I was just reading up on some recent news and I came across all of theese that i thought I would share.
From the Casper Star Tribune
Railroad sets coal-delivery record
Union Pacific hauled 1,118 trainloads of coal from Wyoming's southern Powder River Basin in August, delivering a monthly record 17.2 million tons of coal to the nation's coal-fired utilities.
Coal stockpiles at utilities are up 38 percent over last year, the highest level in four years, according to the U.S. Department of Energy's Energy Information Administration.
"We are pleased with the progress and contributions we have made to help restore coal stockpiles to normal," Union Pacific vice president and general manager Doug Glass said in a prepared statement.
Union Pacific and BNSF Railway jointly own the triple-track line that delivers coal out of the southern portion of the basin. Two successive derailments on the line in 2005 caused a delivery shortfall of more than 20 million tons. Since then, the railroads have invested nearly $1 billion to expand coal delivery throughout their rail systems.
Powder River Basin mines in Wyoming scooped 431.3 million tons of coal in 2006, according to a Star-Tribune survey.
Study says railroads overcharged by $6.5 billion
WASHINGTON - Five major freight rail companies overcharged customers by more than $6.5 billion under the guise of fuel surcharges, according to a study commissioned by businesses that accuse U.S. railroads of anti-competitive behavior.
"This is the greatest train robbery of the 21st century," said Jack Gerard, president and chief executive of the American Chemistry Council, which represents about 90 percent of the nation's chemical makers.
The council commissioned an economic analysis to be released Thursday that found the railroads' fuel surcharges were excessive by more than $6.5 billion between 2005 and the first quarter of 2007. The study was based on regulatory filings and other estimates for Omaha, Neb.-based Union Pacific Corp. and for Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp., Norfolk Southern Corp., Kansas City Southern and CSX Corp. UP and BNSF are major shippers of Wyoming coal.
Federal regulators in January banned excessive fuel surcharges and imposed strict rules on the fees that many rail companies have openly credited with bolstering their earnings.
The Surface Transportation Board ruling said the railroads must link the surcharges directly with the actual fuel costs for specific rail shipments and prohibited "double-dipping," which means fuel costs can't be calculated into certain price hikes if the shipments already have other fuel surcharges.
But the board has no authority to enforce refunds or seek penalties, Gerard said, adding that railroad customers currently lack any regulatory means to attempt to recoup the money. Still, some have filed lawsuits alleging the fuel surcharges amounted to price-fixing.
Phoenix-based Dust Pro Inc. in May filed an antitrust lawsuit that seeks class-action status on behalf of parties who shipped goods on one or more of the five railroads since July 2003.
The suit, filed in the U.S. District Court for New Jersey, seeks monetary damages from the railroads, which allegedly fixed prices for the fuel surcharges without any relationship to actual fuel costs.
The lawsuit cited the Surface Transportation Board's decision, even though the agency's ruling applied only to rate-regulated shipping, while the majority of shipments involved in the suit are unregulated.
Suann Lundsberg, a spokeswoman for Burlington Northern, declined to comment until company executives had reviewed the study. Representatives from the other four railroad companies and the STB were not immediately available to comment Thursday afternoon.
A service of the Associated Press(AP)
BNSF reviews train blockages: Brookhurst residents concerned about emergency access
Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway is reviewing violations of its code of conduct after its trains repeatedly blocked for long periods the lone road into the Brookhurst subdivision in the past month, a company's spokesman said Tuesday.
"BNSF makes every effort to not block crossings for more than 10 minutes at a time," Gus Melonas said.
"We take this very seriously," Melonas said from the company's headquarters in Fort Worth, Texas.
BNSF trains sometimes have blocked County Road 605 -- Mystery Bridge Road -- up to 45 minutes, Brookhurst resident Lona Patton said. Brookhurst is an unincorporated area of Natrona County bordering Evansville north of I-25.
"On more the one occasion, our children have been late getting to school by as much as half an hour, as well as late getting home," Patton said.
"One child, only 5 years old, was almost left alone because his mother thought he must've missed the bus so she started to drive to town," she said. "Had she not seen them, he would've gotten off the bus and been unsupervised for who knows how long."
Responders to medical emergencies or fires can't get through if rail cars block the road, she said.
Similar complaints have been reported to BNSF, Melonas said.
Train volumes have fluctuated in the area, and BNSF has adjusted train waiting times, he said.
Company officials have been discussing the problems with BNSF's railroad operators in central Wyoming, Melonas said. "We're looking into it."
Wyoming has no law governing the length of time a railroad may block a crossing, but trains should split if they are parked on a road for more than 10 minutes, according to the Federal Railroad Administration and Dan Kline of the Wyoming Department of Transportation.
BNSF runs on east-west tracks immediately south of the Brookhurst subdivision.
A spur curving north from a switch immediately east of Mystery Road Bridge was built last year to access PolyPipe's new plant in the Cole Creek Industrial Park.
Granite Peak Development, which owns the industrial park land, agreed to allow Anadarko Petroleum Corp. to off-load 24-inch steel pipe for trucks to haul it to the Fort Union pipeline from Douglas to Gillette, said Rich Fairservis of Granite Peak.
Those trains often extended from the pipe yard west across 605, Patton said.
"Prior to the pipe yard moving in, the train had never truly been a problem, merely an inconvenience," Patton said. "But now, lives and homes could be at stake in the worst-case scenario."
That immediate problem appears over for the time being.
Anadarko has finished its project of moving between 500 and 600 rail cars of long, green pipe to the transloading station in the industrial park, said Houston-based company spokesman John Christiansen.
All the steel pipe will be off the site by late December, Fairservis added.
But some issues remain, Patton said.
A dirt road from Brookhurst through the industrial park to Cole Creek Road can accommodate emergency vehicles, but Patton said there may be power poles blocking that access.
As the Mystery Bridge Road blockage problem developed, Brookhurst residents blamed PolyPipe.
Patton now realizes BNSF was the cause of the problem and not PolyPipe, she said.
Unlike Anadarko, PolyPipe receives only 15 railroad cars a month to deliver raw materials, said the plant's general manager Ryan Hardy.
Hardy voiced his concerns about the criticisms Monday at an Evansville Town Council meeting and asked if his company was in violation of any noise, pollution or other codes.
"We want to be a good citizen of the community," he said.
Pepper McClenahan of Worthington, Lenhart and Carpenter Inc., which advises Evansville on planning issues, told Hardy that PolyPipe is in an area zoned heavy industrial and there are no problems with the company.
Hardy told the council PolyPipe will host a meeting at 6 p.m. today for local citizens to talk with him.
One of the citizens who has criticized PolyPipe, Jan Oliver, lives north of the North Platte River and has complained about the noise, dust and smell of plastic from the manufacturing plant's nonstop operations.
"They didn't tell us it would be a 24-7 operation," Oliver said.
Reach Tom Morton at (307) 266-0592, or at Tom.Morton@casperstartribune.net.
Railroad wins rate case
BISMARCK, N.D. -- Federal regulators have ruled in favor of BNSF Railway in a case brought by Basin Electric Power Cooperative over coal hauling rates.
The Bismarck-based electric co-op claimed the railroad is a monopoly that charges too much to provide substandard service hauling coal to a Wyoming power plant. Basin Electric is part owner of Laramie River Station near Wheatland. The plant is among many in the country that are served by only one rail company.
The Surface Transportation Board said Monday that Basin "failed to establish that the challenged rates are unreasonably high."
"We are deeply discouraged and frustrated," said Mike Eggl, a Basin Electric senior vice president.
Said BNSF spokesman Gus Melonas: "We're satisfied with the ruling, and we believe it is fair and correct."
Basin has been at odds with BNSF over rail service since a 20-year contract to haul 8 million tons of coal annually from the Powder River Basin to Laramie River Station expired in 2004. The two sides were unable to negotiate a contract, and BNSF then set a rate at twice the expired contract rate, or roughly $6 per ton, to haul the coal about 200 miles to the plant, board documents say.
Basin, which filed the complaint against BNSF along with the Western Fuels Association, claims its costs for shipping coal to the Laramie River Station plant have doubled, and says that will cost utility customers in nine states an additional $1 billion over the next 20 years.
The plant produces power for about 2 million consumers in North Dakota, South Dakota, Colorado, Iowa, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico and Wyoming.
Basin officials say the Laramie River Station is a "captive" customer to the railroad, the only one serving the plant.
The increased costs to ship the coal will be passed on to Basin's customers, Basin spokesman Daryl Hill said.
"One of the costs of doing business is reflected in the cost of the product you produce," Hill said.
The board's ruling, released Monday, says it will give Basin a chance to revise its case in light of changes in the method of allocating revenue since the original complaint was filed.
The Surface Transportation Board issued a similar ruling in another case, filed by AEP Texas North against BNSF, involving the rate to haul coal from Wyoming's Powder River Basin to a power plant.
Eggl said Basin is mulling whether to appeal the board's decision.
"We have to figure out if it's worth it at this point, or not," Eggl said.
Basin has spent more than $5 million in legal fees in the case, Eggl said. It also produced more than 700,000 pages of evidence, including a document that requires the company to construct a fictitious railroad to prove the BNSF's costs are excessive, he said.
The case, Eggl said, "is massive."
RJ
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