Amtrak Empire Builder dining is among the more pleasant experiences on passenger trains these days. Join David Popp for a look at eating on a moving train in Summer 2022. When traveling on Amtrak’s premier long-distance trains, sleeping car passengers are provided complementary meals in the dining car, including breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Amtrak’s website […]
Looking for the loneliest Amtrak station in California? Consider Lompoc-Surf, population: zero, an alternative to crowded California passenger stations. You won’t worry about parking your car, long walks to trackside, or even other people. There may be about 40 million people in California, but unless they are waiting for the train, or someone on it, […]
Unusual rolling stock: There is no doubt that today’s trains are just not as colorful as those of a few decades ago. But just when you’re cradled into thinking variety is a thing of the past, a piece of rolling stock pops up to make you take a second look. Here’s a few samples of […]
Amid lot of talk, just what is Precision Scheduled Railroading? It began with a simple lesson. In the late 1960s E. Hunter Harrison was working in the tower in Frisco’s Tennessee Yard in Memphis when Bill Thompson, the railroad’s operations chief, dropped by. Thompson pointed to the yard tracks, chocked full of freight cars, and […]
Moynihan Train Hall in New York City is the main hall and gathering space for travelers riding trains to and from the underground Penn Station nearby. From its hall and corridors, passengers can wait for Amtrak trains on the Northeast Corridor, long-distance trains terminating in New York, as well as Long Island Rail Road and […]
How to rerail a freight car: When things go bang that shouldn’t on the railroad, it usually means trouble and most likely a derailment. Derailments are a fact of life, and when one occurs on a main line of a Class I railroad, it usually results in many cars on the ground with extensive media […]
Introduction to Clearing Yard in Chicago Clearing Yard in Chicago often operates at 1.8 mph, slower than the speed at which an average adult walks. Compound that brutally slow pace with the idea that this same portion of railroad connects six of the seven Class I carriers, and you soon get the feeling somebody has […]
In the not-too-distant past, Amtrak provided route guides and timetables with a wealth of information about not only sights and points of interest along its routes, but also what to expect on each train: Is there checked baggage service? Are pillows available for coach passengers? What kind of dining options are offered? Through 2017, Amtrak […]
High Speed Rail history The modern concept of high speed rail began in 1964, when the Japanese National Railways launched its first Shinkansen train from Tokyo to Shin Osaka, operating at 130 mph. Following passage of the High Speed Ground Transportation Act of 1965 in the U.S., the Pennsylvania Railroad (and successor Penn Central), in […]
A lot happens between the horsepower output of a diesel engine and the drawbar where freight cars are coupled. A diesel engine’s raw output is known as brake horsepower, which is calculated without any additional equipment connected. After deducting those losses, the rest of the engine’s output is sent to the traction motors to pull […]
Amtrak passenger trains you can ride Amtrak offers 14 passenger trains in each direction serving end points that allow for overnight travel, most of them operating daily but some on a triweekly basis. In the east, the Lake Shore Limited offers nightly service between New York and Chicago, with a separate section serving the Boston-Chicago […]
Locomotive flue sheets are an important component in a steam locomotive’s design. The steam-generating part of every conventional steam locomotive consisted of three elements — the firebox where the fuel was burned to provide the heat, the boiler itself where water was converted into steam, and the smokebox where the exhaust from the engine was […]
