BNSF plans temporary layoffs with slipping freight demand
Associated Press, May 27, 2015
BNSF is furloughing some employees due to a decline in demand for shipping, including crude oil. Curtis Tate, MCT
BISMARCK, N.D. – BNSF Railway says it’s planning employee furloughs due to a drop in freight shipping demand across its rail network.
The Fort Worth-based company said Wednesday in a statement that it hopes to call back employees “as soon as business needs require.”
The railroad declined to say how many employees were being furloughed but that they are “at different locations across our network.” The company also said it’s reducing it’s hiring plans for the next several months.
“Customers’ volumes in the near term have come down somewhat from their prior estimates. As a result we are having to adjust our workforce demand numbers down to match volume and the work required to move that volume,” the statement said.
BNSF is part of Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, based in Omaha, Nebraska.
The railroad is the biggest player in North Dakota’s oil patch, hauling most of the 1.1 million barrels that moves out of the region daily. Oil drilling has been curtailed significantly in North Dakota’s Bakken Shale and other fields following the collapse in oil prices.
The railroad also is the biggest hauler of freight in the Upper Great Plains.
Just last year, the railroad was expanding rapidly, adding 6,000 workers and 500 locomotives to meet demand for shipping and ease backups caused by severe winter weather.
By Roger Straw, Editor, The Benicia Independent, May 29, 2015
It’s been a month now, and the hot news cycle has cooled off some on the U.S. Department of Transportation’s May 1 announcement of new safety rules governing rail transport of hazardous materials.
A recent local news story detailed the DOT rules without even mentioning the widespread criticisms of the new regulations. The rules have come under heavy fire from legislators, health professionals, firefighters, emergency responders, environmentalists and communities where these trains are already running – and sometimes derailing.
What follows is a handy list of stories carried previously here on the Benicia Independent, all highly doubtful that the new safety regulations will bring a timely end to the horrific crashes and explosions we’ve seen in recent months and years.
Feds won’t weaken oil-train public disclosure rules
By Paul Nussbaum, Inquirer Staff Writer, May 29, 2015, 5:20 PM
An oil train passes through Philadelphia on April 15, 2015. (Jon Snyder/Daily News)
Responding to Congressional and public criticism, federal regulators said Friday they will not weaken rules requiring certain disclosures about trains transporting crude oil and other hazardous materials.
The Inquirer reported this week that new oil-train rules issued May 7 by the U.S. Department of Transportation would end a 2014 requirement for railroads to share information about large volumes of crude oil with state emergency-response commissions.
Instead, railroads were to share information directly with some emergency responders, but the information would be exempt from the Freedom of Information Act and state public records laws.
“Under this approach,” the new rule said, “the transportation of crude oil by rail . . . can avoid the negative security and business implications of widespread public disclosure of routing and volume data…”
But the federal Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, an arm of the transportation department, said Friday it will not make the change.
Instead, the existing rule “will remain in full force and effect until further notice while the agency considers options for codifying the May 2014 disclosure requirement on a permanent basis,” the agency said.
Saying that “transparency is a critical piece of the federal government’s comprehensive approach to safety,” the agency said it supports “the public disclosure of this information to the extent allowed by applicable state, local, and tribal laws.”
U.S. Sen. Robert Casey (D., Pa.) was one of nine senators who asked the agency to keep the existing rule in place.
Casey said Friday he was “pleased” by the agency’s decision.
“First responders who risk their lives when trains derail deserve to know what chemicals they could be dealing with when they get to the scene,” Casey said in a statement.
The disclosure rules about train routes and general numbers of trains apply to all trains carrying 1 million gallons or more of crude oil from the Baaken oil deposit in North Dakota.
Two-person train crews necessary for safety, lawmakers say
By Zach Pluhacek | Lincoln Journal Star, May 28, 2015 1:45 pm
A BNSF Railway locomotive pulls cars of coal through Lincoln in January. FRANCIS GARDLER/Journal Star file photo
Trains need two-person crews to help prevent disasters like the 2013 derailment and explosion of a crude oil train that killed 47 people in Quebec, some Nebraska lawmakers argued Thursday.
The Federal Railroad Administration has signaled plans to require two-man crews on trains carrying oil and freight trains, which is the industry’s standard practice, but its proposed rule hasn’t been issued.
Rail lines would like to switch to a crew of one on most freight engines as they equip trains with positive train control, a new federally mandated wireless safety system that can force a train to stop automatically to avoid a potential crash.
“This is a risky development for public safety in Nebraska, particularly in light of the hazardous types of freight that are being hauled through our state,” said Sen. Al Davis of Hyannis on Thursday.
Nebraska is home to the nation’s two biggest railroads, Union Pacific, based in Omaha, and BNSF Railway, which is owned by Berkshire Hathaway in Omaha. UP operates the world’s largest railroad classification yard, the Bailey Yard in North Platte, and BNSF has extensive operations in Lincoln and the rest of Nebraska.
Davis sponsored a measure (LB192) this year that would have outright required two-person crews in Nebraska, but it failed to advance from the Legislature’s Transportation and Telecommunications Committee.
Instead, lawmakers passed a nonbinding resolution Thursday that doesn’t specifically call for two-person crews, but it urges the Federal Railroad Administration to adopt a rule that “ensures public safety and promotes the efficient movement of freight, while supporting interstate commerce.”
The resolution (LR338) was adopted on a 36-4 vote.
“These trains are some of the heaviest moving things on this planet, and just having one person in charge doesn’t seem to make sense,” said Sen. Ken Haar of Malcolm, who cosigned the resolution.
But Sen. Tyson Larson of O’Neill argued human mistakes are often to blame when tragedy strikes. “Sometimes true safety does lie within automation,” he said.
Union Pacific opposes the resolution because it falsely implies trains are unsafe and ignores collective bargaining deals that have addressed safe train crew sizes for decades, said spokesman Mark Davis.
Two rail unions — the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen and the International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers, which represent about 3,700 active members between them — support the resolution.
Cutting down on the number of crew members would almost certainly affect jobs and reduce the number of workers paying into shared retirement plans.
The more critical issue is what happens when a train derails or breaks down, said Pat Pfeifer, state legislative board chairman for the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen.
One crew member has to remain inside the engine at all times, so without a second person, there’s no one available on scene to help cut a crossing or take other emergency precautions.
Both unions are also backing a bill in Congress to require two-person crews.
“It’s about public safety; it’s not about jobs,” Pfeifer said.
