For years the argument over railroad service quality was a matter of anecdote and complaint. This year, for the first time, it is a matter of published record, and the record is not flattering. The Surface Transportation Board has begun disclosing standardised service metrics, including on-time arrival accuracy and the reliability of spot-and-pull at customer facilities, making it possible to compare carriers on the same terms. The timing is pointed. It arrives as the Board w

A rule that began with a handful of failed inspections at Texas rail yards is now poised to reshape how trains cross the southern border, and how every US engineer is certified. The Federal Railroad Administration published a proposed rule on 31 July requiring locomotive engineers and conductors to demonstrate English-language proficiency as a condition of certification and recertification. The agency frames it as a safety necessity: US railroad rules, bulletins and emergency

While Washington argues over the biggest rail consolidation in a generation, the Class I railroad standing outside it has just delivered the best quarter in its history. CSX reported record revenue of $3.94bn for the second quarter on 22 July, up 10 per cent year on year. Operating income rose 17 per cent to $1.51bn. Diluted earnings came in at 54 cents a share, up 23 per cent, beating a consensus of 52 cents. Operating margin expanded 240 basis points to 38.3 per cent, from

Monday was the day Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern had circled for months. The Surface Transportation Board, when it accepted the pair's revised application in May, placed the entire proceeding in abeyance and ordered the applicants to hand over supplemental information by 27 July — the last procedural gate before the $85bn transcontinental deal moves toward public comment and environmental review. The railroads arrived at the deadline in better shape than they were a mont

While Washington argues over the biggest rail consolidation in a generation, the Class I railroad standing outside it just delivered the best quarter in its history. CSX reported record revenue of $3.94bn for the second quarter on Wednesday evening, up 10 per cent year on year. Operating income rose 17 per cent to $1.51bn. Diluted earnings came in at 54 cents a share, up 23 per cent, beating a consensus estimate of 52 cents. Operating margin expanded 240 basis points to 38.3

Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern face a defining deadline this week, with the two carriers due to hand the Surface Transportation Board the final tranche of supplemental data underpinning their $85 billion bid to build the first US coast-to-coast freight railroad. The board is requiring the applicants to submit supplemental information by July 27, the culmination of a data request the regulator issued when it accepted the revised application in late May. The companies filed

The largest railroad deal in American history reaches a decisive moment this month, and the filing that lands on regulators' desks by 27 July will shape the future of freight for a generation. Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern have until that date to hand the Surface Transportation Board the supplemental information it demanded before formal review of their $85 billion combination can begin. The Board accepted the revised application on 28 May but immediately placed the enti

Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern are ten days from the deadline that will determine whether America's first coast-to-coast railroad survives contact with its regulator. The Surface Transportation Board accepted the revised merger application on 28 May but held the entire proceeding, including environmental review, in abeyance, ordering the applicants to submit supplemental information by 27 July. The Board wants the parts of the application that are unclear or underdevelope

America's freight railroads shrugged off the Independence Day lull, posting one of the strongest holiday weeks on record and extending a summer boom that is reshaping how goods move across the country. Total US rail traffic for the week ending July 4 reached 482,121 carloads and intermodal units, up 8.7% from the same week a year earlier, according to the Association of American Railroads. The gain was striking given the holiday timing, when shippers and railroads traditional

More than three years after a Norfolk Southern derailment turned East Palestine, Ohio, into shorthand for everything the public fears about freight rail, CSX is betting that the answer to that fear runs through a Jacksonville classroom. The Jacksonville-based carrier announced this week the opening of its Hazardous Materials Training Institute, which it bills as the nation's first railroad-operated hazmat training facility. The site opened June 30 at Florida State College at

A federal judge has permanently barred the Trump administration from withholding money for the Gateway Hudson Tunnel Project, delivering a decisive win to New York and New Jersey and lifting the legal cloud that had hung over the largest federal rail investment in modern history. In a June 29 ruling, U.S. District Judge Jeannette A. Vargas vacated the administration's September 2025 funding suspension and permanently enjoined the U.S. Department of Transportation from relying

The clock is running on the biggest railroad deal in American history, and the next three weeks will tell everyone a great deal about whether it survives. Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern face a July 27 deadline to hand the Surface Transportation Board a fresh trove of supplemental data, the price of admission the regulator set when it accepted their revised $85 billion merger application in late May and promptly parked the proceeding in abeyance. The Board wants sharper an

The largest railroad merger in American history is inching toward a decisive summer, with Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern racing to satisfy federal regulators before a late-July deadline that could shape the future of freight across the continent. The Surface Transportation Board accepted the companies' revised application on 28 May, clearing a procedural hurdle that had tripped them up twice before. But acceptance came with a catch: the Board ruled that key portions of th

Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern spent the week pressing their case to skeptical federal regulators, racing to shore up support for a tie-up that would create the first coast-to-coast freight railroad in American history. The two carriers are campaigning intensely to resolve the Surface Transportation Board's doubts that the merger's promised benefits will materialize. The board last month accepted the revised application for consideration but held the proceedings in abeyan

The American freight rail industry is enjoying its strongest run of volume in years, even as the sector braces for a merger that could redraw the national map. Total U.S. rail traffic for the week ending June 13 reached 520,406 carloads and intermodal units, a 7.2 percent jump year over year, according to the Association of American Railroads. Intermodal led the charge, climbing nearly 11 percent to 289,447 units, while carloads rose 2.8 percent on gains in grain, metallic or

The proposed union of Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern, a deal that would create the first true transcontinental railroad in American history, is grinding through a regulatory review that increasingly looks like its biggest obstacle is the calendar. The Surface Transportation Board granted conditional acceptance of the revised merger application earlier this month, but stopped well short of a green light, requesting further information on the environmental impact of combini

The proposed $85 billion union of Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern, pitched as America's first single-line transcontinental railroad, ran into fresh resistance this week on two fronts: a skeptical federal regulator and an increasingly vocal labor movement. The Surface Transportation Board handed the railroads a complicated victory. It accepted the revised merger application but simultaneously paused both the merger and environmental reviews, ordering UP and NS to supply sig

Freight rail is enjoying the kind of spring it has not seen in years, even as the industry's defining storyline, the proposed Union Pacific–Norfolk Southern megamerger, grinds through a regulatory holding pattern with no resolution in sight. The volume picture is genuinely strong. For the week ending June 6, total US rail traffic rose 7.8 percent year over year, the ninth straight week of gains, powered overwhelmingly by intermodal, which jumped 13.6 percent. Domestic intermo

The most ambitious railroad consolidation in modern American history is straining under the weight of regulatory scrutiny, labour opposition and a destabilising executive exodus, raising fresh doubts about whether the deal will ever reach the finish line. This week a key union came out swinging. The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers District 19 said it opposes the proposed merger between Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern in its current form, citin

The most consequential railroad deal in a generation cleared a procedural hurdle this week, even as federal regulators signalled that any verdict on the first US coast-to-coast freight network remains a long way off. The Surface Transportation Board confirmed it has accepted for review the revised application from Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern to combine into a single transcontinental carrier. The Board's unanimous decision simultaneously held the proceedings in abeyance