The Washington Park & Zoo Railway, shown in June 2017, is a 0.5-mile, 2.5-foot gauge railroad at the Oregon Zoo that opened in 1958. The primary equipment, dubbed the “Zooliner,” is a 5/8 scale replica of the Aerotrain, constructed by Northwest Marine Iron Works and H. Hirschberger Sheet Metal Co., both of Portland. Scott A. […]
Side-by-side Tunnel Boring Machines begin their work from the La Brea station site on LA Metro’s Purple Line Extension on Oct. 15, 2018. Photo courtesy LA Metro LOS ANGELES — Sometime in June, the first of two giant tunnel boring machines will be lifted out of the ground under Wilshire Boulevard, having chomped through almost […]
Chinese workers load rail onto a tracklaying car from the piles left by the morning’s supply train. Sixteen rails, a keg of spikes, a keg of nuts and bolts, and 32 splice bars, along with the crew made the load. Horses to pull the car stand ready. The location is Granite Point, Nev., in late […]
Grading on the Central Pacific was done by hand, relying primarily on Chinese using picks, shovels, and horse-drawn dump carts, though black powder was freely used to break hard soil and move rocks aside. This scene is the 170-foot deep excavation at Prospect Hill, Calif. It dates from summer 1866, when more than a thousand […]
A track worker hammers in spikes on a turnout. Steve Smedley Rusty track spikes near Canadian Pacific tracks at Brookfield, Wis, in 2012. Karl Riek The Golden Spike of the first transcontinental railroad was but one of millions in the nearly 2,000-mile route between Sacramento, Calif., and Omaha, Neb. Spikes date back to the first […]
Notable U.S. and Canadian railroad completions Trains: Rick Johnson Promontory Summit, Utah, may have hosted North America’s most famous final-spike ceremony, but the event on May 10, 1869, was not unique. Not all railroads had a completion “moment:” the New York Central is an example of a railroad formed through a series of mergers and […]
Railroad spike diagram Rick Johnson SPIKE dimensions are precise and have been set by such groups as the American Railway Engineering and Maintenance-of-Way Association for decades. Spikes are made of relatively low-carbon steel, which is softer than the steel used in rail and spike mauls. This is important because when a spike is driven, it […]
WASHINGTON — Acting in what it said is “direct response to customer requests,” Amtrak is adding an additional Saturday Acela Express round trip on the Northeast Corridor beginning May 4. The additional service will have train No. 2252 departing Washington at 10:50 a.m. with arrival in New York at 1:53 p.m. and Boston at 5:58 […]
Rotary OY rests at Chama, N.M., in August 2018. The railroad expects to run the plow, and offer a limited number of tickets to the event, in early 2020. Jim Wrinn CHAMA, N.M. – The Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad plans to operate its 3-foot-gauge rotary snow plow for the first time in nearly a […]
WASHINGTON — Companies bidding on a contract to build the next generation of railcars for Washington’s Metro system — a contract expected to be worth more than $1 billion — are being asked how they would spend some of the money in the region, an effort which could include building an assembly plant. The Washington […]
Excellent ski conditions and the addition of a lounge car helped increase ridership on the Winter Park Express in 2019. Justin Franz WINTER PARK, Colo. — More than 19,200 skiers and snowboarders rode Amtrak’s Winter Park Express this winter, a 7% increase over the train’s 2018 season and an 8% increase over its inaugural season […]
The interior of Philadelphia’s 30th Street Station, shown in 2010, has been given historic status by the Philadelphia Historical Commission. Mitch Goldman PHILADELPHIA — The interior of Philadelphia’s 30th Street Station has been added to the local historic register by the Philadelphia Historical Commission, a move protecting the space from modification. It becomes just the […]
