes back in service after days of flood closures this week around Atlanta, but it will be a while before traffic is back to normal.

Train traffic is rising on the Chicago-area short line that Canadian National Railway absorbed this year, but CN told regulators it further reduced long train-caused delays at roadway crossings in Aug

The seven largest railroads operating in the United States boosted their overall train and engine crews from mid-July to mid-August, but job cuts elsewhere took employment down from a month earlier.

Freight industry officials now confirm what the statistics already show: The worst freight downturn in decades apparently bottomed out months ago. But there’s not a lot of celebrating over that.

The House Judiciary Committee passed an antitrust bill that railroads oppose, as it would put them under the same antitrust provisions faced by other industries, but any similar measure in the Senate

With Labor Day removing the first normal shipment day from the schedule of major U.S. railroads, railcar loadings and intermodal units last week were their lowest since early July.