Reported by Bob Johnston for Trains
Three labor organizations have opposed Amtrak’s request for a waiver allowing installation of a device the company claims will prevent incidents where trains fail to trigger track circuits. As a result, a decades-old issue that recently has forced Amtrak to assign at least seven Superliners to trains operated over Canadian National’s Chicago-Carbondale, Ill., route is no closer to being resolved.
Comments filed by the three unions, the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, the Transportation Trades Department, AFL-CIO, and the Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen, all expressed concern that they were never invited by the Loss of Shunt Committee — a group comprised of the FRA, Amtrak, and Class I railroad engineering staffs — to see any test results that led to Amtrak’s petition. Significantly, there was no evidence in the filings that any of the organizations even knew about the tests CN and Amtrak had been conducting at Pontiac, Mich., or south of Effingham, Ill., on the Illini-Saluki route.
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