For Immediate Release (26-07)
Sept. 9, 2026
Contact: Joe Aiello (jaiello@narprail.org)
Rail Passengers Urges STB to Summarily Deny UP–Norfolk Southern Merger Application
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Rail Passengers Association today filed comments with the Surface Transportation Board arguing that Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern have failed to make the passenger-rail showing necessary to establish a prima facie case for their proposed merger.
The Association also joined the Joint Shipper Associations in supporting their pending Motion for Summary Denial.
“Before the Board can decide whether a merger this consequential is in the public interest, the Applicants have to provide enough evidence for the Board to make that decision,” said Jim Mathews, President & CEO of the Rail Passengers Association. “On passenger rail, they still haven’t done that. They tell us there is enough capacity. They tell us existing agreements will continue. What they still haven’t shown is how the additional freight trains they project will actually operate alongside scheduled passenger trains.”
RPA’s filing argues that the proposed transaction would give the combined railroad an unusually large role in both existing and planned passenger service. RPA found that 43 of 69 federally selected Corridor ID projects—62.3 percent—potentially use UP or NS infrastructure, and 22 of those projects overlap at least one segment where the Applicants project additional freight traffic.
For existing Amtrak service, RPA reviewed 53 passenger-service/route-segment pairings for which UP and NS quantified projected traffic changes. Forty-two of the 53 would receive additional freight traffic, generally two to ten trains per day. The Applicants nevertheless characterize existing capacity as “sufficient” for 31 of those affected pairings without providing a timetable-based operating demonstration.
The filing argues that the Applicants have not provided several forms of passenger-specific evidence needed for the Board to assess the transaction, including a timetable-based operating model, a passenger-specific dispatching plan, publicly testable capacity evidence, and a serious assessment of federally selected future passenger projects. RPA also argues that the Applicants’ statistical analysis cannot substitute for an operating demonstration and that existing poor passenger performance makes “no worse than today” an inadequate standard.
“The Applicants want the Board to credit projected new freight traffic when calculating the benefits of the merger, but then treat those same trains as almost operationally irrelevant when passenger service is considered,” Mathews said. “You can’t have it both ways. If the traffic projections are real, the Applicants need to show how those trains will fit. If they aren’t, then the benefits attributed to that traffic are overstated.”
RPA’s filing separately addresses the merits of the proposed transaction. It argues that Applicants have not demonstrated protection of existing passenger service, have inadequately analyzed terminal and network effects, and have failed to consider reasonably foreseeable passenger growth through the federal Corridor ID program.
If the Board does not deny the transaction, RPA asks for specific, enforceable passenger protections. Those include route-level performance standards; passenger operating demonstrations before material merger-related train-plan changes; public performance and capacity reporting; objective intervention triggers; capacity-investment commitments; protection for Corridor ID projects; independent validation of capacity models; and continuing Board oversight.
RPA also asks the Board to ensure that the merger itself does not extinguish or diminish existing passenger-service agreements, settlements, legal rights, remedies, or other protections applicable to either railroad.
“The burden belongs to the railroads proposing the merger,” Mathews said. “With this much of the country’s current and future passenger network potentially affected, passengers should not have to take adequate capacity on faith.”
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About Rail Passengers Association: with 127,000 members, donors, and supporters, the non-profit Rail Passengers Association is the oldest and largest national organization serving as a voice for the more than 40 million rail passengers in the U.S. Our mission is to improve and expand conventional intercity and regional passenger train services, support higher speed rail initiatives, increase connectivity among all forms of transportation, and ensure safety for our country’s trains and passengers. All of this makes communities safer, more accessible, and more productive, improving the lives of everyone who lives, works, and plays in towns all across America.
Jim, thank you for your focus and hard work on this critical issue for amtrak!
For faith go see the chaplain. For rail traffic show me the timetable.