The Transcontinental Railroad Begins With UP+NS
With UP’s and NS’s official merger announcement the morning of July 29 and the merger agreement filed that evening, we expand on our pre-deal thoughts, update our NS and UP models for NS’s 2Q and...
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A Wolfe at STB’s Door. Will He Make Entry?
We’ve a Federal Railroad Administration that has pretended to be a subsidiary of rail labor; a Surface Transportation Board (STB) that, until recently, fancied itself the Director General of...
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Transit Briefs: DART, Valley Metro, PANYNJ/PATH
DART Activation will silence train horns in Addison, Coppell and Dallas first, with Carrollton, Richardson, and Plano to follow as testing of vehicles, crossings and track will continue with DART...
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AAR: U.S. Carloads, Intermodal Up Slightly for Week 30
U.S. rail traffic for the week ending July 26, 2025 (Week 30) came in at 514,279 carloads and intermodal units, rising 1.1% from the same week last year, based on 231,029 carloads—up 0.9% from...
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Class I Briefs: CSX, CPKC
CSX CSX announced July 29 that it has been recognized with Toyota’s Rail Quality Award, “a testament to the company’s dedication to quality customer service and teamwork across its Automotive Sales,...
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Intermodal Briefs: GPA, Port NOLA
GPA GPA on July 29 reported moving 5.7 million TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent container units) In Fiscal Year 2025—up 8.6% or 450,000 TEUs from the previous fiscal year. FY25, beginning July 1, 2024 and...
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OmniTRAX Expands into Long Island, NY
Located in Yaphank, adjacent to the New York & Atlantic(NYA)/Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) and the Long Island Expressway (Interstate I-495), Brookhaven Rail Terminal provides direct access to the...
View ArticleCOIM USA Acquires Rail-Served Facility on TexAmericas Center Campus
TexAmericas Center, which owns and operates the third ranked mixed-use industrial park in the U.S., announced July 29 that COIM USA, a specialty chemical manufacturer and part of the global COIM...
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Perfect Pairing: voestalpine Railway Systems Nortrak Universal HST® (Hollow...
Turnouts, an essential railroad network trackwork component, have numerous complex, costly and labor-intensive maintenance requirements. They also have specific challenges that railroad...
View ArticleVena’s Art of the Deal With NS
Union Pacific’s (UP) much-anticipated bid for Norfolk Southern (NS) was announced July 29. Both now embark on a lengthy review process, but we see the potential approval pathway justified due to U.S....
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UP+NS: An ‘Absolute Monster of a Railroad’
Since a Union Pacific/Norfolk Southern merger is now in process, I wanted to share data giving a sense of the absolute monster of a railroad UP+NS would represent. To do this, below I’ve taken 2024...
View ArticleUP + NS: What Comes Next?
Following weeks of “perhapses,” “maybes,” and a “conceivably” or two—self-serving bait for valuable feedback—railroads Union Pacific (UP) and Norfolk Southern (NS) have officially announced merger...
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Union Pacific + Norfolk Southern: It’s Official
The speculation is over: Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern at 7:00 AM EDT announced their agreement to, in a combined cash and stock transaction valued at more than $250 billion, merge and create the...
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Executives Discuss ‘Allyship to Action’ at Women in Rail 2025
Fostering a supportive environment that lifts up talent and recognizes an individual’s or project’s contribution to the organization or community is key. Our third-annual in-person Women in Rail...
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Senate Committee on Appropriations Advances FY26 THUD Bill
On July 14 the House Committee on Appropriations marked up its THUD Appropriations bill (H.R. 4522) and approved it on a party-line vote of 35-28. The Senate THUD Appropriations bill (download below)...
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Transit Briefs: Amtrak Virginia, NYMTA, Trinity Metro, LACMTA
Amtrak Virginia (Courtesy of VPRA) Amtrak Virginia set a ridership record for State Fiscal Year (SFY) 2025, beginning July 1, 2024, and ending June 30, according to the Virginia Passenger Rail...
View ArticleEFG Energy Partners LLC Purchases Rail-Served Site From Gulf Inland Logistics...
Gulf Inland Logistics Park, managed and developed by Liberty Development Partners, on July 28 announced that EFG Energy Partners LLC has purchased a 13.1-acre, rail-served site to serve as a terminal...
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First TransLink Mark V SkyTrain Enters Service (UPDATED 7/29)
Several of the sets are slated to be running on TransLink’s Expo and Millennium lines by the end of 2025, a major milestone in the modernization of the agency’s rapid transit system. According to...
View ArticlePeople News: AITX, GDC, Quandel Consultants
AITX At AITX, Erica Ray has been promoted to Senior Vice President, Leasing–East, leading commercial strategy and execution across Eastern North America. With nearly 20 years of experience in the rail...
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Class I Briefs: CPKC, UP
CPKC (Screen Grab from CPKC video) CP 7470, CPKC’s new ET44AC Tier 4 locomotive from Wabtec, now bears the logo of Lord Strathcona’s Horse (Royal Canadians), a distinguished Canadian armored regiment,...
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