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Amtrak success story fulfilled in Illinois

CHICAGO – A commitment Amtrak made to the state of Illinois to improve passenger service in the first year of a three-year contract has been fulfilled, the carrier says.

More than 99% of the trains originated on time, nearly 90% completed their trips on time, ridership on the four routes grew by as much as 18% and Amtrak introduced new customer service enhancements.

Amtrak operates daily round-trip trains to Carbondale and Quincy, Ill., and St. Louis in partnership with the Illinois DOT. Additional daily service between Chicago and Milwaukee is supported by Amtrak IDOT and the Wisconsin DOT.

Under the agreement, IDOT specified how may trains would operate, where they would make their stops, set a minimum number of seats per train and provided a penalty in Amtrak did not achieve 99% success rate in originating the downstate trains within 30 minutes of their scheduled departure. Amtrak operated 2,189 downstate trains and originated them without penalty.

"The first year of the state’s contract with Amtrak was clearly a success with great ridership gains and improved on-time performance," said Gov. Jim Edgar.

UP trains gain a little speed, but grain deliveries slow

NEW YORK – In its latest report Monday to the Surface Transportation Board, the Union Pacific Railroad said its train speeds picked up slightly throughout the system.

Coal cycle days remained the same as the previous period at 7.4 days to make a round trip between coal mines and electric utilities, but the target range of 5.9-6.2 days is still untouched.

Grain deliveries showed a further slowing with it now taking 14.8 days to deliver grain from Nebraska to the Pacific Northwest. That’s an increase from 8.3 days three weeks ago.

The average train speed increased to 13.9 mph from 13.5 mph the week before.

The carrier’s congestion picture was mixed with its locomotives delayed far less last week, while crews spent more time waiting to move.

Overnite challenges Teamsters to "winner-take-all" contest

NEW YORK -- Overnite Transportation, which the Union Pacific Co., is spinning off and is the fifth largest hauler of consolidated freight in the U.S., has challenged the Teamsters union to a winner-take-all election.

Overnite said the Teamsters represent 16.6% of the eligible workers at 22 of its 166 terminals. The Teamsters say they represent 45% of Overnite workers at 44 terminals.

News reports say the Overnite challenge caught the Teamsters by surprise.

"We had no idea that Overnite thought that organizing was akin to Worldwide Wrestling," said a Teamsters spokesperson. "They’re asking that workers who won representation, like in Chicago as far back as 1982, to do it all over again. Our answer is no, no, no!"

The spokesperson added, "They had better come up with a good-faith bargaining position. The clock is ticking."

Overnite’s move comes after a series of scattered work stoppages at a few Overnite terminals that are Teamster-represented and a strike threat from the union issued on July 9.

Rail strike cripples Portugal

LISBON -- Add Portugal to the European countries experiencing railroad strikes. On Monday, rail workers here staged their fourth one-day strike in two months paralyzing national train services and causing major traffic jams.

The strike was called by the Federation of Rail Workers’ Unions to demand increased productivity bonuses and better working conditions from employees in charge of safety and signaling. The Federation said that more than 95% of the union’s 13,500 members stayed away from work.

The state-run railroad is being broken up into two separate companies and being readied for privatization.