Word: railroads
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While corporations have forged all sorts of improbable unions, none in recent years have tried to merge a railroad with an airline. Norfolk Southern, an East Coast railroad-holding company, may venture such a match. The company disclosed that it is considering acquiring Piedmont, the profitable North Carolina-based airline. Since 1981 Norfolk has owned more than 19% of Piedmont stock. It agreed five years ago not to buy more than 20.5% of the airline's shares, but that pact expired last week...
Industry observers were hard pressed to see the merit of such a merger. But in announcing its interest in Piedmont, the railroad may attract other bidders for the airline. Norfolk might then walk away with a handsome profit on its investment without ever having flown into the turbulent airline business...
...Stan got up a band. Chester Triplett, an oral surgeon from nearby Naples, took over the skins. Tom Werth, a librarian, took a tenor sax, as did Bill Russell, a retired railroad dispatcher. Pam Dane, a senior in high school, threw in with the geezers on alto sax, as did Pam's chum Diana Macumber, who blows a baritone saxophone. Corbin Wyant, publisher of the Naples Daily News, contributes on trombone, along with Jim Kalvin, a marina owner, Michael Isabella, an embroidery manufacturer, and Scott Wise, a salesman. Two other salesmen, Roger Park and Steve Chamberlain, address their chops...
...weeks after the Amtrak-Conrail collision outside Baltimore that claimed 16 lives, investigators from the Federal Railroad Administration had yet to find an equipment failure that would account for the tragedy. Instead, said FRA Administrator John Riley, the probe was focusing on the "human performance" of the train crews -- and the evidence was disturbing...
Blood and urine samples from the Conrail crew indicated marijuana use by Engineer Richard Gates and Brakeman Edward Cromwell. Though the FRA has not said whether the amounts found are sufficient to prove Gates and Cromwell were intoxicated at the time, railroad workers are forbidden to work under the influence of drugs or alcohol. The National Transportation Safety Board now recommends that all trains operating between Washington and Boston be equipped with automatic braking devices that would stop a train even if engineers did not heed track signals...