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Union Pacific Railroad April 22 announced plans to relocate locomotive repairs from its Pine Bluff, Ark., shop to other maintenance facilities in Chicago, Houston and Fort Worth, Texas, within 90 days.
UP officials believe the repair work should be shifted to locations where trains originate and terminate, rather than Pine Bluff's midpoint location. Most of the Class I's upper-Midwest trains run southbound through Pine Bluff to Texas as part of UP's "directional running" program; most northbound traffic runs through Little Rock, Ark.
UP plans to transfer 41 shop positions (29 to Chicago, seven to Houston and five to Fort Worth), and eliminate one clerical job.
However, the railroad will retain about 90 workers in Pine Bluff to fuel and service locomotives passing through the terminal; car inspection and repair operations won't be affected.
UP also plans to add about 40 new train-service jobs at Pine Bluff — keeping employment at about 670 jobs — and another 40 train-service workers at its North Little Rock, Ark., shop, boosting its Arkansas workforce to 2,950.