September 4, 2026 | News, NS, STB, Top News, UP, UP-NS Merger
Members of the U.S. House of Representatives are circulating a signed letter urging the federal Surface Transportation Board (STB) to consider the consequences of the Union Pacific-Norfolk Southern Rail merger for workers. Representative Val Hoyle (D-OR) led the...
August 29, 2026 | News, NS, UP, UP-NS Merger
On August 24, the Stop the Rail Merger Coalition wrote a letter to President Trump outlining why it opposes the proposed Union Pacific-Norfolk Southern merger. The letter warns that the merger would reduce railroad competition, raise costs for American farmers,...
August 26, 2026 | News, NS, STB, Top News, UP, UP-NS Merger
The railroad industry, including rail labor, likes to throw around a lot of letters. There’s an “alphabet soup” of acronyms that frequently appear in industry and union news sites and publications, including this one — for example, AAR, ARU, BLET, CSXT, DOT, FRA, and...
August 25, 2026 | News, NS, STB, Top News, UP, UP-NS Merger
Last week, the Surface Transportation Board (STB) adopted a procedural schedule and timeline for consideration of the UP-NS merger application, but ordered the railroads to turn over “substantial” additional data by August 28. Importantly, STB said that release of the...
August 24, 2026 | News, NS, STB, Top News, UP, UP-NS Merger
The BLET last week led a coalition of rail labor unions in urging the Surface Transportation Board (STB) to immediately terminate the proposed Union Pacific-Norfolk Southern merger application before a full review can begin. In an August 19 joint filing, BLET and the...
August 3, 2026 | News, NS, Top News, UP, UP-NS Merger
Here we go — again. This week, Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern filed a third round of merger application materials with the Surface Transportation Board (STB) in their attempt to merge the two Class I railroads. Back in May, the two railroads were ordered by STB to...
July 28, 2026 | News, NS, Top News, UP, UP-NS Merger
More Paperwork Cannot Fix a Merger That Would Raise Costs, Cut Competition and Put America’s Supply Chain at Risk WASHINGTON, D.C. — Stop the Rail Merger Coalition responded to Union Pacific (UP) and Norfolk Southern’s (NS) submission of supplemental information filed...
July 25, 2026 | News, NS, STB, Top News, UP, UP-NS Merger
In a victory for the BLET and other rail labor unions, the Surface Transportation Board this week ordered Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern to make public the merger-related job impact data that the railroads had inexplicably labeled as “highly confidential” in their...
July 20, 2026 | Derailment, News, NS, NTSB, Safety Task Force, Top News, UP-NS Merger
The BLET Safety Task Force has received Party Status from the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) to assist with the investigation of two serious Norfolk Southern incidents. In the first incident, a conductor was killed last week when he was struck by a train...
July 13, 2026 | FRA, News, NS, Top News
The BLET is opposing a Norfolk Southern request to waive safety standards governing refresher training for its transportation employees. BLET National President Mark Wallace filed formal comments in a June 29 letter to the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA). As...
