Welcome aboard the Trains–Special Interest Tours 2024 Alaska by Rail holiday. Please join us as we travel on the Alaska Railroad for 9 days from Sept. 8 to 17, heading south from Fairbanks to Anchorage, Alaska. Today is a travel day. Our group dined together last evening to wrap up the trip. Today we are […]
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — The 19th heritage locomotive in the CSX fleet is No. 1851, a tribute to predecessor railroad Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis. CEO Joe Hinrichs unveiled the locomotive today in a post on LinkedIn, as has been customary. “The NC&StL railroad was founded in 1845 and was acquired in a hostile takeover by […]
Amtrak has honored past passenger trains over the years by inheriting their names. How many are in service today and how close — or far — do they follow the original routes? Auto Train Eugene K. Garfield’s Auto-Train carried passengers and their automobiles over the former Richmond, Fredericksburg & Potomac and Seaboard Coast Line railroads […]
DULUTH, Minn. – The Lake Superior Railroad Museum has restored a former Erie Mining hi-rail car — a 1957 Pontiac — to service. The Pontiac Chieftain station wagon was put into service in 1957 on Erie Mining Co.’s 74-mile main line between Hoyt Lakes and Taconite Harbor. The vehicle traveled an estimated 110,000 […]
SPIEZ, Switzerland — At the midpoint of this busy Swiss trip, I have — for the time being — moved on from working on my article on the Rhätische Bahn to work for an article on the long-delayed plans to complete the Lötschberg Base Tunnel, another of the massive rail infrastructure projects that help define […]
WASHINGTON – Long manifest trains are more likely to derail than their shorter counterparts due to excessive in-train forces – and the number of wrecks related to train makeup and handling issues has increased sharply since U.S. railroads adopted Precision Scheduled Railroading operating models that rely on ever-longer trains, according to a National Academies of […]
Photographer Ian Hapsias Pennsylvania photographer Ian Hapsias took an interest in United States Gypsum Corporation’s narrow-gauge railroad years before he would make the 2,300-mile trek to Plaster City to visit the 20-mile industrial railroad. In-between shooting old signals and Pittsburgh’s industrial scenes, Hapsias was mapping out his game plan to visit USG. “I would spend […]
Welcome aboard the Trains–Special Interest Tours 2024 Alaska by Rail outing. Please join us as we travel on the Alaska Railroad for 9 days from Sept. 8 to 17, heading south from Fairbanks to Anchorage, Alaska. No train travel today, just our bus Pendleton with driver John for a 45 minute run from Girdwood back […]
WASHINGTON – The first day of the Surface Transportation Board’s unprecedented hearing focusing on growth in the rail industry – or, more precisely, the lack of it – allowed the Class I railroads to tout their successes. But the rail executives had to wait for an analyst panel that outlined the breadth and depth of […]
Class I railroads’ intermodal volumes have been strong this year, but the growing threat of an East Coast ports work stoppage risks upending supply chains just as the freight industry was normalizing. East Coast Class I railroads CSX and Norfolk Southern are keeping an eye on the potential for a widespread strike at […]
When Canadian National reported disappointing second quarter results in July – partly due to congestion related to trackwork in the Directional Running Zone it shares with Canadian Pacific Kansas City in British Columbia – executives were vague on why some of the maintenance of way work in the country’s most important corridor was unplanned. At […]
Four decades later, I still chuckle when I think about the grouchy old farmer who jumped on my locomotive at a central Iowa grade crossing, cast iron fry pan in hand, and cussed me out like he was a drunken sailor! It was summer 1979. I had been a qualified Chicago & North Western Railway […]
