WASHINGTON — Beginning today (Monday, March 4), Amtrak is scheduling four additional Northeast Regional round trips weekdays and two on the weekends between New York and Washington, D.C. The decision to reconfigure seating in each coach so that half of the seats face in different directions [see “Fixed forward and backward seating to speed Northeast Regional […]
WASHINGTON — The Surface Transportation Board on Friday approved an emergency request to allow short line company Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railroad to provide service for 30 days on the line formerly operated by the Blackwell Northern Gateway Railroad, shut down in February by the Federal Railroad Administration for safety reasons. The State of […]
RICHMOND, Va. — Virginia legislation requiring two-person crews for freight trains in the state has passed the legislature and been sent to Gov. Glenn Youngkin for his signature, the Virginian-Pilot newspaper reports. The bill that passed narrowly passed both houses of the General Assembly — 51-49 in the House of Delegates, and 20-19 in the […]
LOWER SAUCON TOWNSHIP, Pa. — National Transportation Safety Board investigators have released control of the site of Saturday’s collision and derailment involving three trains to Norfolk Southern for its crews and contractors to address cleanup, the Allentown Morning Call reports. The NTSB turned the site over to NS late this afternoon [Sunday, March 3], but […]
LOWER SAUCON TOWNSHIP, Pa. — The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating a derailment involving three Norfolk Southern trains that occurred today (Saturday, March 2) near Allentown, Pa., the safety agency said on social media site X. The incident sent two locomotives partially into the adjacent Lehigh River; NS reported diesel fuel and a small […]
EXETER, Neb. — One crew member was transported to a hospital with minor injuries after a BNSF intermodal train struck a semi-truck and derailed today (Friday, March 1) near Exeter, Neb., KOLN-TV reports. Fifteen to 20 railcars derailed, according to the Fillmore County Sheriff’s Office. The collision occurred about 10 a.m. , just west of […]
MONTREAL — Canadian National and United Steelworkers Local 2004, which represents CN track and bridge employees in Canada, have reached a tentative agreement on a new three-year contract, the railroad announced today (Friday, March 1) The union represents more than 2,500 workers, primarily responsible for track maintenance. Negotiations had been underway since October 2023; the […]
WASHINGTON — The head of the Federal Railroad Administration has questioned Union Pacific’s commitment to safety after the furloughs of shop workers who maintain the railroad’s freight cars and locomotives. Meanwhile, the Transportation Trades Department of the AFL-CIO has asked the FRA to conduct random focused inspections at BNSF Railway in the wake of the […]
Train signals All dark, two silent sentinels guard their respective tracks on the double-track main line. Just beyond them is a crossover enabling trains to switch from one track to another. Beyond the crossover, a similar set of signals faces the opposite way. Suddenly, the dark signals light up, each displaying three columns of red […]
CHICAGO — Amtrak’s California Zephyr has been cancelled west of Salt Lake City through the weekend as weather forecasters are predicting heavy snow will pound Donner Pass and the Sierra Nevada mountains through Saturday. Service on the Seattle segment of the Empire Builder route was also disrupted this week. Trouble started early Thursday when the […]
BOSTON — Union workers operating the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority’s commuter rail operator for its contract operator, Keolis, are prepared to strike over wages and other conditions, the president of one union told the MBTA’s board on Thursday. “We don’t want to strike, but we will when we are legally able to,” Transportation Workers Union […]
NEW YORK — Trains will be replaced by buses on the eastern portion of the Long Island Rail Road’s Ronkonkoma Branch on weekdays beginning Monday, March 4, the most significant of a series of schedule changes to allow for track work throughout the LIRR system. A number of other changes, involving new trains, new start […]
