News and Media

Reported by Bill Stephens for Trains The Surface Transportation Board will hear from more than three dozen participants during its two-day hearing next month regarding recent trends and strategies for growth in freight railroad traffic. The hearing, set to begin at 9:30 a.m. on Sept. 16 and 17 in the board’s hearing room, will be

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Reported by Kayla Tausche and Arlette Saenz for CNN Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz are rallying voters across the Midwest this week, looking to build on support from key union leaders as they promote a message of pro-labor policies that they say benefit the middle class. Part of the task at

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Reported by Ed Blazina for Pittsburgh Union Progress In another effort to gain more control of the safety of the nation’s railroads, Pennsylvania’s U.S. Sen. Bob Casey and U.S. Rep. Summer Lee, D-Swissvale, are introducing legislation to require railroads to release inspections of their bridges. Casey introduced the Rail Bridge Safety and Transparency Act in

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Reported by Michael Sainato Aerospace giants have been accused of putting profits ahead of safety as officials consider cutting the minimum number of pilots required on commercial flight decks from two to one. “This threat is not something that is 10, 15, 20 years away,” Capt Jason Ambrosi, president of the Air Line Pilots Association,

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Reported by Mark Gruenberg Eliminate the minimum wage. Emasculate the National Labor Relations Board by cutting its budget, killing its rules and ending its jurisdiction over “small” businesses. Curb overtime pay. Make job safety and health depend on bosses’ “voluntary compliance.” Kill worker protections in construction, seafaring and mass transit. Eliminate the Department of Education.

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Reported by Lillianna Byington for Bloomberg Government The stalled legislation still faces opposition from the rail industry, which is expected to continue with this new measure. The “remaining challenges in the Senate Rail Safety Act seem to be repeated in the new House companion legislation,” said Jessica Kahanek, assistant vice president of communications at the

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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

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Reported by People’s World U.S. rail unions and the AFL-CIO Transportation Trades Department have by and large agreed with federal safety findings as a result of the East Palestine, Ohio, freight train derailment disaster early in 2023. But there are some holes. A reading of the National Transportation Safety Board’s summary report shows the top

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Reported by Bill Stephens for Trains Note: Updated at 10:22 a.m. on June 27 with comment from TTD officials. The 31 new safety recommendations that the National Transportation Safety Board made yesterday in response to Norfolk Southern’s hazardous materials wreck in East Palestine, Ohio, have prompted a flurry of responses from the rail industry, lawmakers,

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