WATCHING WASHINGTON, RAILWAY AGE JULY 2024 ISSUE: Those scorpions in a bottle—the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (BLET) and the Transportation Division of the International Association of Sheet Metal,…

WATCHING WASHINGTON, RAILWAY AGE JUNE 2024 ISSUE: One would think California’s housing cost crisis, soaring energy prices, hundreds of companies relocating and a population exodus would induce greater regard for…

Surface Transportation Board (STB) member Patrick J. Fuchs, a Republican, was Senate-confirmed by voice vote May 14 to a second five-year term, while Democrat Jennifer Esposito Homendy was similarly confirmed…

WATCHING WASHINGTON, RAILWAY AGE MAY 2024 ISSUE: Among choices faced by political appointees are whether to obey statutes defining their authority or perform as political partisans. The optics of an…

In a category 5 hurricane force stunning announcement, Surface Transportation Board (STB) Chairperson Martin J. Oberman announced late on Nov 16 that he will not seek renomination to a second…

WATCHING WASHINGTON, RAILWAY AGE APRIL 2024 ISSUE: With the voluntary departure of Surface Transportation Board (STB) Chairperson Martin J. Oberman expected by May, President Biden is mulling five potential Democratic…

WATCHING WASHINGTON, RAILWAY AGE, MARCH 2024 ISSUE: National Transportation Board (NTSB) Chairperson Jennifer Esposito Homendy can be a pain in the neck, and elsewhere. Celebrate that tenacity. It assuredly saves…

WATCHING WASHINGTON, RAILWAY AGE FEBRUARY 2024 ISSUE: Rail captive shippers—primarily of chemicals and coal—unable to utilize barge or truck alternatives and lacking two-railroad competition owing to decades of mergers are…

Republican Patrick J. Fuchs, 35, has been nominated by President Biden to a second term on the Surface Transportation Board (STB), which has economic regulatory authority over railroad rates and…

WATCHING WASHINGTON, RAILWAY AGE JANUARY 2024 ISSUE: It is observed—positively and negatively—that Class I freight railroads are lucrative ATMs for investors, dispensing from profits $253 billion in stock dividends and…

Aside from being a successful entrepreneur whose name adorns 1,100 department stores in 49 states, or once being an owner of the National Basketball Association’s Milwaukee Bucks, former Sen. Herbert…

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle weaved mysteries as no other, with his protagonist detective, Sherlock Holmes, well-tuned to the significance (The Adventure of Silver Blaze) of a watchdog not barking when…

WATCHING WASHINGTON, RAILWAY AGE DECEMBER 2023 ISSUE: News item: Surface Transportation Board (STB) Chairperson Martin J. Oberman will not seek renomination to a second term and depart in “early 2024.”…

WATCHING WASHINGTON, RAILWAY AGE, NOVEMBER 2023 ISSUE: Napoleon Bonaparte observed that “the torment of precautions often exceeds the dangers to be avoided.” Union Army General George B. McClellan was so…

WATCHING WASHINGTON, RAILWAY AGE, SEPTEMBER 2023 ISSUE: Deep within the enigma of the federal budget process is a paradoxical scheme to reduce—without actually reducing—red ink. While congressional fiscal hocus pocus…

WATCHING WASHINGTON, RAILWAY AGE AUGUST 2023 ISSUE: What the Supreme Court giveth, the Supreme Court taketh—its reach and grasp primed to terminate or limit four decades of judicial permissiveness that…

WATCHING WASHINGTON, RAILWAY AGE JUNE 2023 ISSUE: How many crew members are required to operate a freight train safely? The two federal agencies most qualified to answer objectively are in…

“Shockah” as they might say in “Bahsten” about Union Pacific’s (UP) May 3 federal court filing asking that the Surface Transportation Board’s (STB) approval of a Canadian Pacific-Kansas City Southern…

Former Rep. Elmer Greinert (Bud) Shuster (R-Pa.), who served in Congress as a House member for almost 30 years, and who is best remembered for his leadership of the Transportation…

Gus A. Owen, a Republican Member of the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) and its successor Surface Transportation Board (STB) from Oct. 4, 1994 to Dec. 31, 1998, died Dec. 17,…