The UTU News regularly contacts members at random to report their thoughts on a question of interest to the general membership. This month's question:

Is the STB moratorium on rail mergers necessary?

"I've been a switchman on the Alton & Southern, now the Union Pacific, for 27 years, and I think there should be a moratorium. First thing they do is they cut jobs, they close yards, and then things get backed up. I work the automatic hump, and it seems like there are never enough crews to move the trains. They need to work things out before they allow more mergers. The main problem I see is they try to implement these mergers too fast. There should be at least a three-year moratorium. It took BNSF about three or four years to smooth things out after their last merger."
-- Dwight Baxton, L-1929, E. St. Louis, Ill.

"I'm working on the Illinois Central as a conductor, with 25 years of railroading experience. I don't think the STB should block all mergers, but it ought to take a good look and get an idea of what the railroad plans to do. You never can tell what the people in the head office are planning on doing. For example, with this proposed CN/BNSF merger, the outlook on it could be negative, and then it could be positive. With the CN/IC merger, I think it was positive because it was an end-to-end merger, with few parallel lines. I think the STB needs to more closely review merger plans."
-- Rick Everett, L-339, Jackson, Tenn.

"I'm an engineer on the UP, with my 22nd anniversary coming up in May. I feel they should put a moratorium in place because of my past experience with UP. Their last merger was detrimental to customers, the labor force, and pretty much everyone, even the railroads. We should stop the madness, step back, and look at what benefits everyone. Why do we put so many people through so much adversity simply to appease the greedy people at the top? I don't think the railroads are geared up and ready for the BNSF/CN merger. It would put all the burden on the crews."
-- Lyman A. Frank, L-933, Jefferson City, Mo.

"I'm an engineer and a conductor, and I've been with BNSF for about 29 years. I'm definitely against the proposed BNSF/CN merger. I think this merger wouldn't so much hurt the train service people, but the clerks, the callers, and people like that would take a real beating on this merger. When they merge, the first thing they do is cut jobs, and I think they cut too many jobs off. I think the mergers have gone as far as they should go. They've merged too much. These mergers really hurt individual people, all the workers on the railroads, and not just those in train service."
-- Robert Gilmore, L-331, Temple, Tex.

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