Union Pacific News

A 300-acre property along the Mississippi River in Herculaneum, Missouri recently received Port District zoning making way for redevelopment as an intermodal transportation hub and industrial park.Located on the shipping lanes of the Mississippi River, the site has been utilized since the 1700s as a port. With its easy access for barge loading and offloading and the site’s proximity to early lead mines in adjacent Washington County, under early French ownership the port was utilized to ship lead cannonballs and shot to Europe to support Napolean’s army.

Container vessel operations resumed at the Port of New Orleans on Tuesday, nine days after Hurricane Ida made landfall in southeast Louisiana as a category 4 storm.The first two ships worked at the Napoleon Avenue Container Terminal were the MSC Charleston at New Orleans Terminal and the Hapag Lloyd CSL Manhattan at Ports America. Seacor’s container on barge service will be worked tonight by Ports America.“Our wharves are busy today, handling both container and breakbulk cargo vessels, and trains are moving,” said Brandy D.

Union Pacific Corp container shipments from U.S. West Coast seaports to one of the railroad's major hubs in Chicago will restart early next week after a seven-day suspension, Chief Executive Lance Fritz told Reuters on Thursday.The railroad on Sunday night paused cargo shipments from the ports of Los Angeles, Long Beach, Oakland and Tacoma to its Global IV facility in Chicago in a bid to clear "significant congestion.""We're starting to see containers clear, so I anticipate in the seven-day period ...

Grappling with slowed business levels caused by the ongoing pandemic, Arkansas' Port of Little Rock reports September was its best month since April of this year.Activity levels at the port's docks increased with 29 barges worked; 21 at the slackwater dock and eight at the river dock. More than 44,000 net tons of cargo was handled including the following commodities: aluminum ingots, sows, and tee bars; nepheline syenite, scrap, steel coils, wetcake and wire rod coils.Year-to-date the docks have worked 286 barges with 434,000 net tons loaded or unloaded to barge.

The St. Louis Regional Freightway has compiled a summary of the major developments over the past year that either elevated the St. Louis region’s global status as a world-class freight hub or will help to advance the region’s position as the country’s freight nexus in the year ahead.“From mega projects breaking ground and global companies choosing to invest here, to newly formed partnerships that strengthen the bi-state region’s role in national and global supply chains, there was much to be excited about in 2019…

The New Orleans Public Belt Railroad Corporation (NOPB), a wholly owned subsidiary of the Port of New Orleans (Port NOLA), has named M.D. (Mike) Stolzman as its new General Manager, effective immediately.Stolzman, a veteran railroad executive with extensive short line and Class I rail experience, will report to Brandy D. Christian, President and CEO of Port NOLA and CEO of NOPB, which is a Class III railroad on the nation’s fourth largest rail gateway that connects with six Class I railroads and serves Port NOLA and local industry.“There was tremendous interest in NOPB’s General Manager position and we were fortunate to attract a wide range of highly qualified candidates,” said Christian.

Tonnage on river increases 60 percent from 2018Through the first two months of 2019, the Port of Little Rock and its stevedorer, LSI, have seen a year-to-year increase of 33 barges, a 62% increase in activity. Additionally, tonnage is up 49,000 tons year-to-year (60%) with a total of 130,400 tons. Commodities handled during the month included aluminum ingots and tee bars, bauxite, nepheline syenite, rock and sand, scrap, steel coils, wetcake and wire rod coils. LSI expects barge activity to continue to be very strong over the next several months.Activity on the docks remained strong for February with a total of 47 barges worked- 21 more than February 2018. The 72,000 tons of cargo loaded and unloaded from barges during the month surpassed February 2018 by 80 percent.

About 500 people gathered at the Long Beach Convention Center for the event, which brings together a panel of shipping and trade experts to offer their perspectives on industry trends and how they affect the San Pedro Bay port complex. One of the panelists, Drewry Maritime Research Senior Quantitative Economist Mario Moreno, predicted Asia-U.S. trade will grow 6.8 percent in 2018, the fastest pace in more than half-a-dozen years. He also estimated the overall U.S. economy will expand 2.8 percent. While President Donald Trump and China have proposed higher tariffs, an all-out trade war between China and the United States appears unlikely, according to Moreno. “Both nations have a lot to lose,” Moreno said.

A Container-on-Barge service intended to be an integral part of the regional intermodal equation is gathering momentum – and customers. Quietly, the Port of New Orleans (NOLA) has marked some important accomplishments in the past two years, across multiple business sectors. For example, in April 2016, NOLA’s Board dedicated a $25 million Mississippi River intermodal terminal, capable of handling 160,000 twenty-foot-equivalent (TEU) units per year by rail. CN Railroad signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) a year earlier (2015)…

Residents fleeing most powerful storm on U.S. mainland since 2005. Businesses closed and lines of cars streamed out of coastal Texas as officials called for residents to evacuate ahead of Hurricane Harvey, expected to arrive about midnight as the most powerful storm to hit the U.S. mainland in more than a decade. The hurricane is forecast to slam first near Corpus Christi, Texas, drop flooding rains along the central Texas coast and potentially loop back over the Gulf of Mexico before hitting Houston, some models showed. "My urgent message to my fellow Texans is that if you live in a region where evacuation has been ordered, you need to heed that advice and get out of harm's way while you can," Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said in a televised address.

Bryan Day, executive director of the Little Rock Port Authority, weighs in on President Donald Trump’s proposed infrastructure plan, calling for U.S. policymakers to consider inland waterways and ports in America’s infrastructure plan. President Donald Trump and members of Congress continue to discuss plans for a major infrastructure spending plan for our country. With calls from leaders from across the country, members of the federal government are coming together to embrace the importance of maintaining America’s infrastructure.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx today announced $4.85 million in grants to six Marine Highway projects along the waterways of 17 states and the District of Columbia. The goal of the Maritime Administration’s Marine Highway Program is to expand the use of U.S. navigable waterways to relieve landside congestion, reduce air emissions and generate other public benefits by increasing the efficiency of the surface transportation system. “These grants will help us take advantage of the economic and environmental benefits of one of America’s most crucial transportation assets – our coastal and inland waterways,” Foxx said. The grants will help expand existing marine highway operations across New York Harbor…

The Port of Little Rock has reported 73,000 net tons of total barge tonnage in May. Dock activities compared favorably over the previous year with Logistic Services, Inc. (LSI) handling 228 barges during the first five months of the year. 350,000 net tons of various commodities moved across the docks at the port. Cargoes handled across the docks included potash, sulfate, triple phosphate, urea, rock and sand, wetcake, bauxite, lightweight aggregate, wire rod coils, aluminum ingots, aluminum tee and sows, scrap and steel coils.

At the 12th annual “Pulse of the Ports Peak Season Forecast,” panelists told the audience of about 550 people that cargo growth should continue through 2016 even though uncertainty remains as the economy and industry continue to evolve. One of the panelists, Senior Economist Mario Moreno, IHS Maritime & Trade, stated that containerized imports from Asia will grow at about 5.5 percent in 2016. He also stated that the overall U.S. economy would grow by about 2.3 percent. Each spring…

Torrential rainstorms battered Louisiana on Sunday, leaving thousands without power, after pounding southeastern Texas as the remnants of Hurricane Patricia converged with a second storm. The heaviest band of rain moved over the Gulf of Mexico, triggering coastal flood warnings and flash flood watches in southwest Louisiana and soaking New Orleans, according to the National Weather Service (NWS). About 22,000 people were left without power in the greater New Orleans area. Some streets were flooded, while a high tide surge brought some coastal flooding as well. Rainfall has totaled as much as 7 inches (18 cm) since late Saturday night, and forecasters predicted another 5 inches (13 cm) could fall.

Heavy rains fueled by the meeting of two strong storm systems, one the remnants of Hurricane Patricia, pounded southeastern Texas on Saturday, triggering flash floods and derailing a freight train as the heavy weather tracked toward Houston. Navarro County, about 50 miles (80 km) south of Dallas, was one of the hardest-hit areas, inundating the tiny town of Powell with 20 inches (50 cm) of rain over 30 hours, according to meteorologist Brett Rathbun of Accuweather. A flash flood was so forceful it swept a Union Pacific freight train off the tracks, pushing locomotives and some rail cars on their sides. No injuries were reported. County…

Billionaire investor Warren Buffett is set to be a chief beneficiary of a bid by Senate Republicans to weaken new regulations to improve train safety in the $2.8 billion crude-by-rail industry, a key cog in the development of the vast North American shale oil fields. A series of oil train accidents, including the July 2013 explosion of a train carrying crude in Lac-Megantic, Quebec, that killed 47 people, led U.S. and Canadian regulators to announce sweeping safety rules in May. Among other things, U.S. oil trains are required to install new electronically controlled pneumatic (ECP) brakes. But in late June, the Republican-controlled Senate Commerce Committee approved a measure to drop that requirement, and order years of new research to confirm the safety benefits of ECP brakes.

A chronic shortage of drivers means America's long-haul trucking companies are struggling to capitalize on cheap fuel prices that could allow them to take goods shipments away from railroads. A 50 percent fall in oil prices from their peak last year should have erased some of the cost advantage railroads enjoy, especially for longer hauls. But for customers hoping to save money by switching from train to truck, the lack of drivers makes that harder. "It's a nice theory, but the math doesn't add up because of the driver shortage," said Jason Seidl, an Cowen & Co analyst. An increasingly common way of shipping freight is by "intermodal" standardized containers that can be hauled by truck, ship and train.

U.S. railroad company Union Pacific Corp said on Monday that a rail line on which a train derailed in northern Colorado was back in service. The line, which is used about once a day, connects Windsor, which is in the Niobrara shale play in northeastern Colorado, as well as other towns in the state. The train, which was heading from Windsor to an East Coast destination, spilled 5,300 gallons of oil on Friday morning. Over the past several months, the industry has been under heightened government scrutiny due to an increase in train derailments involving oil tank cars. The amount of oil moving by rail from shale formations has risen sharply because the region is not well-connected to pipelines.

The U.S. Coast Guard on Tuesday closed the Mississippi River at Sabula, Iowa, after a barge struck a railroad bridge, said Eric Washburn, bridge administrator for the agency's Eighth District Western Rivers Bridge Branch. The river was closed 1 mile (1.6 km) north and 1 mile south of the site of the accident as of about 3 p.m. CDT (2000 GMT), Washburn said. The barge was stuck in an open position. The contents of the barge were unknown as investigators traveled to the site, he said. "The investigators will have to inspect the bridge and make a determination if it needs repairs," added Tim Marriott, enforcement chief for the Coast Guard's upper Mississippi River sector. The rail bridge was owned by Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd , said company spokesman Ed Greenberg.

Port and Community officials join rail partners Genesee & Wyoming (G&W) and Union Pacific (UP) to celebrate two milestones. The Port of Hueneme was honored recently by the Railway Industrial Clearance Association (RICA) as 2012’s Most Improved Port. Founded in 1969, the Railway Industrial Clearance Association is dedicated to serving the heavy and dimensional transportation industry, cargos with large dimensions, excess weight or center of gravity or other unusual issues. With over 400 members the association seeks opportunities to solve transportation challenges that lead to improved cooperation between shippers, receivers and railroads to implement common solutions to intermodal problems.

Has the Panama Canal expansion already outgrown itself? How does the success or failure of the administration's export initiative impact your bottom line? Breakbulk is flourishing; what does that mean to your business? These questions and other hot topics will be the focal point of the Containerization & Intermodal Institute's one-day seminar in Houston on June 20th at the Houston Marriott North. The program will commence with lunch at 11:30 a.m. and will be followed by two panels, adjourning at 5 p.m. Michael Masserman, Executive Director for Export Policy, Promotion & Strategy, International Trade Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce, is the luncheon speaker.

After assessing more than 700 project applications equaling about $10.2 billion, the U.S. Department of Transportation today announced that 47 projects in 34 states and the District of Columbia will receive a total of $485.3 million in its fourth round of TIGER (Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery) infrastructure grant awards. Of the 47 capital project funding requests selected for awards, eight go directly to America’s port-related infrastructure. These eight project grants total more than $79 million, or about 16 percent of the capital grant funds available. “In his Fast Lane blog this week, Sec. LaHood reiterated the Obama administration’s ‘deep commitment’ to investing in our ports and marine highways to create jobs and keep American goods moving to markets.