railroad industry

Union Pacific will increase the amount of biodiesel that fuels locomotives used for Progress Rail. Progress Rail, a Caterpillar (NYSE: CAT) subsidiary that provides rolling stock and infrastructure solutions to rail customers worldwide, has agreed to use up to a 20% biodiesel blend for specific...

The COVID-19 pandemic could hamper freight and passenger railroads' ability to meet the December 31 deadline on positive train control (PTC) implementation, according to an April 30 report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) to Senator Roger Wicker (R-Mississippi), chairman of the...

U.S. carloads appeared to be moderating their months-long decline in February, with carloads down only 0.8% from a year ago if coal carloads are excluded from the total, the Association of American Railroads (AAR) said yesterday. February coal carloads tumbled 21.1% year-over-year, AAR said....

The 2019-20 crop year is well underway in Canada, and grain shippers are watching how Canadian National (NYSE: CNI) and Canadian Pacific (NYSE: CP)  will manage service levels during another year of potentially high grain volumes, particularly in the winter months when cold weather and competing...

FreightWaves is providing a forum – Market Voices – for a number of market experts. Jim Blaze is a railroad career economist with an engineering background and a strategic analysis outlook. Jim's career spans 21 years with Consolidated Rail Corporation (CONRAIL), 17 years with the...

China's push for industrial market share around the world to prop up the country's employment base is heightening concern about the country's potential to infiltrate the U.S. freight rail system. A report published in October 2018 by retired Army Brigadier General John Adams and funded...

  Canada's Supreme Court dismissed an appeal from Canada National Railway (NYSE: CNI) today, forcing it to reopen a century-old bridge to vehicle traffic. The country's highest court ended a long-running legal battle between CN and the city of Thunder Bay. It stems from a 2013...

It's been just over a year since a freight train carrying crude oil from the Bakken shale fields in North Dakota derailed and exploded in a Quebec town near the U.S.-Canadian border, killing 47 people. That accident, along with several others in its wake, drew attention to the enormous...

Another major accident involving a train carrying crude oil from North Dakota is drawing attention to the vulnerabilities of transporting oil by rail. Officials are still trying to determine what caused a 90-car train, reportedly carrying 2.7 million gallons of crude oil, to derail and explode...