RAIL

Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern have a fortnight to go before the Surface Transportation Board's first public input deadline, and the list of people lining up against America's first transcontinental railroad keeps growing. More than 100 congressional Democrats, led by Representative Valerie Hoyle, have written to the board urging rigorous scrutiny of the merger's effects on jobs, worker rights and safety. Attorneys general from Montana, Iowa, Kansas, Florida, North Dakota

The most consequential railroad deal in a generation cleared a critical procedural hurdle this week, as federal regulators revived their review of Union Pacific's $85 billion takeover of Norfolk Southern, a combination that would create the first true coast-to-coast single-line railroad in United States history. The Surface Transportation Board announced it had lifted the proceeding out of abeyance and set a firm timetable for weighing the merger, after the two carriers submi

Amtrak will suspend rail service between Washington Union Station and Virginia for nine days in October, closing the junction that routes every train heading south out of the capital so crews can replace switches that currently force trains to crawl through at 10 mph. The outage, which Amtrak is calling "Pause for Progress", begins after the last train on Friday 16 October and runs until service resumes on the morning of Monday 26 October. The target is A-Interlocking, the tr

While trucking argues about tariffs and shipping worries about Panama, America's railroads are having the best year almost nobody is talking about. Association of American Railroads data for the week ending 15 August put total US traffic at 525,099 carloads and intermodal units, up 2.4 per cent year on year. Through 32 weeks, carloads are up 2.7 per cent and intermodal is up 3.8 per cent, with the combined total 3.3 per cent ahead of 2025. Eight of ten carload categories gain

Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern got the news they had been waiting for on Tuesday, wrapped in a warning they had been dreading. The Surface Transportation Board lifted the hold it placed on its review of their $85 billion merger in late May, restarting the process that would create America's first modern coast-to-coast freight railroad and reduce the six remaining Class I carriers to five. The board was quick to stress that resuming the review is not the same as blessing t

The most consequential number in American freight this quarter did not come from a railroad boardroom. It came from shippers voting with their cargo, and the vote was for rail. Railroads hauled a record number of domestic containers in the second quarter, as shippers banked some of the largest savings against trucking in the decade-long history of the Journal of Commerce's Intermodal Savings Index. In the first quarter the average saving of moving a spot-market load by interm

The country's best shot at genuine high-speed rail just cleared a bureaucratic hurdle, and it did so by admitting that America cannot yet build the trains itself. The Federal Railroad Administration moved this week to grant a Buy America waiver for Brightline West, the $12 billion, 218-mile high-speed line under construction between Las Vegas and the edge of the Los Angeles metro area. The waiver would cover trainsets, signal systems, high-speed turnouts and fire-alarm system

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