Wednesday morning rail news: Transportation Safety Board of Canada issues report on 2018 CN yard death Failure to fully secure two unattended cars and ice contamination of those cars’ brakes led to a fatal accident in 2018 at Canadian National’s yard in Edmundston, New Brunswick, the Transportation Safety Board of Canada says in a report issued […]
WASHINGTON —Amtrak CEO William Flynn has outlined his company’s “top five priorities that we ask Congress to address” in a letter sent to legislators last week. The letter, released by Amtrak, says those priorities are: — Emergency funding: $1.541 billion of COVID relief this year “to sustain and restore operations and recall employees” through September 30 […]
The National Model Railroad Association (NMRA) announced in late January that the 2021 “Rails By the Bay” National Convention and National Train Show have been cancelled. The events were scheduled to be held in early July in Santa Clara, Calif. “We did not reach this decision lightly but felt it was the best for anyone […]
Caboose, a hobby shop in the Denver suburb of Lakewood, Colo., announced on Facebook that it has closed its store. In the post, dated December 31, it said, “It is with great regrets that the employee-owners of Caboose have decided to permanently close the retail storefront location at 10800 West Alameda Avenue in Lakewood. “The […]
MARTINSBURG, W.Va. — Winchester & Western, the 100-mile short line with trackage in Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, and New Jersey, was able to grow last year despite the pandemic. Traffic on the railroad, which short line holding company OmniTRAX acquired in September 2019, was up a shade over 9% last year. That was below railroad […]
P42DC No. 46 leads the westbound Capitol Limited out of Toledo on Jan. 21, displaying markings commemorating Amtrak’s 50th anniversary, which arrives in May. The locomotive was reportedly going to lead an Inauguration special for Joe Biden, the 46th president, but that was cancelled for security reasons following the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. This edition […]
MONTREAL — After increasing momentum in the fourth quarter, Canadian National today expressed optimism for volume recovery in 2021 as intermodal, grain, and some carload segments are seeing strong growth. CN expects volume to grow by around 5% in 2021 amid record Canadian grain tonnage, demand for lumber and propane, and international and domestic intermodal gains […]
More Tuesday morning rail news: OmniTRAX names Piacente as new CEO Short line and transportation company OmniTRAX has named Dean Piacente as its new CEO, effective Feb. 1. Piacente has more than 20 years’ experience as a commercial executive at CSX Transportation, and brings more than 30 years of financial planning, analysis, and expertise in […]
WASHINGTON — Amtrak and Metra have filed briefs with the Surface Transportation Board on the remaining issues in their long-running dispute over Metra’s lease at Amtrak-owned Chicago Union Station, with Amtrak asking the board to decide the remaining areas of disagreement so appropriate compensation can be decided, while Metra suggests the disagreements can still be […]
Tuesday morning rail news: South Shore to lease cars from Metra to handle planned service increase The Northern Indiana Commuter Transportation District will lease 26 bilevel gallery cars from Metra to handle the increased South Shore Line commuter service planned under the Double Track and West Lake Corridor expansion projects. The Times of Northwest Indiana […]
All through January 2021, Classic Trains editors are celebrating the New York Central Railroad. This week, feast your eyes on freight trains, in black-and-white, and color, from deep in Appalachia, to Manhattan’s High Line. See what we’ve unearthed from the David P. Morgan Library on this great railroad. Only from Classic Trains! […]
President Joe Biden has designated Martin Oberman as chairman of the Surface Transportation Board. Oberman, who joined the board in January 2019, is current serving his first five-year term on the board, which is slated to expire Dec. 31, 2023. A former Chicago city council alderman, he was chairman of Metra’s board from 2014 to […]
