The Manifest - SteelWheels.Newsletter - 604 railroad jobs abolished from a place that does not exist

CPKC

CPKC posted second quarter revenue of C$4.164 billion on 29 July, up 13 percent from C$3.699 billion a year earlier. Revenue ton-miles rose 4 percent. The nine point spread between revenue and volume growth came from price and mix, not traffic. Foreign exchange accounted for roughly one point of it; the Mexican peso averaged 12.55 to the Canadian dollar against 14.09 last year. Adjusted for currency, revenue still grew 12 percent. Cost grew faster. Operating income reached C$1.47 billion against C$1.343 billion, a gain of about 10 percent on 13 percent more revenue. The reported operating ratio widened 90 basis points to 64.6 percent. The core adjusted operating ratio widened by the same 90 basis points to 61.6 percent, so the deterioration is not an artifact of one-time items. Reported diluted earnings fell 14 percent to C$1.15. Core adjusted diluted earnings rose 13 percent to C$1.27. The gap is mostly Kansas City Southern purchase accounting, acquisition costs, and rail consolidation advisory costs, partly offset by a tax benefit. Grain led the book at C$925 million, followed by energy, chemicals and plastics at C$777 million and intermodal at C$758 million. First half capital spending was C$1.422 billion. The number to hold is the operating ratio. A railroad three years past its own merger, running a 13 percent revenue quarter, gave back 90 basis points. Whatever the second half brings, that is what integration costs look like after the closing celebration is over.

Canadian Pacific Kansas City Limited

CSX

CSX reported second quarter revenue of $3.94 billion, a company record, up 10 percent year over year. Operating income reached $1.51 billion, up 17 percent. Diluted earnings came in at 54 cents per share, up 23 percent. Volume ran 1.68 million units, up 6 percent, with intermodal up 9 percent. Read the operating income growth against the revenue growth and the story is margin, not just tonnage. A 17 percent gain in operating income on a 10 percent revenue gain means CSX converted incremental volume without adding proportional cost, which is what a network with available capacity is supposed to do and frequently does not. Of the three carriers reporting in this window, CSX is the only one that widened the gap in its own favor. The intermodal number is the one that carries forward. Nine percent growth in a quarter where national intermodal ran three and a half percent means CSX took share, and share in intermodal is won at ramps and in transit times rather than on price alone. The question for the second half is whether the eastern network holds those service levels as volume builds into peak, because intermodal share is easier to win than to keep.

CSX Corporation

CN

CN reported second quarter results and held its 2026 capital program at approximately C$2.8 billion, net of amounts reimbursed by customers. The railroad raised its volume assumption to low single-digit revenue ton mile growth for the year, up from the flattish growth it assumed on 30 January, and lifted its adjusted diluted EPS growth expectation to the mid-to-high single-digit range. Second quarter revenues were C$4,753 million, RTMs rose 5 percent, and the operating ratio was 62.5 percent. First half free cash flow reached C$1,842 million, up 19 percent, against roughly 3 million shares repurchased for C$454 million. Holding capital flat while raising the volume outlook is the tell. CN is converting incremental volume into cash rather than into capacity, which works while the network carries slack and becomes a constraint if grain and energy volumes hold through the second half. For US shippers on the Wisconsin Central, Illinois Central, and Grand Trunk properties, a flat capital line means the American subdivisions compete with Canadian mainline needs for the same dollars. Watch second half velocity and terminal dwell for evidence of whether that allocation holds.

Canadian National Railway Company

■ REGULATORY

STB opens proceeding on Kansas short line interchange commitment

The Board instituted a proceeding under 49 U.S.C. 10502(b) on Kansas & Oklahoma Railroad's petition for after-the-fact authority to renew and amend its lease of 165.98 route miles of Union Pacific line in western Kansas. The leased segments run Geneseo to McCracken, and Healy, Kansas, to Towner, Colorado. K&O filed in May after the Board denied an earlier petition in March, finding the carrier had not carried its burden that continued regulation was unnecessary under the rail transportation policy. Weskan Grain opposed, arguing the lease's interchange commitment fails the factors the Board set out in Review of Rail Access, EP 575. UP replied that the commitment has not foreclosed and will not foreclose interchange. The Board found the filings raise issues requiring its consideration and will take the case on the merits. This is the live question in short line leasing. Interchange commitments channel traffic back to the lessor and can strand grain shippers who would otherwise route to a second carrier. A ruling on this record sets the template for how aggressively Class I lessors can write those clauses on light-density grain lines.

■ REGULATORY

Operator changes hands at Watsonville Junction under Board exemption

The Board published notice of a change of operator covering 2.567 miles at Watsonville Junction on the Santa Cruz County Regional Transportation Commission's line, with Chicago Rock Island & Pacific Railroad LLC replacing St. Paul & Pacific Northwestern Railroad. The exemption takes effect 7 August. The mileage is trivial and the significance is not. Watsonville Junction is where the Santa Cruz Branch meets the Union Pacific Coast Line, and whoever operates that connection controls the interchange for every carload moving on or off the county-owned line. Short line operator changes at junction points rarely draw comment, but they reset the commercial relationship between the host, the operator, and the connecting Class I, and they often precede a change in what the line is used for. Santa Cruz County has spent a decade arguing internally over whether the branch carries freight, passengers, a trail, or some combination. The operator on the freight side is one of the few facts in that argument that is settled by federal filing rather than local referendum.

■ MARKET

Union Pacific posts record quarter as operating ratio widens

Union Pacific reported second quarter operating revenue of $6.9 billion, up 12 percent, and operating income of $2.763 billion, up 9 percent. Diluted earnings were $3.36 per share, up 7 percent. Revenue carloads reached 2,163 thousand, up 2 percent, and freight car velocity improved to 231 daily miles per car, up 5 percent. Jim Vena called it "another successful quarter and record financial results." The line that repays a second look is the operating ratio, which widened 70 basis points to 59.7 percent. Revenue grew twelve while operating income grew nine, which means cost grew faster than the top line in a quarter the company describes as a record. Two percent volume growth carrying twelve percent revenue growth is a price and mix quarter, not a tonnage quarter, and price-driven quarters flatter the income statement without proving anything about what the plant can absorb. Velocity up five percent on volume up two is the network doing what an uncongested network does. The test arrives when volume growth catches up to revenue growth.

■ CAPITAL

MassDOT completes $5.6 million East Deerfield intermodal rail yard

MassDOT held a ribbon cutting for the completed East Deerfield Rail Yard intermodal project, a $5.6 million build funded on an 80/20 federal to state split with US DOT grant support. The work added track for container loading and unloading, replaced rail, ties, and turnouts on four existing yard tracks, rehabilitated four more for railcar staging, and converted a former storage area into a truck transfer pad built on crushed stone rather than pavement. The site sits on the Knowledge Corridor in western Massachusetts at the junction of the I-91 and Route 2 truck corridors. East Deerfield is a working classification yard, and grafting a transload face onto an existing yard is the cheapest way a state buys freight rail access without building a greenfield terminal. The capital is modest and so is the downside. What matters is whether carload and container volume shows up. Transload facilities in secondary markets live or die on an anchor customer, and the state named none in its announcement. Absent that commitment, this is capacity waiting on demand, and the yard's existing traffic base will carry it in the meantime.

■ CAPITAL

Ohio commission funds short line bridges and industrial spurs

The Ohio Rail Development Commission approved grant assistance for four projects at its 23 July meeting and announced the awards on 27 July. The resolutions carried a $160,000 grant to Tower Automotive Operations for on-site rail expansion at Bellevue, $700,000 to the Akron Barberton Cluster Railway for a bridge span replacement on the Ravenna line at Kent, and $500,000 to the Wheeling & Lake Erie for reconstruction of the Silver Street bridge in Akron, a structure dating to 1900. Staff set the state share at 50 percent of project cost on the Ravenna bridge and 22 percent on Silver Street. The commission also took up Resolution 26-22, a first amendment to the 2012 Panhandle Rail Line lease with Genesee & Wyoming's Columbus & Ohio River Rail Road, modifying the term on the state-owned line between Columbus and the Ohio River. The pattern is worth reading. Ohio is buying bridge capacity, not route miles. A 1900-vintage structure that cannot carry 286,000-pound cars is a hard cap on a short line's addressable traffic, and state grants are how that cap gets lifted one span at a time.

■ MARKET

Weekly traffic shows intermodal again outpacing carload growth

US railroads moved 527,162 carloads and intermodal units in the week ending 25 July, up 2.5 percent against the same week in 2025. Carloads came in at 234,100, up 1.4 percent. Intermodal ran 293,062 containers and trailers, up 3.5 percent. Through 29 weeks, US carloads stand at 6,578,325, up 2.8 percent, and intermodal at 8,124,976, up 3.7 percent. The split matters more than the headline number. Intermodal has carried the growth all year while carload traffic grinds a point or two behind, and the commodity detail shows why. Metallic ores and metals added 1,998 cars, petroleum products added 1,219, and farm products and food added 1,120. Coal lost 1,001 cars and chemicals slipped 191. That is a franchise leaning on boxes and metals rather than the bulk book. For operating people, sustained intermodal growth against flat carloads means ramp and terminal capacity, not line capacity, is where the network tightens first. For commercial teams, pricing leverage sits in intermodal lanes and metals while coal continues its structural bleed. Mexican carloads, up 28.3 percent, remain the fastest-moving piece of the North American picture.

■ LABOR

Engineers claim the border crew rule as a decade-long campaign won

BLET President Mark Wallace issued a statement on 31 July claiming the FRA's proposed limits on foreign train crews at the southern border as a union victory. Wallace framed the case on three grounds: that the language barrier "posed a hazard in the event of a derailment or other incident," that foreign crew operations carried reports of "the smuggling of narcotics and human trafficking," and that the practice substituted foreign labor for American railroad jobs. He credited the current administration, congressional allies of both parties, and Teamsters leadership, and pointed to H.R. 8468 as the legislative vehicle that established the ten-mile operational limit the rule now codifies. Read alongside the rule itself, the statement is instructive about how rail labor wins in this era. BLET did not win this at a bargaining table or through an arbitration award. It won it by building a safety record, attaching it to a border-security argument that traveled in Washington, and waiting for a rulemaking. The mechanism is worth noting, because the same playbook is now running on crew size.

■ TECHNOLOGY

Seven railroads accept telematics data as binding demurrage evidence

RailPulse announced that GPS location and time data from certified telematics devices on subscriber railcars will serve as the governing record in demurrage and storage charge disputes, effective 1 October. Seven carriers signed on: CPKC, CSX, Genesee & Wyoming, Iowa Interstate, Norfolk Southern, Union Pacific, and Watco. The standard covers arrival, departure, and dwell events, with limited exceptions. This is a quiet change with real teeth. Demurrage disputes have run for decades on competing records, the railroad's event feed against the shipper's own gate log, and the party with the better paperwork usually prevailed. Moving the burden onto neutral onboard telemetry eliminates the argument rather than adjudicating it. For shippers, the practical effect is faster settlement and fewer credits chased through billing departments. For carriers, it cuts the cost of defending charges and reduces exposure when a dispute escalates to the Board. The constraint is coverage. The standard binds only where a certified device is installed, so its reach tracks telematics penetration across the private and railroad-owned fleets, which remains well short of universal.

■ SAFETY

FTA publishes public dashboard for transit safety and performance

The Federal Transit Administration launched Transit Moves America, a public dashboard built on National Transit Database submissions that displays safety, security, and performance data for transit agencies nationwide. Safety and security figures update monthly. Accessibility and efficiency data update annually. The tool carries national averages alongside individual agency results and reports operating cost per passenger trip for the 25 largest urbanized areas, with separate views for bus and rail systems. The freight side should watch this. NTD reporting has existed for decades, but publishing it in comparative form changes the incentive structure, because underperformance becomes visible to funders and local media without a records request. Commuter rail operators that share track with freight carriers now have their safety and cost numbers sitting next to their peers. That raises the political cost of degraded service and hands those agencies a cleaner argument when they go looking for capital or for schedule relief from a host railroad. A modest shift, and it runs in the passenger operator's direction.

■ GENERAL

CPKC names Gordon Trafton board chair as Courville retires

CPKC announced on 29 July that Isabelle Courville is retiring as chair of the board and that Vice-Chair Gordon Trafton assumes the chair effective immediately. Courville joined the Canadian Pacific board in May 2013 and became chair in May 2019, the first woman to chair a Class I railway board. She held the seat through the Kansas City Southern acquisition and the creation of the only single-line network reaching Canada, the United States, and Mexico. Trafton is not a governance generalist. He spent 33 years in operations at Burlington Northern, Illinois Central, and Canadian National, ran acquisition integration work, and retired from CN in 2010. He joined the CPKC board in 2017 and was moved to vice-chair in January 2026, which now reads as a scheduled handoff rather than a scramble. The signal worth reading is the profile shift. CPKC replaced a chair with a utilities and legal background with a career operating railroader at a moment when the North American network map is being redrawn around it.

■ GENERAL

Railway Supply Institute hires Washington veteran as president

The Railway Supply Institute named Thomas Jensen president on 22 July, handing its legislative and regulatory portfolio to a career government affairs operator rather than a supplier executive. Jensen spent more than three decades at UPS, finishing as senior vice president of government affairs with responsibility for transportation, infrastructure, commercial vehicle regulation, supply chain policy, and emerging technology. He later built the government affairs function at Amrize, served as vice president of government affairs at the autonomous trucking company TuSimple, and most recently ran government relations for America250. He has chaired the US Chamber of Commerce transportation, infrastructure and logistics committee and the American Highway Users Alliance. Read the resume against the moment. RSI members sell into a market where federal certification rules are in play, where tariff exposure sits on imported components, and where the freight network itself may consolidate. The institute did not hire a rail insider. It hired a Washington one, with truck and highway credentials.

■ GENERAL

DART names Nathaniel Ford president and chief executive

Dallas Area Rapid Transit named Nathaniel P. Ford Sr. president and chief executive officer, with the appointment announced 21 July and effective 26 October. Ford arrives at an agency that operates the largest light rail network in the United States by route mileage and that has spent two years in a funding fight with member cities over sales tax contributions. The hire matters beyond Dallas because DART's rail operations touch freight territory at multiple points and because the agency's capital posture influences what gets built across North Texas. Ford's record is in large urban transit rather than in rail-freight interface, which is the conventional profile for the job and also the conventional blind spot. Agencies that run passenger service over or alongside freight lines negotiate their schedules with host railroads, and the terms of those agreements are set by people who understand what a host railroad can and cannot absorb. Watch who Ford puts in the operations chair.

SMART-TD

Rhode Island signs two-person crew requirement into law Rhode Island became the latest state to write a two-person crew requirement into statute when Governor Dan McKee signed H7608 and companion S2913 on 23 July. SMART Transportation Division, which ran the legislative campaign through its New England safety and legislative office, announced the signing on 27 July. The law requires a minimum of two crew members on any train or light engine hauling freight anywhere in the state, with civil penalties escalating from $1,000 for a first offense to $5,000 for a second within three years and $10,000 for a third. The practical reach inside Rhode Island is small; the state carries limited Class I freight tonnage. The strategic reach is not. Every state statute enacted while the federal crew-size question remains contested builds the record labor wants, and it locks the staffing floor at the state level where the union can defend it.

BLET

Bipartisan Senate bill would fund Railroad Retirement Board operations The Railroad Retirement Board Stability Act of 2026, S. 4965, is the rare rail bill with carriers and craft unions behind it at the same time. BLET announced on 30 July that Senators Bill Cassidy, Bernie Sanders, Jim Banks, and Tim Kaine introduced the measure, which would let the RRB draw a modest share of the payroll taxes it already collects to fund its own administration, with congressional oversight retained. That is a plumbing fix, not a benefit expansion, and the numbers explain the urgency. Disability applications are running past 440 days to a first decision. Offices have closed, staffing has thinned, and the case systems are decades old. Railroaders have no Social Security fallback and no state unemployment insurance to lean on, so an RRB that cannot process claims is a direct hit to household cash flow. Watch whether the language protecting National Railroad Retirement Investment Trust solvency survives markup intact. That provision is what keeps management at the table.

BLET

Patriot Rail short line votes unanimously for BLET representation Train and engine service employees at the Temple & Central Texas Railway voted unanimously for BLET representation in an election the National Mediation Board certified on 22 July. BLET announced the result on 28 July and counted it as the union's seventeenth short line organizing win since 2023. The property is small, roughly ten miles in Temple, Texas, interchanging with BNSF Railway. The pattern behind it is not small. TC is a Patriot Rail subsidiary, and Patriot operates 31 regional and short line railroads across the United States. This is the second Patriot property BLET has organized; Utah Central members ratified a first contract earlier this year. National Vice President James Logan led the drive and said work begins immediately on a grievance committee and a first agreement. Short line operators have long relied on the assumption that scattered small crews would not organize. Seventeen wins in three years says the assumption is failing, and a ratified contract at Utah Central gives the next campaign something concrete to point at.

FRA

FRA proposes English proficiency requirement for engineers and conductors FRA published a notice of proposed rulemaking on 31 July amending 49 CFR Parts 240 and 242. Four changes ride together. English language proficiency becomes a condition of certification and recertification for locomotive engineers and conductors. Triennial skill performance examinations and annual operational monitoring observations must be conducted without energy management systems engaged, meaning no automated throttle or brake handling during a check ride. Operations at the southern border get a codified 10 route mile geographic limitation. Territorial qualification is narrowed to the specific direction of travel traversed during the qualification process. That last item is the sleeper. On directional running territory a crew qualified one way is no longer qualified the other, which shrinks the available pool and lands squarely on crew calling and extra board planning. The energy management provision forces road foremen to rebuild how check rides are scheduled and scored. Carriers will refile their Part 240 and 242 programs. Comments close 29 September 2026.

STB

Board finalizes BNSF compensation for Lake Charles trackage rights The Board served its decision on 21 July in Docket FD 32760 (Sub-No. 46), finalizing what BNSF Railway pays to use terminal trackage rights over the Rosebluff Lead near Lake Charles. The Rosebluff Lead is a nine mile track jointly owned by Union Pacific and CPKC. BNSF's rights trace to conditions imposed in the 1996 UP/SP merger, were sought in a 2013 application, and were granted in 2016. Compensation stayed open until now. The Board set the fee at $9.90 per car mile in 2021 dollars and split payment by purpose. For movements providing direct service to the LyondellBasell facility, BNSF pays CPKC. For all other uses, BNSF pays Union Pacific the previously prescribed fee. The split puts a movement-level accounting burden on the operating carrier, which now codes trains by which shipper was served. The larger point is that roughly a decade of uncertainty is closed. Area petrochemical shippers keep the second-carrier option the 1996 conditions were written to protect.

STB

Board convenes grain car council ahead of the 2026 harvest The Board published notice on 22 July of a National Grain Car Council meeting set for 25 August, 1:00 to 5:00 p.m. Central, at the InterContinental Kansas City at the Plaza, with a remote option. The docket is EP 519 (Sub-No. 4). The stated purpose is rail carrier preparedness to transport the 2026 grain harvest, with reports on harvest expectations, market conditions, car supply, and service performance. This is the venue where car adequacy gets aired before the fall peak, and the timing is the point. Elevator operators and shippers who expect spotting shortfalls should file written comments with the Board rather than raise them from the floor, because written comments enter the docket and the room does not. Membership nominations are open and require executive-level grain transportation experience. Accommodation requests are due 19 August. The Council advises rather than orders, but its record feeds the Board's view of car supply going into harvest.

WABTEC

Locomotive deliveries lift Wabtec backlog to $30.93 billion Wabtec reported second quarter results on 22 July. Sales of $3.18 billion, up 17.5 percent. Adjusted earnings of $2.76 per diluted share, up 21.6 percent. Operating cash flow of $441 million, more than double the prior year. Multi-year backlog reached $30.93 billion, up $9.10 billion year over year, or 41.3 percent excluding currency. Composition is the story. Freight equipment sales climbed 35.0 percent on higher locomotive deliveries. Services sales fell 4.2 percent on lower modernization deliveries. New units are moving while mods are not. That is either Class I capital shifting from rebuild programs toward new power, or mod slots pushed right, and it changes which shop capacity gets loaded and when. Digital sales jumped 88.5 percent, but the company credits the Inspection Technologies and Frauscher acquisitions rather than organic demand, so read that line as portfolio construction and not as railroad appetite for onboard technology. Wabtec raised full year guidance to $12.30 to $12.60 billion in revenue.

TRINITY

Trinity books $132 million gain on railcar partnership deal Trinity reported second quarter results on 30 July. Revenue of $485.1 million and earnings from continuing operations of $1.25 per diluted share, with operating profit of $199.8 million. Deliveries were 1,570 railcars against 1,560 new orders, so book to bill sat at roughly one and the backlog held at $1,585.2 million. Lease fleet utilization finished the quarter at 97.3 percent on a wholly owned fleet of 96,280 railcars, with another 50,650 cars managed for investor owners. The quarter's headline number came from the balance sheet rather than the shop floor. Trinity completed a railcar partnership transaction with Napier Park and booked a non-cash pre-tax gain of $132 million. It also took a 32 percent stake in the Touax Texmaco joint venture in India. Full year guidance holds industry deliveries near 25,000 railcars. A 25,000 car industry year is a soft build market. Leasing is carrying this company.

FREIGHTCAR

FreightCar America acquires Southern Parts to expand aftermarket FreightCar America announced on 21 July that it acquired Southern Parts & Equipment, Inc. of Monroe, Georgia, a regional distributor of new, used, and reconditioned railcar components. Terms were not disclosed. The company framed the deal as improving customer access to critical railcar components and called it immediately accretive. Read it against the build cycle. With industry deliveries running near 25,000 cars, new car manufacturing margin is thin and volatile, while parts distribution and repair revenue tracks the installed fleet rather than the order book. Cars still in service still need brake shoes, couplers, wheels, and draft gear regardless of what the builders book. This is the second aftermarket acquisition inside twelve months, which makes it a pattern rather than an opportunity taken. Buying distribution rather than building it also buys existing relationships inside shops FreightCar does not own. The company reports second quarter results on 3 August, where the aftermarket contribution gets quantified for the first time.

Amtrak

Road Foreman I  ·  Denver, Colorado
Supervises locomotive engineers and T&E crews on Denver territory. Requires current Class I engineer certification and three years railroad experience.

Norfolk Southern

Terminal Supervisor / Manager  ·  Norfolk, Virginia
Directs safe, scheduled train performance on assigned territory. Covers crew rules compliance, accident investigation, hazmat handling, and yard system operation.

San Mateo County Transit District

Manager, Rail Operations  ·  Menlo Park, California
Oversees Caltrain service delivery and GCOR operating rules, audits the contract operator, and answers service emergencies around the clock.

TransitAmerica Services (Herzog)

Manager of Field Operations  ·  San Jose, California
Runs the operational testing program under GCOR and air brake rules, investigates derailments and injuries, manages crews and equipment.

Wabtec

Lead Engineer, Locomotive Cab Design  ·  Erie, Pennsylvania
Designs locomotive cab structures and components. Requires mechanical engineering degree, Siemens NX and Teamcenter, GD&T and tolerance analysis.

■ From the SteelWheels.Co Desk

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