BLET News
Have You Registered? The deadline for the Western Regional Meeting is right around the corner
Mount Rainier is a must-see icon of the Washington landscape. Ascending to 14,410 feet above sea level it is located less than 60 miles south of Seattle. ____________________ Registration continues for the BLET’s 2025 Western Regional Meeting in Bellevue, Wash.,...
June 2025 RRB Q&A: Understanding unemployment and sickness benefits for railroad employees
The Railroad Retirement Board (RRB) administers the Railroad Unemployment Insurance Act (RUIA), which provides qualified railroaders with unemployment benefits when they become unemployed but are ready, willing, and able to work, and sickness benefits when they cannot...
AAR de-regulatory playbooks, part 4 in a series: Cutting corners on brake operability puts lives at risk
Earlier this year, the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) solicited public feedback on possible federal safety regulations that could be repealed or modified to achieve “meaningful burden reduction while continuing to meet statutory obligations and ensure the...
Educational loans from the BLET’s Greene Fund available to children of members in good standing
All BLET members with adolescent children going on to higher education, whether it be for trade school, associate, bachelor or graduate degrees, please take notice. The Franklin P. Greene Fund, established in 1956, is an educational loan fund set up to assist the...
BLET-produced video shows safety and security threats tied to plan by Class I railroads that allows Mexican engineers to operate trains in the USA
Division 566 Local Chairman Rick Perez (left) and UP-Southern Region GCA General Chairman Scott Alexander are interviewed in BLET's cross-border video. ____________________ The BLET has produced a short video outlining the safety and security threats that are linked...
Obituary: Former BLE International President Clarence Monin, 1940-2025
Former BLE International President Clarence V. Monin passed away peacefully in his sleep on June 26. He was 84 years old. He served in the union’s highest office from 1996-1998. “Our thoughts and prayers go out to the entire Monin family in their time of loss,” said...
Western Regional Meeting is coming soon. Have You Registered? Don’t Delay.
Registration continues for the BLET’s 2025 Western Regional Meeting in Bellevue, Wash., located across Lake Washington from Seattle. The meeting, scheduled for the week of August 18, will take place at the Hyatt Regency Bellevue, 900 Bellevue Way NE, Wash., 98004,...
BLET members ratify new contract with Terminal Railway-Alabama State Docks
BLET members on June 26 ratified a new five-year agreement with the Terminal Railway-Alabama State Docks (TRASD). The BLET represents 14 members at the railroad, and the vote was 10-2 in favor of the new deal. The contract provides retroactive pay dating to 2023 as...
“Big Beautiful Bill” passes
Rail workers got the short end of the stick when Congress passed the massive federal spending and tax package — known as the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” (OBBB) — on July 3. The bill’s “No Tax on Overtime” provision (Section 70202) was crafted in such a way as to...
Texas: Investigation by CBS affiliate on “monster trains” exposes dangers to the public caused by extremely long trains
Eddie Strom, President of BLET Division 28, in his interview with television station KOLD News 13 in Tucson regarding train thefts and extremely long trains. ____________________ An investigative report by CBS Texas broadcast in June examines how the use of longer and...
BLET and other rail unions tell DOT and Congress that proposed changes to the established safety culture put railroaders and the public at risk
BMWED President Tony Cardwell testified before members of Congress this week about the potential dangers of over-reliance on technology. ____________________ BLET members rely on Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) investigations to hold railroads accountable, but...
BLET and Teamsters lobby Senate to change AI and no-tax on overtime provisions in the “One Big Beautiful Act”
Two provisions of the massive federal spending and tax package now under consideration in the U.S. Senate, called the “One Big Beautiful Act,” look pretty ugly to the BLET and the Teamsters. One provision of the spending bill, which has nothing to do with federal...
Take Action Alert: Contact your Senators now BLET fighting to get Senate to change “Big Beautiful Bill” to include our members in overtime tax exemption
Right now, the United States Senate is considering reconciliation legislation, also known as the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” (OBBB). Section 70202 (“No Tax on Overtime”) of the OBBB deals with exempting as much as $25,000 in overtime pay from taxation for workers...
President Wallace says BLET will be proactive, not reactive during his state of the union address at Eastern Regional Meeting
BLET President Mark Wallace addresses the crowd in the June 17 open session of the Regional Meeting in Daytona Beach. ____________________ Daytona Beach, the site of last week’s BLET Eastern Regional Meeting, is known as the “world center of racing.” Good slogan and...
Texas: BLET working to secure funding for at-risk Heartland Flyer route
Amtrak 822 highballs north out of Fort Worth bound for Oklahoma CIty on BNSF's Fort Worth Subdivision. Photo by Matt Shell ____________________ On June 5, Amtrak announced that its Heartland Flyer service between Fort Worth, Texas and Oklahoma City, Oklahoma will be...
Colorado: Governor signs new law to beef up rail safety inspectors
Colorado Governor Jared Polis signed a bill on June 4 to fund the hiring of rail safety inspectors. The new law, Senate Bill 162, would impose fees on rail companies to hire six new state rail safety inspectors. The total annual fees collected is capped at $2.9...
Surface Transportation Reauthorization and BLET priorities
Roughly every five years, Congress takes up “Surface Reauthorization.” This broad legislative package covers various federal surface transportation programs, including funding and federal policy for highways, transit (including commuter railroads), and passenger and...
NBC spotlights BLET cross border fight and following a BLET investigative trip to Eagle Pass and El Paso, the union reaches out to the White House
Video still from NBC's investigative report. NBC 5 DFW image ____________________ On June 6, the NBC affiliate in Dallas-Fort Worth aired an investigative report highlighting BLET’s opposition to Class I railroads being granted waivers that allow Mexican train crews...
Texas: Two BLET-backed bills reach governor’s desk
At the Texas Capitol after passage of HB 1772, from left: Bryce Dondero, TX SLB 1st Vice Chairman; Kameron Sanders, SMART-TD; Rep. Salman Bhojani (Dist. 92); Ben Wright, TXSLB Chairman; and Scott Piekarski, TXSLB Secretary-Treasurer. ____________________ It was a...
Canada: Arbitrator in TCRC, CPKC contract dispute awards 3% raises
A Canadian arbitrator appointed to resolve the contract dispute between members of Teamsters Canada Rail Conference (TCRC) and CPKC rendered his decision on May 30. The imposed contract provides 3% general wage increases annually for 2024, 2025, 2026, and 2027. In...
Daily Headlines
NS line to Asheville, N.C., to be closed until March 2025
Reopening will include 12 miles east of Asheville, N.C; Old Fort Loops segment still being inspected
Analysis: Railroads head into 2025 with headcount momentum to support growth
CSXT, BNSF Railway, and Union Pacific have larger T&E rosters than they did a year ago. Norfolk Southern’s year-over-year T&E roster is down 6%.
Wyoming and Montana seek to reverse decision that would end Powder River Basin coal leases
The move came after a federal court ordered the agency to re-evaluate its environmental review criteria to include both limited leasing and no coal leasing options.
Railroads ramp up the use of artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence is weaving itself into the daily operations of big U.S. railroads, helping managers make data-backed decisions about operating plans and identify trends among virtually any t process.
Supreme Court to hear argument on new U.S. rail line
The 88-mile Uinta Basin Railway would connect Utah oil fields to the national rail network, enabling up to 350,000 barrels of crude oil per day to travel on trains as long as two miles.
The decline of North America’s hump yards
Only 36 left, hump yards remain enormously important to the carload network
CSX’s appeal to Supreme Court tests reach of antitrust law
Freight rail giant CSX has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to revive its lawsuit accusing rival Norfolk Southern of denying access to a key East Coast terminal, costing CSX hundreds of millions of dollars in lost profits.
More people are riding Amtrak than ever before, and improvements are on the way
Amtrak said its goal is to double its ridership to 66 million passengers a year by 2040.
Amtrak notches ridership and revenue record for FY 2024
A 24% gain in ticket revenue from long-distance trains compared to 2019, in spite of constricted coach and sleeping car capacity, generated a 6% rise in total revenue.
BNSF wraps up Kansas double-tracking project, reaching milestone on Southern Transcon
The Kansas double-tracking project began in 2019 and continued the legacy of the Santa Fe, which in 1992 committed to adding a second main all the way from Los Angeles to Chicago.
