Prototype News

The company’s pharmaceutical-grade sodium bicarbonate production facility was built in 1968 and produces the world-renowned baking soda right where the trona ore is mined. Wyoming is home to 90% of the world’s trona ore deposits.

The new switching agreement marks OmniTRAX’s third Green River operation added in the past year. The infrastructure affiliate of the multi-billion-dollar Colorado-based parent The Broe Group, OmniTRAX operates 32 railroads, serving ports, industrial parks, and industry leaders across the country.

“Arm & Hammer is an iconic American brand and OmniTRAX is proud to provide the safe and reliable rail service to keep Church and Dwight’s Green River facility moving smoothly,” said OmniTRAX CEO Colby Tanner.   

Church and Dwight is the United States’ largest baking soda producer and parent company of many household name products, including Arm & Hammer, used in a variety of industrial, institutional, medical, food and specialty cleaning applications. OmniTRAX will provide dedicated switching service for the Green River facility which operates 24 hours a day.

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Short line railroads are always working to attract new business, but expanding partnerships with current customers can be just as effective in driving economic growth for multiple stakeholders, ASLRRA noted. ASLRRA Business Development Award Winner LSRC proved exactly that through its recent work with longtime customer Specification Stone, “reshaping how aggregates move across Michigan.”

Though this project was 10 years in the making, recent completion of upgrades and a high throughput facility “have positioned LSRC and Specification Stone to grow significantly in the future,” according to ASLRRA. Already the customer has expanded the loading capacity in Alpena, diversified the stone types shipped and opened a new terminal near Flint, Mich.

LSRC leveraged its “strong relationships, local presence and entrepreneurial spirit to help move the project to completion.” As a result, ASLRRA says, “customers will have more competitive and reliable options for stone delivery in central and southern Michigan.” This will benefit large-scale aggregate customers like road construction companies, which further supports economic development in the region. LSRC expects stone volumes to increase significantly over the next several years.

Not satisfied with the status quo, LSRC turned a long-term customer relationship into a greater success story through grit and determination. Bringing its equipment and infrastructure into the 21st century “positioned LSRC to support shipper growth, resulting in significant benefits for the railroad, the customer and communities across Michigan.”

TGS Cedar Port earned this year’s award for development of a new railcar cleaning and transloading rack bringing together multiple ancillary railcar services, including cleaning, de-gassing, nitrogen padding, repairs, requalification, storage and transloading. This facility, ASLRRA says, “enables customers to eliminate multiple off-site moves per car, lowering costs, reducing dwell time and improving asset utilization.”

The TGS Cedar Port team recognized the inefficiencies its customers were experiencing, having to incur costs moving cars between different cleaning shops, repair facilities and storage yards. The completed project now offers customers complete vertical integration. Trans-Global Solutions (TGS), the railroad’s parent company, owns the industrial park and operates the cleaning and transloading rack. The park hosts repair companies and has more than125 miles of internal track served by TGS Cedar Port. There are also approximately 6,000 on-site railcar storage positions.

While taking advantage of these streamlined offerings sounds like a no-brainer for shippers wanting more efficient car services, TGS Cedar Port still needed to convince wary customers to shift their business, ASLRRA noted. To do so, TGS Cedar Port had to demonstrate “a superior economic value with lower costs and faster turnaround.” The marketing and operations teams worked together closely to bring in initial customers, offering introductory pricing and building strong relationships.

Once these early customers were on board, demand for services grew quickly. To date, the operation has cleaned more than 2,800 railcars and supported more than 3,000 associated truck movements. TGS Cedar Port has also added new full-time positions, as have the on-site repair companies. These services have attracted new tenants to the industrial park, “increasing local investment and tax revenue for the community while improving productivity for businesses.”

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The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has released a preliminary report for its ongoing investigation of the Feb. 22, 2026, collision involving a freight train (CN-subsidiary Illinois Central Railway Company or IC) and a stationary passenger train (Amtrak) during a switching operation near Memphis, Tenn.

At about 11:00 a.m. local time, an IC mixed freight train (Z19491-21) reversed on main track 1 during a switching operation and struck a stationary Amtrak passenger train (59-21) at milepost 9.6 on the Shelby Subdivision, according to the NTSB, which published its report on March 18 and noted that the information is “preliminary and subject to change.” The IC train comprised two head-end locomotives and 82 railcars and was crewed by a conductor and engineer. The Amtrak train comprised one locomotive and seven railcars; onboard were 118 riders and a crew of seven Amtrak employees.

“The IC train was shoving north about 10 mph on main track 1 when it struck the Amtrak train’s locomotive on the same track,” the NTSB reported. When interviewed, the government agency said, “the IC crew said that they interpreted the collision as resistance from an air brake problem, pulled forward, and reversed again. This movement ended about three minutes after the first collision in a second, lower-speed collision with the Amtrak locomotive.” The collisions resulted in minor injuries to two Amtrak employees and two riders, the NTSB said, noting that no other injuries were reported. Visibility conditions at the time of the collision were daylight and clear; the weather was 41°F with no precipitation, according to the agency.

The Amtrak train was southbound from Chicago to New Orleans, a route that includes other railroads’ track, the NTSB reported. The main track in the area of the accident is owned and operated by IC and was equipped with a PTC (positive train control) system; train movements were coordinated by CN dispatch in Homewood, Ill. “Shortly before the collision, the Amtrak train advanced past a restricting signal into the block where the IC train was switching,” the NTSB said. “A restricting signal allows a train to proceed at restricted speed, meaning the crew must be prepared to stop within one-half their range of vision and must not exceed 20 mph (see Title 49 Code of Federal Regulations 236.812). The Amtrak crew stopped their train when they observed the IC train ahead.”

According to the NTSB, before the collision the IC crew obtained dispatcher permission to conduct switching operations in the accident area, set out 21 railcars on main track 1, moved south to enter an intermodal yard, and picked up 61 railcars. They then reversed northward and recoupled with the 21 railcars. The conductor directed this coupling movement from the ground, and after coupling, the crew kept shoving north to pick up the conductor with the lead locomotive but collided with the Amtrak train before the locomotive reached him, the NTSB reported.

All aspects of the collision remain under investigation, while the NTSB said it determines the probable cause “with the intent to issue safety recommendations to prevent similar events.”

Parties to the investigation include the Federal Railroad Administration; Tennessee Department of Transportation; Amtrak; CN; American Train Dispatcher Association; Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen; and International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers.

According to the NTSB, the timing between the beginning of an investigation and a probable cause determination and report varies based on the complexity of the investigation and the workload of the agency’s investigators. In general, the NTSB said it tries to complete an investigation within 12 to 24 months, “but these and other factors can greatly affect that timing.”

• NTSB Determines Probable Cause for BNSF M/w Employee Fatality
• NTSB Determines Probable Cause for NJ Transit Collision
• NTSB Recommends Sidelining SEPTA Silverliner IVs
• NTSB: Railroads Must Equip Rail Maintenance Vehicles With Collision Avoidance Technology

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The Commonwealth Transportation Board (CTB) on March 18 approved a $750,000 Rail Industrial Access (RIA) grant to the Virginia Poultry Growers Cooperative (VPGC) in Rockingham County. Administered by the Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation (DRPT), the funding will be used by VPGC to expand its Grain Unloading Station in Linville, Va.

With a total capital investment of $85 million, the project, DRPT says, “will increase the amount of grain the facility can move by rail. The CTB-approved expansion will double VPGC’s current railcar usage to approximately 1,000 annually. It also will reduce truck traffic including on nearby I-81, by an additional estimated 1,700 trips each year, while creating six new jobs.” The rail component includes $1.5 million in track construction, served by the Chesapeake & Western Railway, connecting to the Norfolk Southern (NS) main line.

“This project is great news for Virginia’s farmers and the Shenandoah Valley,” said DRPT Director Mariia Zimmerman. “By expanding rail access at this facility, we are helping to lower costs and improve access for local poultry growers while keeping hundreds of trucks off our roads. It is a win for agriculture, a win for the economy, and a win for communities across the Commonwealth.”

“We appreciate DRPT’s partnership in this project,” said Grant Martin, Vice President of Live and Feed with VPGC. “With this funding, we can move more grain by rail, take trucks off the road, and provide stronger, more reliable support to our member farms across the Shenandoah Valley.”

Founded in 2004 when local farmers united to preserve turkey production, VPGC has grown to nearly 200 member farms, up from about 130 at its inception. The cooperative applied for the RIA grant to support track construction and improvements at the Linville facility.

VPGC opened their Grain Unloading Station in 2008 to support a future feed milling facility. While construction of the feed mill was delayed, “growing demand now makes expanded rail infrastructure essential to support feed production and the long-term success of member farms,” DRPT noted.

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So it was, following a dark night highway-rail grade crossing accident, that the train’s conductor swore under oath he was waving a lantern “back and forth” prior to the automobile operator ignoring the lantern and driving onto the tracks in front of the locomotive. The case is decided in favor of the railroad, with the conductor later commenting to the railroad attorney, “I’m glad I wasn’t asked if the lantern was lighted.” And so it is that there are truths and whole truths.

Upon being appointed Surface Transportation Board (STB) chairperson by POTUS 47 on Jan. 20, 2025, Republican Patrick J. Fuchs, with unanimous peer support, promised an agency providing the public with whole truths. He later told Railway Age his focus was “getting all the facts and elevating transparency in agency decision making.”

That unanimous bipartisan commitment to tell-it-all was extended by a March 18 STB decision (Docket F.D. 36873; download below) directed at Union Pacific (UP) and Norfolk Southern (NS), who are expected by April 30 to file a merger application to create the first U.S. Atlantic-to-Pacific railroad. The STB is requiring of UP and NS the same full disclosure—whole truths—as the Department of Justice (DOJ), under provisions of the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act, requires of non-railroad merger applicants.

Although the STB has exclusive statutory authority to approve or disapprove railroad mergers, and impose conditions, DOJ may elect to file comments, which the Board considers along with those of other parties.

The STB’s March 18 order follows a March 3 letter from DOJ’s Antitrust Division urging the Board to compel UP and NS to provide, ahead of their April 30-expected merger application, “relevant ordinary course documents.” DOJ identifies them as transaction documents analyzing markets, market shares, competition, competitors, entry into new markets and synergies.

The STB, quoting from DOJ’s letter, said while the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act does not apply to Board proceedings, “access to such documents [which STB otherwise has authority to compel] is imperative in evaluating the potential anticompetitive effects of a proposed merger” and will “ensure a robust record for the Board’s decision making.”

The STB gave UP and NS until April 7 to provide the relevant documents such as produced in-house and by outside advisors. This gives the Board some three weeks to review them prior to UP and NS refiling a merger application—a prior one having been rejected Jan. 16 as “incomplete” (without prejudice to refiling). Should the STB accept a refiled application within a 30-day review period, it will set a procedural schedule, including public and stakeholder comment periods, with a decision expected within 12-15 months.

Although UP and NS responded they “are not refusing” to produce such documents and would “conduct reasonable searches,” they raised concern over producing “highly sensitive internal company documents.”

The concern may be that the documents sought may conflict with documents merger applicants typically provide the Board. When predicting future events, conflicting estimates are common, but it is data most beneficial to the desired outcome that is supplied.

To this concern, the Board said that while some of the sought documents may be “highly sensitive,” applicants may designate them “confidential” or “highly confidential” and they would be shielded by a protective order.

The STB said it is “appropriate” to demand these documents “given the proposed transaction’s size and significance, and because the transaction is the first to be assessed under the 2001 merger rules. Moreover, the Board finds that these documents will assist it in determining whether the proposed transaction is likely to have the effects attributed to it by applicants and whether the transaction is consistent with the public interest”—truths vs. whole truths.

The documents sought, said the STB, “are likely to provide valuable insight into the proposed transaction’s effects because they reflect real-time business decisions and forecasts concerning the merging parties’ operations, and views of past, present and future market conditions [and] may be more probative … than self-serving statements’ provided to support a merger application.”

Although this unanimous decision of three Board members—Fuchs, fellow Republican Michelle A. Schultz and Democrat Karen J. Hedlund—was silent on the source, it clearly reflects in tone and substance former President Ronald Reagan—“trust, but verify.”

Railway Age Capitol Hill Contributing Editor Frank N. Wilner is author of “Railroads & Economic Regulation,” available from Simmons-Boardman Books, 800-228-9670. 

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