Coos Bay, Oregon Google Maps SEATTLE — The Oregon International Port of Coos Bay believes it can have a swing-span bridge on its rail line back to normal operation by the end of this month. That will come too late to save a Georgia-Pacific lumber mill, the closing of which was announced earlier this month […]
Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad DURANGO, Colo. – The Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad and the Carson & Colorado Railway are working together to repair Southern Pacific 4-6-0 No. 18 after it blew a cylinder during an excursion earlier this month. On Tuesday, the railroads announced that while they are confident the locomotive […]
Inbound and outbound trains on the MBTA’s Middlesborough/Lakeville line meet in Braintree, Mass., in 2010. A project to extend the line to New Bedford and Fall River, Mass., has cleared major funding and permitting hurdles. Scott A. Hartley BOSTON — Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker has committed more than $1 billion in state bond funding for […]
BOSTON — The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority is taking new steps to try to identify hot axles after they were identified as a factor in two recent derailments. The MBTA has applied heat-sensitive tape to axles on the commuter railroad’s passenger coaches in hopes of spotting problems before axles fail, the Boston Herald reports. Keolis […]
A rendering of Moynihan Train Hall, looking east, shows the open central area with skylights providing natural light for above-ground spaces. Architecture and Interiors: FXCollaborative The 10,000-square-foot Metropolitan Lounge will provide fresh food and a bar with a large assortment of beverages, among other improvements over its predecessor at Penn Station. Architecture and Interiors: FXCollaborative […]
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 […]
