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RAILWAY AGE, MARCH 2026 ISSUE: Improved carbody materials and innovative designs are transforming these long-lived warhorses into state-of-the-art railcars.

The general-purpose, open-top gondola has been a part of freight railroading since its beginnings nearly 200 years ago. But if you think these gondolas are “run of the mill” railcars, think again. New designs and new materials are helping these rugged, mostly all-purpose cars meet shipper demands for efficient, damage-free loading and unloading.

For this report, Railway Age asked The Greenbrier Companies, TrinityRail® and FreightCar America for their viewpoints on short- and long-term market conditions, including current and projected demands for new railcars (i.e. replacement of cars aging out of the North American interchange fleet; design improvements (i.e. types of steel or aluminum, carbody construction, etc.); and current R&D initiatives. 

“We continue to view the North American railcar market as operating below replacement levels—currently under 40,000 builds—as fleet owners largely remain on the sidelines amid ongoing trade and tariff uncertainty,” The Greenbrier Companies Vice President of Marketing and General Manager Tom Jackson tells Railway Age. “That said, we are beginning to see early signs of growth in select end markets, including biofuels, metals and certain specialty chemicals. Overall, the industry is entering a multi-year replacement cycle, as significant railcar builds from the 1980s approach the end of their service lives. This dynamic is most evident across core freight car types such as grain hoppers, boxcars and gondolas.

“As part of Greenbrier’s continuous improvement culture, our engineering teams evaluate railcar designs throughout the entire product lifecycle. We work closely with customers to tailor solutions that address their specific operational challenges and objectives. From a design and innovation standpoint, our engineers focus on increasing efficiency, improving aerodynamics, reducing tare weight, and optimizing loading configurations. To support these efforts, we explore alternative materials—including advanced steel grades—to reduce weight, increase payload capacity, and enhance durability. This is evident in the success of our high-strength steel gondola portfolio. In parallel, we continuously refine our facility layouts and production processes to drive efficiency while maintaining industry-leading safety standards.”

Jackson adds that Greenbrier “maintains a robust product development pipeline, with multiple prototypes currently in service and generating strong test results. These include several gondola configurations, CO₂ tank cars, boxcars utilizing alternative materials for doors and roofs, and new specialty railcar designs. Leveraging our global engineering footprint, we have incorporated proven design concepts from Europe and Brazil into North American offerings, allowing us to accelerate innovation and apply best practices across regions. That’s our integrated strength success, which separates us from other railcar suppliers.”

Greenbrier’s gondola portfolio spans a wide range of applications and is available in high strength, advanced high strength, and ultra high strength steel grades. “These materials are also being deployed across other railcar components, including boxcar structures, resulting in improved reliability, lower maintenance costs and extended service life for fleet owners,” notes Jackson. “In addition, we are launching a new family of advanced high strength rotary gondolas that are gaining strong traction in the mining sector. These designs deliver payload increases ranging from approximately 6,000 to 15,000 pounds while further enhancing durability. Our gondola offerings currently range  from 2,300 to 7,100 cubic feet, and we are actively developing one of the industry’s largest wood chip gondolas—8,200 cubic feet.

“We see tremendous upside in the mill gon market in both the short and long term,” TrinityRail® Chief Commercial Officer Charley Moore tells Railway Age. “The growth in Electric Arc Furnace (EAF) steel production has created a very efficient use of rail by enabling producers to load inbound carloads of scrap and outbound carloads of finished goods in the same car.”

The railcar market is constantly changing. One shift TrinityRail® has seen in recent years is the changing variety of mill gondolas in demand. “Shippers want to optimize their mill gons for the varying density of their products, which could include making the car lighter and creating more capacity with taller interior walls,” says Moore,” says Moore. “At TrinityRail®, we offer many different mill gon designs of varying length and capacities ranging from 2,743 to 6,400 cubic feet. With our design engineering expertise, we work directly with our customers to create a railcar specification that meets the customer’s needs and maximizes the safe loading capacity for the products that they ship. 

“Some of the markets served by gondolas demonstrated strength last year with Iron & Steel Scrap carloads up almost 10%, and Nonmetallic Minerals (Aggregates) up almost 2%. Attrition will also continue over the next few years, showing a need for railcars to serve both market growth and replacement of aging railcars. There have been more than 25,000 gondolas built in the past five years, with most of them serving the metals markets (mill gons and coil cars). With attrition and growing demand, we expect that trend to continue into the near future.”

“Similar to the demand environment we see with many car types, gondola deliveries are largely tied to the replacement of aging fleets, FreightCar America Chief Commercial Officer Matt Tonn tells Railway Age. “This is also supported by inquiry levels. There are indicators that the demand for gondolas will remain consistent with what we have seen in the past few years, driven primarily by strong retirements expected through 2030 and largely tied to scrap steel demand.”

Higher-yield steels “are more acceptable for customers today than at any time in recent history,” Tonn notes. “Collaboration with customers to gain deeper insights into their operating environment, as well as fleet planning and maintenance challenges, continues to drive our focus on new railcar designs and enhancements. Gondolas are a staple car type in the rail industry that serve multiple industries and market segments. From steel and metal products to aggregates, coal and construction materials, gondolas represent one of the largest carload segments in our industry. 

“Over the decades, FreightCar America has introduced multiple enhancements to its gondola designs, starting with the all-aluminum Bethgon coal car. With nearly 300,000 coal cars delivered, these lightweight designs vastly increased carload capacity over the older generation steel car designs. On our conventional mill and aggregate gondolas, we’ve introduced increased use of high-strength steels, which have become more acceptable to customers in today’s market. The use of these materials, along with refined designs, including reinforced top chords, side sills and corner connections, not only delivers a more robust ‘purpose-built’ car design, but also reduces weight and enhances capacity, efficiency and utility.” 

For the aggregate market, FreightCar America has developed a new line of railcars that Tonn says “are specifically tailored to customers shipping highly corrosive commodities. Our patented Gold, Silver and Bronze Aggregate cars incorporate high-strength carbon and stainless-steel materials in select areas, assuring long life of the rail asset, even in the harshest carload environments. The VersaCoil gondola has benefited from many of the standard gondola design enhancements, resulting in a class-leading lightweight design that provides maximum configurability of loading coils from 30 to 108 inches (2.5 to 9 feet). The VersaCoil gis are available in 5, 7, 9 and 10 trough configurations and are customizable to meet specific car owner load configuration requirements, including an optional insulated coil cover.”

FreightCar America’s Engineering team “is foundational to who we are—driving railcar design development, continuous enhancements and the disciplined innovation that keeps our railcars performing in the field,” adds Tonn. “We partner closely with customers to understand real operational challenges and translate those insights into practical design improvements and fit-for-purpose features. That collaboration, combined with deep technical expertise, allows us to deliver railcar solutions tailored to specific commodities, loading practices and maintenance requirements. The result is a railcar design that’s not only robust and reliable, but purpose-built for each customer’s operation.” 

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ASLRRA PERSPECTIVE, RAILWAY AGE MARCH 2026 ISSUE: Short line railroading is a growth-focused industry, and ASLRRA’s primary goal is to provide opportunities to promote that growth through engagement, education, training and connections. As this column goes to print, we are in between the two events that offer the very best of those opportunities: Railroad Day on Capitol Hill and ASLRRA’s Annual Conference and Exhibition.

To keep America’s freight moving the rail industry needs strong public policies that help railroads invest in infrastructure, improve safety, and create value for customers. That was the message more than 350 Class I, Class II, Class III and rail supplier industry representatives delivered to 300-plus Congressional offices during a highly successful March 4 fly-in advocacy day in Washington, D.C. 

For short lines and regionals, the specific message was about securing the much-needed update of the 45G tax credit to account for inflation, securing continued robust funding of the CRISI grant program, opposing the never-ending effort to increase truck size and weights, and streamlining federal permitting to allow investment grant dollars to be put to work faster. In today’s oversaturated digital world, the opportunity to talk face to face with elected officials about the real-life impact of a 45G track rehabilitation project that reduced derailments for a local shipper or a CRISI project that saved a local bridge from collapsing is truly a golden opportunity. 

Nobody tells the story of short line railroading better than the people who live it!

And nowhere is the successful result more apparent than in the growing number of House and Senate co-sponsors of our 45G tax credit update bills. Every one of these co-sponsors has been earned one at a time by an individual short line contact with his or her individual congressperson. Going into Railroad Day on Capitol Hill, we had 149 House co-sponsors and 37 Senate co-sponsors. The numbers ultimately needed will be higher, but even today, both bills are among the most co-sponsored in this Congressional session. Importantly, they are also two of the most bi-partisan legislative efforts navigating the difficult terrain of a bitterly partisan landscape.

Railroad Day on Capitol Hill is an important educational tool, but equally important is a show of force that demonstrates our geographical reach and our ties to thousands of small business customers and local communities that would otherwise be cut off from the national rail network and the U.S. economy. I am grateful for the many short line and supplier members that took the time and effort to make that show as impressive as possible, and hope that even more will do so in
the future.

On April 12-14, more than 1,700 individuals will converge on Minneapolis for ASLRRA’s Annual Conference and Exhibition. This three day event is the most efficient and productive way to learn, to connect, and to focus on understanding the forces driving change in our industry. It is the short line industry’s premier event featuring top tier speakers, more than 40 hours of educational workshops, an exhibit hall with more than 200 industry suppliers showcasing their wares, and dozens of opportunities to network with colleagues and potential
business partners.

This year’s keynotes speakers include Federal Railroad Administrator David Fink, BNSF President and CEO Katie Farmer, and Norfolk Southern President and CEO Mark George. The educational workshops will feature nearly 50 breakout sessions led by industry experts on 12 subjects—everything from engineering to finance to marketing to technology to safety, and many more. It will literally cover the bases from A to Z on running a modern short line railroad and will be as good a tool as a short line can get in advancing the knowledge and skills of its workforce and in understanding the newest and best practices being used to build a better short line industry. 

Rounding out this excellent program, which ASLRRA staff has worked tirelessly to develop, will be presentations of our annual awards, including the Business Development Awards, our Hall of Fame inductees, the Distinguished Service Award, and Safety Person and Professional of the Year—projects and people who represent some of the best of our best. 

While there is always much to discuss and learn at this annual short line event, this year’s meeting will be held in the shadow of the proposed Union Pacific/Norfolk Southern transaction application. It goes without saying that no other 2026 industry gathering will have such a large number of attendees who have a detailed understanding of the regulatory process, are well versed in the details of the proposal, and are stakeholders critically impacted one way or the other by the outcome. 

ASLRRA’s 2026 Annual Conference and Exhibition is a unique opportunity for every short line to do a deep dive into the merger issues and to discuss the potential pros and cons with your colleagues. It is an opportunity not to be missed and there is still time to get in on the action. www.aslrra.org/events/conference/ provides registration and hotel information and is constantly updated with late-breaking program information.

See you there! 

The post We Need Strong Public Policies. It’s Up to You! appeared first on Railway Age.

MXV RAIL R&D, RAILWAY AGE MARCH 2026 ISSUE: Under the Association of American Railroads (AAR) Strategic Research Initiatives (SRI) program, MxV Rail developed and evaluated improved techniques for measuring wheel/rail (W/R) vertical impact forces using a combination of onboard and wayside systems. The study compared three key measurement technologies: 1) high‑accuracy instrumented wheelsets (IWS), 2) a new bearing adapter (NBA) that blends force measurement with acceleration compensation, and 3) a high‑accuracy in‑track bi‑circuit (HAC). So-called portable rail bumps (PRBs) were manufactured and placed on the rail to produce controlled impact loads. The study objective was establishing a benchmark method for validating Wheel Impact Load Detector (WILD) systems.

Previous work demonstrated that PRBs could reliably generate repeatable impact loads, enabling the direct comparison of onboard and wayside measurements (references 1-3). This work resulted in the expansion of the dataset and the gathering of simultaneous measurements to support statistical validation of measurement accuracy and repeatability. Existing WILD calibration practices (AAR Standard S‑6101, reference 4) primarily address strain‑gage‑based detectors and lack provisions for alternative systems. The integrated HAC–NBA–IWS approach offers a generalizable framework suitable for emerging technologies.

The in‑track HAC uses two full‑bridge strain‑gage circuits per crib to measure vertical loads and contact locations across the crib. Installed on MxV Rail’s High‑Speed Loop, the system consists of six bi‑circuits across seven concrete ties with synchronized automatic location devices (ALDs). Similarly, the NBA incorporates four load cells and an accelerometer on each bearing adapter, enabling force estimation with acceleration compensation. One axle uses eight load cells and two accelerometers across both adapters. Each IWS uses strain gages to produce continuous vertical, lateral and longitudinal W/R forces, plus lateral contact location. Two high‑accuracy IWS units (on axles 1 and 4 of a loaded 110‑ton hopper car) were used and paired with an NBA unit for direct comparison. Four PRB types (different thicknesses) were installed to generate controlled impact forces. Two PRBs were placed on each test run (one on each rail) to minimize crosstalk and ensure stable impulse generation.

A locomotive, an instrumentation car and a loaded hopper car were operated through the test site at speeds from 5 to 40 mph with various PRB thicknesses. The HAC, NBA, and IWS systems were synchronized via ALDs. A total of 162 valid impact events were recorded, with IWS‑measured peak forces ranging from 46.5 to 97.7 kips—exceeding the AAR “actionable” limit (90 kips) in some cases.

The difference between IWS and HAC measurements remained within ±5%, with only one outlier across all tests. Although NBA performance varied between wheelsets, the NBA–IWS differences were within ±10%, indicating a need for improved stability. The impact force magnitude increased with PRB thickness and operating speed, following an approximately linear trend. The PRBs effectively controlled force magnitude and location, validating their use for repeatable impact generation in WILD system testing. The HAC and high‑accuracy IWS provide consistent, benchmark‑quality W/R impact force measurements. The NBA shows potential as a low‑cost, onboard alternative, but it will require stability refinements. The combination of IWS and PRBs offers a practical verification strategy for WILD systems. 

As a result of this work, AAR Standard S‑6101B Industry Data Validation: Wheel Impact Load Detector (WILD) was implemented in April 2025. The specification calls for the use of PRBs to generate impact loads measured by an IWS and a wayside detector to facilitate accurate evaluation.

The Technology Digests this article is based on can be found in the MxV Rail eLibrary along with more than 1,000 other publications describing the railway research, testing and analysis available from the AAR SRI program. Explore www.mxvrail.com to learn more about MxV Rail and to register for the 31st Annual AAR Research Review, to be held April 28-30, 2026. 

Witte, M, Y. Zeng. 2023. “Measuring Wheel Impact Force through the Bearing Adapter.” Technology Digest TD23-014. AAR/MxV Rail.

Stoehr, N, Y. Zeng, and M. Witte. 2024. “Wheel/Rail Impact Force Measurement Validation.” Technology Digest TD24-023. AAR/MxV Rail.

Stoehr, N, Y. Zeng, and T. Sultana. “Wheel/Rail Vertical Impact Force Measurement Comparisons.” Technology Digest TD25-003. AAR/MxV Rail.

Association of American Railroads. 2025. Manual of Standards and Recommended Practices (MSRP). Section F. Standard S-6101B: Industry Data Validation: Wheel Impact Load Detector (WILD). AAR. 

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The Federal Transit Administration (FTA) has published a Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) for approximately $686 million in competitive grants for the Fiscal Year (FY) 2026 All Stations Accessibility Program (ASAP). Applications are due May 1, 2026, via Grants.gov.

“This is an initial announcement for the FY 2025 and FY 2026 rounds of this program,” FTA reported earlier this month. “As required by Federal public transportation law, funds will be awarded competitively for any purpose eligible under Division J of the [2021] Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (Pub. L. 117-58) for capital and planning projects to upgrade the accessibility of legacy [i.e., pre-Americans With Disabilities Act] rail fixed guideway public transportation systems for people with disabilities.”

According to FTA, eligible projects include:

• “Capital projects to repair, improve, modify, retrofit, or relocate infrastructure of stations or facilities for passenger use, including load-bearing members that are an essential part of the structural frame.

• “Planning projects to develop or modify a plan for public transportation accessibility projects; accessibility assessments; or assessments of planned modifications to stations or facilities for passenger use.”

Eligible applicants include: State governments; county governments; and city or township governments; and transit operators that are “designated recipients for FTA funds that operate or allocate funds to legacy rail public transportation systems.” FTA noted that all States, including territories and Washington, D.C., must operate or financially support legacy rail public transportation systems and corresponding legacy stations or facilities.

The maximum Federal share is 80%, and applicants must include a description of their financial commitment to the proposed project, according to the FTA.

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This is the fourth in a five-part series about railroad growth coming from truck conversions focused on the criticality of rail-to-rail competition to achieve Union Pacific’s growth outcome stated in the Dec. 19, 2025 merger application sent to the STB.

In Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3 of this series, we established the challenges and probabilities of truck conversions from the new proposed Union Pacific-Norfolk Southern network. In short, we see a myriad of challenges ahead to drive modal conversion against the industries’ proverbial “easy button”—trucks. It is our opinion that, of the 2 million trucks, it’s reasonable to see about 25% or 500,000 truckloads convert to rail over a seven-to-ten-year time frame. Though these conversions can be achieved, they will take significant new capital investment in customer rail infrastructure, railcars, 53-foot containers and chassis, and most critical, rail rates that justify the risk inherent with modal conversion. The “juice” needs to be worth the “squeeze” for customers to make the switch from truck to rail. Without new rail-to-rail competition, we’re pessimistic freight will meaningfully convert.

In addition to the new truck conversions, not talked about but relevant is that the new UP-NS entity should convert between 3% to 5% of existing BNSF and CSX freight to the new UP-NS using a variety of techniques. Through Week 52 of 2025, BNSF moved 9.6 million units. CSX through the same period moved 6.3 million units. Therefore, in three years, UP-NS should be able to capture and shift 500,000 to 800,000 units from BNSF and CSX to the new UP-NS network.

How, may you ask? To paraphrase many war historians, quantity (size) is a quality all its own. The new transcontinental UP, a single carrier connecting the east and western U.S., will have unprecedented rail market power and leverage CSX and BNSF will be unable to match separately. Any open or jump ball freight, interline or local, will be taken from CSX and BNSF onto the new UP-NS network. It’s in day one of railroad commercial training—exert your market power with leverage.

How does that work? In 2025, UP and BNSF moved almost 18 million loads. CSX and NS combined for almost 13 million loads. Relating carloads to gorilla size, let’s say UP and BNSF are two 900-pound “gorillas” in the West. Let’s say CSX and NS are roughly 650-pound “gorillas” in the East. Allow UP and NS to become one railroad creates a 1,550-pound gorilla competing against a 900-pound gorilla in the West and a 650-pound gorilla in the East. Who’s going to dominate who? If you’re the 1,550-pound gorilla, who do you go after first? Does it make sense now why CSX has been so quiet about UP-NS relative to BNSF, CN and CPKC? CSX may get a new 1,550-pound gorilla in their cage, the East. Ouch!

Why does size matter in rail? Rail is an interesting business model—part transportation, part utility and part real estate. The resulting contiguous franchise and market reach is what matters: which routes, to which markets connecting which origins and destinations without head-to-head rail competition. How many closed options can be provided to customers? UP-NS left unchecked will go beyond dominant in terms of extracting price from customers, long-term. Intelligent and financially motivated professionals at the new organization, left unchecked without new guiderails or ceilings, will leverage every element available to them to pull as much profitable business onto their network and extract as much price from other business to fund it as they can. Little jump ball business will remain at competitive returns on CSX or BNSF. UP will extract price at above market levels. Ultimately U.S. consumers will pay the price. Why? Lack of adequate direct rail competition.

What is competition? Competition is crucial in business because it drives innovation, forces efficiency and keeps prices competitive while improving product quality. It acts as a catalyst for excellence, encouraging companies to differentiate their offerings, enhance customer service and adapt to market changes. Ultimately, competition benefits businesses and consumers by ensuring better value and greater choice, and preventing complacency.

I recently moved from Omaha to Bucks County Pa. I RFP’d my move to four competing moving carriers. I evaluated their proposals, their people and their processes and chose a mid-priced provider. United Van Lines did a great job. Be it the Super Bowl, the recent Winter Olympics or my move from Omaha, competition brings out the best outcomes in most elements of business and life.

My point? I can’t do that as a carload rail customer. In most carload cases (~80%), I’m “closed” (captive) to one railroad, the only company in town free to charge what they want, provide me whatever service they deem adequate and perform when it suits them best. Welcome to railroading. People understand what the term being “railroaded” means in our culture. It’s well-earned. Without adequate rail competition, we get where we are today with an unhealthy rail industry whose only path to growth is to consolidate and further reduce competition.

In 2010, at the beginning of the domestic intermodal turnaround, we transitioned our messaging at Union Pacific to the “competition is trucks, not rail.” Though was some signaling to other railroads in that message—”we aren’t investing in our intermodal franchise to come after your business—the truth is the intent was to grow the entire domestic rail intermodal market, not just on UP. All the railroads adopted some form of this positioning by 2013. And business was good until 2018, when the proverbial spigot filling the trough we all drank from ran dry. Penetration of truck share stopped. Why?

Early in my career in the Finance department, there was a saying: “Pigs get fed, hogs get slaughtered.” While being a “pig” (taking reasonable profits) is acceptable, being a “hog” (excessive greed or overextending) leads to deadly outcomes. From 2003 till about 2018, 80% of the Class I railroads’ value growth came from pricing, and the ability to extract price from the market. For the sake of completeness, 10% came from volume growth and another 10% from operational efficiency. Pricing, and the ability to extract price from customers because they have no alternative, has rewarded the rail industry financially in the short term but led to a position where we are today: Prices are too high, and businesses aren’t converting to rail.

Based on recent real-life scenarios, rates for closed carload and intermodal lanes are on average 25% to 100% higher than lanes open to two or more rail carriers. The rail industry has beat the price drum so hard that business is moving away from rail. Though all business doesn’t need to be open to benefit, there needs to be meaningfully more direct rail competition than today.

As the railroads have gotten to the point of the four mega-systems we have across the U.S., prices continue to rise while local service has never been worse per shippers and receivers. Yes, “over the road” service in the post-PSR world hasn’t been better. But local service, once 5-6 days a week, is now 2-3 days a week and more difficult and expensive than ever for customers using rail. Rail competition would enable competitive pricing, better service, and rail organizations designed to put new business on the rails and not simply hit the easy button of “how much price can I extract before my customer is incented to put together a $2 million rate case?”

But what about Committed Gateway Pricing (CGP)? The merger application says CGP will enhance competition. CGP is a disingenuous way to maintain competition at best. To be clear, CGP does not in any way enhance competition. A deeper dive on CGP and how it falls short in maintaining competition will be addressed in Part 5.

We’ve had three years of stagnant truck rates, while rail rates increased at above-inflation levels. The North American rail industry has not grown since 2017 and has consistently lost share to truck and other modes since 2018. Why? I offer there’s not enough intrarail competition nor enough affordable oversight by the STB. Customers don’t have enough options. Railroads have too much leverage. Customers have been bitten by years of irregular service reducing their competitiveness, faced unchecked rail pricing vs. competitive rates in other modes, and are faced with one of the most non-customer-friendly transportation business processes.

Railroads have significant market power. Many would argue, eloquently, too much. The railroads can’t self-correct when they get out-of-market on prices. The feedback loop is 3-5 years for a captive customer to move away from rail. Lost business to price is not seen or is dispensed as noise as the leadership team works to secure this quarter’s earnings, so they retain their jobs. Checks and balances were to be put in place with the STB. Many argue the STB hasn’t acted enough, given the industry has stalled out on growth. STB rate cases are too expensive for customers to argue against a railroad’s incentives and therefore the railroads’ sizeable investments in legal departments to not lose them. Ultimately, the railroads have gotten too big. Now, the industry wants to make an even bigger railroad.

Rail is a precious commodity, and the benefits of rail (e.g. transportation savings, access to capacity, environmental benefits and better jobs) are without dispute. Generating new rail competition is critical for this industry to alter its course. Adding competition through reciprocal switching among the Class I’s, like in Canada with interswitching, could make this transaction a win-win for all parties. Regardless, we can’t keep doing the same thing and expect a different outcome.

Rob Russell, Managing Partner, Russell-Kroese Partners (RKP), is a seasoned transportation executive who operates fluidly from the boardroom to the shop floor. A certified six sigma black belt and a LEAN champion, Rob is a proven business leader who has a track record of strategy development, financial planning, business development, operations and performance management to accomplish an organization’s desired goals. RKP partners with railroads, ports, shippers and land developers on growth strategy, market development, competitive positioning and operational execution. They help clients translate complex transportation dynamics into clear, execution-ready business decisions.  You can learn more about RKP at www.russellkroese.com.

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An Amtrak F40PH, or at least what remains of it, has been donated to the Nevada State Railroad Museum in Boulder City, south of Las Vegas. Amtrak 315 was donated by its previous owner, Western Rail near Spokane, Wash., to the museum in March. The locomotive, which no longer has a prime mover, will be moved to Nevada in the coming months. 

The timing of the donation is good: March marks the 50th anniversary of the first F40PH locomotive being delivered to Amtrak. The engines were essentially a passenger version of EMD’s popular GP40 freight locomotive, and became synonymous with passenger railroading in North America during the final decades of the 20th century. 

The museum said it plans on putting the locomotive on display and using the interior as a display space for an exhibit about the F40PHs and Amtrak in Nevada. 

—Justin Franz 

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WATCHING WASHINGTON, RAILWAY AGE MARCH 2026 ISSUE: For Surface Transportation Board (STB) Vice Chairperson Republican Michelle A. Schultz, preparation and persistence paved what likely was an already preordained career path. 

Serving a second and statutorily final five-year term ending Nov. 11, 2030, Schultz will be in place to vote on a Union Pacific-Norfolk Southern (UP-NS) merger application if a revised version is submitted, as expected, by April 30.

Only Republican Chairperson Patrick J. Fuchs (profiled in March 2025) is similarly assured a vote. Democrat Karen J. Hedlund, whose first term expired Dec. 31, is in a maximum 12-month holdover and must then depart if not renominated and Senate confirmed for a second term. Of the two vacant seats on the five-member board, POTUS 47 nominee and Republican Richard Kloster awaits Senate action. A Democratic seat is open after the court-challenged firing by POTUS 47 of Robert E. Primus. 

Never during Schultz’ high school years—where band, cheerleading, field hockey, student council, track and volleyball filled her days, and studying her nights—did she imagine someday being nominated for a federal post by the President of the United States and having her qualifications evaluated by the United States Senate. 

Nor did such thoughts occur to this human version of the Energizer bunny when studying economics, English, government administration and public policy at Penn State University—or at Widener University Law School, or later in private law practice, or subsequently working her way to deputy general counsel of Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA) while simultaneously earning a master’s degree in government administration at the University of Pennsylvania. 

Schultz’ post-law school judicial clerkship at the bankruptcy court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania strongly suggests career preordination. It’s the very courthouse where Penn Central filed for bankruptcy on June 21, 1970, some two years before Schultz’s birth. The echoes remain.

Even today, there is discussed in legal circles the Penn Central autopsy revealing an infamous confluence of poor management, culture clash, unrealistic projections and operational chaos compounded by STB predecessor Interstate Commerce Commission ordering an already bankrupt New England railroad, the New Haven, into the ill-fated marriage. 

Might the unanimous January STB decision rejecting the UP-NS merger application, without prejudice for refiling with improved data and cured of other deficiencies, echo the wreck of Penn Central? Didn’t President Ronald Reagan counsel, “Trust, but verify?” 

Schultz was Senate-confirmed in 2020 to occupy in January 2021 a new and still vacant seat created by the 2015 Surface Transportation Board Reauthorization Act.

In reviewing cases ahead of voting, Schultz is known for persistently questioning STB staff experts on economics, environmental science and agency precedent. Where Government in Sunshine laws and the 2015 Surface Transportation Board Reauthorization Act permit, she is known to prod peers aggressively to reveal the thought process and logic underpinning their concerns or likely vote. 

Schultz’s capacity to appreciate and integrate opposing viewpoints flows from lessons learned lobbying the Pennsylvania legislature for SEPTA funding. To overcome rural Republican skepticism of transit subsidies, she employed data and logic to demonstrate that public transit’s statewide economic benefits far exceed subsidy costs.

While some allege Schultz’s voting record mirrors that of fellow Republican Fuchs—she has penned only 11 dissents—the claim lacks factual support. The similar voting record can be explained by Fuchs’ brand of pre-vote consensus building. Hedlund has penned fewer dissents. 

Where Schultz has written some 25 separate expressions, pro and con, attorneys on both sides acknowledge they are cogent and well-reasoned. As with many attorneys, writing skill is attributable to studying styles of revered judges. In 2022, her dissent to a majority decision preserving Final Offer Rate Review was cited multiple times by the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, which vacated it. 

Most remarkable at this STB is the collegiality among Schultz, Fuchs and Hedlund—a chemistry the White House and Senate should seek to preserve ahead of filling out the agency’s five seats. Those occupants could decide the most consequential railroad merger application in U.S. history.

Railway Age Capitol Hill Contributing Editor Frank N. Wilner is author of “Railroads & Economic Regulation,” available from Simmons-Boardman Books, www.railwayeducationalbureau.com/product/ railroads-economic-regulation-an-insiders-account/, 800-228-9670. 

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