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The California company working to start a deluxe overnight passenger train between San Francisco and Los Angeles says it has signed a “landmark memorandum” with Union Pacific Railroad. It’s not a final contract, but Dreamstar Lines of Newport Beach said the memorandum of understanding “formaliz[es] the parties’ negotiations toward a comprehensive final agreement” and “identifies the fundamental terms for Dreamstar to operate its trains” on UP’s Coast Line via Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo and San Jose. Dreamstar wants to start the service in summer 2025. Union Pacific owns most of the 470-mile route. To complete the link between San...

Please note that it was Union Pacific making the call and they stopped train traffic. This location is a large switching area for UP.

Once one of the heaviest steam locomotives in the world, the Big Boy 4014 recently stumbled into a mission. The famous Union Pacific Big Boy was the heaviest steam locomotive ever built when it became operational in the 1940s. An icon of the American railroads, it was retired from service in 1959 as the diesel age took hold. Recently, however, the last running Big Boy was tasked with the important mission of rescuing a freight train stalled in Nebraska. The video shows the 4014 gently pulling up and coupling with the freight train ahead. After a spell, it roars into...

Union Pacific freight train derailed in Nebraska early on Tuesday, sparking an emergency response. Around 30 cars carrying coal jumped tracks three miles southeast of the town of Gothenburg at about 1.45am, officials said. Emergency hazmat teams rushed to the site of the crash. There were no reported injuries. Images posted to KNOP showed dozens of rail cars strewn along the tracks, alongside mounds of black coal. It was the fourth derailment involving a Union Pacific train in the area since May last year, KNOP reported. In a statement to Fox News, Union Pacific said a clean up operation was...

ransomnote: This video describes a grain supply chain issues with the country's main rail freight hub which have now worsened as a result of Union Pacific's railway embargo.ALL Shipments STOPPED -MAIN Artery for USA - Railways SHUT DOWN - Cars PILING UP | Patrick HumphreyGrain shipments had already been backing up (not delivered) since October (see chart).Now as of December 29, Union Pacific has announced an embargo which will deepen the supply chain problem with grain. Excerpt:The following excerpt sounds like "14 days to flatten the curve.... Here's a map of the Union Pacific hub impacted by the embargo; it...

Do you know what DEF fluid is? It's Diesel Exhaust Fluid. Every Diesel truck that has been made since 2010 is required to use it. It's a product made of 67% Urea fertilizer and 33% distilled water. Every diesel truck you see driving down the road today has to have this product to drive. The engines won't start without it. There are regulators inside the engine that mix DEF with the Diesel to reduce Diesel emissions. That's the purpose of DEF. Right now, Russia is the largest exporter of Urea by a wide margin. Qatar is second. Egypt and China...

In early March, Tucker Carlson invited Iowa Corn and soybean farmer Ben Riensche on his top-rated program to discuss the massive inflation we are about to see in food prices here at home. According to Rienshe, grocery prices may increase up to $1,000 per month due to Russia’s sanctions on fertilizer. ... “It’s embarrassing how little most people know about fertilizer, what it means, tell us the implications of this sanction?” Carlson asked. .... Soaring fertilizer prices are likely to spike food prices,” Riensche said. “If you’re upset that gas is up a dollar or two a gallon, wait until...

As you may recall, ten days ago I warned that rail carriers were declaring “force majeure” and halting shipments of grain to dairy herds and other cow herds across America. In that announcement, I also warned that this was an engineered collapse of the food supply, where rail carriers were essentially being ordered to drop certain loads in order to maximize the coming wave of food scarcity and famine.Now, devastating news from CF Industries — one of the largest fertilizer producers in the world — confirms the engineered food collapse plan is being expanded to include fertilizer shipments.According to an...

California Gov. Gavin Newsom clarified this week that when he called criminals accused of stealing packages from cargo trains in the state "gangs of people" he wasn’t implying the thefts were gang-related. This is not one-off," Newsom said in a news conference near Union Pacific Railroad tracks in Los Angeles on Thursday, according to the Washington Times. "This is organized theft. These are organized gangs of people that are coming out." "Forgive me for saying ‘gangs,’ that’s not a pejorative," he clarified. "They’re organized groups of folks that move from site to site."

Union Pacific, the nation’s largest railroad franchise, is considering rerouting its trains around Los Angeles amid a spike in railcar thefts, according to a CBS News affiliate. In the past year, Los Angeles County has seen a 160 percent jump in criminal rail theft, with October 2021 showing a 356 percent increase from the year before. Offenders have stolen from, assaulted, and even committed armed robbery of Union Pacific employees, amounting to “$5 million in claims, losses, and damages,” according to the company. The railroad is faulting L.A. County district attorney George Gascón’s (D.) “well-intended social justice goals,” such as...

Union Pacific railroad said there was a rash of cargo container break-ins as the containers were being hauled by train near downtown Los Angeles, as officials are trying to clear the backlog of cargo at the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. Thousands of boxes as far as the eye could see were strewn along the railroad tracks near Valley Boulevard and North Mission Road in Lincoln Park in footage captured by NewsChopper4 Monday. Several container doors were wide open - including a FedEx container with boxes tipping over. The section of the track is bordered by homeless encampments...

Union Pacific and its labor unions are suing each other to determine whether the railroad has the authority to require its employees to get vaccinated against the coronavirus. The unions argue that the Omaha, Nebraska-based railroad should have negotiated with them before announcing it would require all employees to get the shots. The railroad contends in its own lawsuit that it believes it has the authority to require the vaccine under its existing contracts because it can set standards for when employees are fit for duty. Union Pacific announced this month that it would require all employees to be vaccinated...

Union Pacific is temporarily suspending eastbound service from West Coast port terminals to its Global IV intermodal facility in Chicago to help ease “significant congestion” at inland terminals, especially Chicago, and at the ports. The suspension is aimed at helping ocean carriers reduce backlogs. UP (NYSE: UNP) hopes this suspension, which will start on Sunday and last for about seven days, will not only help relieve port backlogs for Chicago-bound container traffic but also ultimately help address backlogs for containers destined to other markets. The suspension applies to UP-served terminals at the ports of Los Angeles, Long Beach and Oakland,...

TEMPE, AZ (3TV/CBS 5) -- A portion of the bridge located near Tempe Town Lake was demolished Sunday morning around 8:13 a.m. as part of the clean-up process following a train derailment and fire earlier this week that damaged the bridge. “The operation was done without any injuries and an all clear had been given for the site for utilities to make sure there were no disruption of services. We've had a tremendous amount of progress over the last 24 hours that we're very happy with," said Tempe Fire's Assistant Chief, Andrea Glass. Tempe Town Lake bridge demolition scheduled for...

A jaw-dropping video appears to show a crowd of thieves looting TVs from a moving train near Chicago on Sunday as protests over the death of George Floyd rage. The footage, posted on YouTube Tuesday, shows dozens of people climbing aboard the snail-paced cargo train and raiding boxes of big screen TVs. Some of the crooks then hop off the train and flee. “The train is moving. The train is moving bro, look … These folks are stealing,” a man shooting the footage can be heard saying. Titled “Protesters Loot TVs Off Moving Train In Chicago,” the video has also...

If a railroad locomotive is an iron horse, then a vast herd of them has been put out to pasture in Salt Lake City. They’re lined up, nose to tail, waiting to go nowhere — at least for now. By some estimates as many as 200 railroad engines — each one costing about $3 million — have been sidelined over the last year or so in a Union Pacific rail yard just north of downtown Salt Lake City. And it has nothing at all to do with the new coronavirus. A company spokeswoman for Union Pacific refused to answer detailed...

It’s not every day you get to see an antique steam engine from the 1940’s rumbling down the tracks, smoke billowing from the stacks. Union Pacific’s historic Big Boy steam locomotive No. 4014 is touring the Union Pacific system throughout 2019 to commemorate the transcontinental railroad’s 150th anniversary. It will roll into West Chicago around 2:30 this afternoon and will be on display starting Saturday. It will spend a few days hanging out so we can all take all take a look at this piece of American history.t

An Amtrak train headed for Los Angeles with nearly 200 people on board came to a standstill Sunday evening after hitting a tree that had fallen onto the tracks. More than 24 hours later, there's still no movement. Amtrak spokesman Marc Magliari told CNN none of the 183 passengers and dozen crew members were injured, but that "conditions further deteriorated with numerous track blockages from snow and fallen trees."

Union Pacific is honored to participate in the funeral procession for President George H.W. Bush. The funeral train leaves Union Pacific's Westfield Auto Facility Dec. 6 at 1 p.m. and should arrive at College Station across from Kyle Field at 3:25 p.m. The Westfield Auto Facility is not open to the public.

We continue to get more evidence that the U.S. economy has entered a major downturn. Just last week, I wrote about how U.S. GDP growth numbers have been declining for three quarters in a row, and previously I wrote about how corporate defaults have surged to their highest level since the last financial crisis. Well, now we are getting some very depressing numbers from the rail industry. As you will see below, U.S. rail traffic was down more than 11 percent from a year ago in April. That is an absolutely catastrophic number, and the U.S. rail industry is feeling...