Railroad News

Union Pacific Railroad has launched a new employee-led business resource group focused on environmental sustainability.

Called "Planet Tracks," the new group is dedicated to "helping employees champion and promote environmental stewardship and sustainability initiatives," UP officials reported in the Class I's Inside Track newsletter.

Union Pacific Railroad was named a 2021 Gold Medallion recipient by the U.S. Department of Labor’s (USDOL) HIRE Vets Medallion Program, which advocates for the hiring and support of veterans.

UP has accomplished “exceptional achievement” in recruiting and hiring veterans, USDOL officials said in a press release. UP has hired former military service members since its beginning in the 1860s when it hired Civil War veterans. More than 17% of UP employees have military experience with some still active in the National Guard or Reserves. Veterans represent 24% of new hires within the last five years.

Union Pacific Railroad is awarding $5.5 million in grants to 576 nonprofit organizations part of the Class I's Community Ties Giving Program.

Eighty-three percent of the money is going to “local organizations that align with UP’s civersity, equity and inclusion (DEI) values," UP officials said in a press release. An estimated 16 million people across the railroad's 23-state network will benefit from the grants, which were awarded based on the company's three top philanthropic priorities: safety, workforce development and community spaces. The grants range from $2,500 to $25,000 each.

Union Pacific Corp. today reported third-quarter 2021 net income of $1.7 billion, or $2.57 per diluted share, compared with $1.4 billion, or $2.01 per diluted share, in the third quarter 2020.

Operating revenue for the quarter rose 13% to $5.6 billion, while operating income climbed 20% to $2.4 billon compared with the same period a year ago.

Union Pacific Railroad recently shipped the military vehicle that pulled down the statue of Saddam Hussein during the 2003 invasion of Iraq, according to an article posted on the Class I's Inside Track website.

UP subsidiary Loup Logistics provided a first and final mile transportation solution for the 140,000-pound M88A2 Hercules.

Union Pacific Railroad on Oct. 15  filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court after receiving communications from three unions protesting the Class I's vaccination mandate.

The unions involved are the Transportation Division of the International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers (SMART-TD), the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (BLET) and Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employees (BMWED).

Each member of the supply chain must focus on optimizing their part of it and keep communicating with other players both upstream and downstream to address challenges, according to Union Pacific Railroad's Inside Track newsletter.

Changes in consumer spending habits during the pandemic, labor shortages in the trucking and warehousing industries, and final-mile delivery delays are contributing to industry-wide supply-chain shortages in the United States, wrote Elise Gosch, UP's assistant vice president of marketing and sales-premium intermodal.

Union Pacific Railroad Assistant Vice President-External Relations Wes Lujan recently posted a column on the freight-rail industry’s relationship with Amtrak.

The column’s timing is related to Amtrak’s 15-year, $75 billion plan to expand intercity passenger-rail service across the country. The plan will depend on Congress passing federal funding to help pay for it, as well as negotiations with the nation’s freight railroads on whose tracks Amtrak trains would travel.

A Union Pacific Railroad firefighting crew with water tank cars from the Class I's fleet helped fight a lava fire in Northern California in late June, according to an article on UP's website.

UP operates a fleet of about 50 water tank cars known as the fire-car fleet. The former tank cars were converted into water pump cars and can hold 7,000 to 23,000 gallons of water. They feature nozzles that can spray water more than 75 feet.

Union Pacific Railroad's Heartland Service Unit has reduced its personal reportable injuries by 25% and human factor-derailments by 58% so far in 2021.

One of the unit's initiatives, called "Walk-with-Me Wednesdays," engages directly with train crews, UP officials said in an item posted on the Class I's InsideTrack web page. Each Wednesday, supervisors walk around the yard with two employees and show them how safe and reliable service impacts customers.

Union Pacific Railroad's "We Are ONE" Employee Resource Group (ERG) commemorative locomotive is ready to hit the tracks. UP No. 1979 is named after the year in which the Class I established its first ERG, the Black Employee Network (BEN).

The locomotive will travel through UP's system on its way to the ONE ERG conference to be held in Omaha Sept. 1-2. Its unveiling will be held in Houston in honor of Juneteenth day, the holiday marking the end of slavery in the United States.