STB adopts final rule for reporting chemical, plastics rail service data

The U.S. Surface Transportation Board yesterday announced that it is adopting a final rule amending its railroad performance data reporting rules to include certain chemical and plastics traffic as a distinct reporting category to the Class Is' weekly reporting for the "cars-held" metric.

The cars-held metric tracks the average number of loaded and empty rail cars that have not moved for 48 hours or longer. The final rule takes effect July 20.

Class Is already report certain service performance metrics for a range of commodities on a weekly, semi-annual and occasional basis. With the additional data, the board and its stakeholders "will be better positioned to monitor chemicals and plastics traffic and detect and mitigate emerging service issues affecting these commodities," STB officials said in a press release.

The final rule, which can be read via this link, applies to all Class Is and the Chicago Transportation Coordination Office through its Class I members.