(The following appeared on the North Platte Bulletin website on January 14.)
NORTH PLATTE, Neb. — Union Pacific Railroad blamed the slowing economy for furloughing about 230 workers in North Platte.
Chad Wilbourn, UP’s general superintendent for the North Platte service area, delivered the news on Jan. 8. About 230 people will be furloughed until business improves and they can be called back to work.
In November, UP announced that it had laid off or cut hours for about 1,500 engineers and conductors since January 2007.
“While Union Pacific does not disclose furlough numbers, the economy is affecting all the railroads,” said Tom Lange, director of corporate communications, according to Forbes magazine.
UP is pulling back across the country as the recession forces cost cutting measures.
Union Pacific has 21,000 engineers and conductors. It operates 32,400 miles of track in 23 states from the Midwest to the West and Gulf coasts.
Freight traffic in 2008 was low for all U.S. railroads compared with last year’s volume.
The layoff news came just one day after UP announced it had set an all-time record for delivering coal out of Wyoming’s Southern Powder River Basin.
During 2008, Union Pacific loaded 13,212 trains out of the SPRB, 332 more trains than 2006, the previous yearly record. Union Pacific also loaded 204.6 million tons of coal out of the SPRB during 2008, eclipsing another all-time mark set in 2007 by 5 percent.