CANCÚN, Mexico — Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has again promised the Maya Train project will be completed by mid-September, before he leaves office, while President-elect Claudia Sheinbaum has endorsed the controversial project on the Yucatan Peninsula. Mexico News Daily reports that López Obrador and Sheinbaum traveled on two segments of the Maya Train […]
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Rail labor groups today released a report calling for public ownership of Class I freight railroads in the U.S., arguing that the current system is broken because it’s beholden to Wall Street. The 98-page report contends that the Class I railroads’ relentless focus on cost-cutting has hurt safety, service, employees, infrastructure investment, and passenger service. […]
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MIDWAY BEACH, Iowa — One crew member was reported airlifted to a hospital with serious injuries after the derailment of a CPKC train that reportedly ran away on a spur line on Saturday, June 29, near Montpelier, Iowa. The incident occurred about 7 p.m. near Midway Beach in Muscatine County, Chris Jasper, Muscatine County Director […]
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NEWARK, N.J. — Amtrak and NJ Transit have committed to work together to address operational issues that have been plaguing both services on the Northeast Corridor, including more frequent inspections of their equipment and the 170 miles of track they share between New York and Trenton, N.J. The two agencies made that pledge after a […]
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WASHINGTON — The process that determines how much money Amtrak will receive for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1, 2024, began Wednesday with release of the U.S. House of Representatives’ Transportation, Housing, and Urban Development Committee’s “Department of Transportation Appropriation Act of 2025.” Funding levels for the U.S. DOT and its related highway, rail, and […]
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WASHINGTON — A federal appeals court has ordered the Federal Railroad Administration to allow BNSF Railway to expand its automated track inspection program while simultaneously reducing the frequency of traditional visual inspections. Railroads are permitted unlimited use of automated track inspection systems that rely on lasers and other technology to find track geometry defects. But […]
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JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — CSX’s 16th heritage locomotive honors the Georgia Railroad. The unit, No. 1834, was released yesterday at the railroad’s paint shop in Waycross, Ga. “Here is our 16th CSX Heritage Locomotive – the Georgia Railroad #1834. Founded in 1833, the company was originally the Georgia Railroad and Banking Company and the banking side […]
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SAN BERNARDINO, Calif. — More than 20 months after it was unveiled in Berlin and nine months after its U.S. debut, the first Stadler hydrogen-fuel-cell powered FLIRT H2 trainset has arrived in San Bernardino, where it will operate on Southern California’s Arrow commuter rail line. The first-of-its-kind trainset arrived on June 21, after leaving Pueblo, […]
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EAST PALESTINE, Ohio – Norfolk Southern and its contractors should not have decided to vent and burn derailed tank cars carrying vinyl chloride three days after the Feb. 3, 2023, derailment in East Palestine, the National Transportation Safety Board said today (Tuesday, June 25). The five tank cars were among the 38 cars of train […]
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MONTREAL — Commuter operator Exo is set to begin operating 44 new bilevel railcars built by China’s CRRC on its Saint-Jérôme line today (Tuesday, June 25). At least one set of the cars, part of a C$204 million order, was reportedly in service as of last Friday, June 21. The original 24-car order was modified […]
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QUINCY, Mass. – RailState, which tabulates rail traffic using a network of sensors placed on public property along main lines, last week provided a snapshot of long trains rolling along BNSF Railway and Union Pacific in the Southwest. The longest train RailState spotted over a 10-day period this month: A five-locomotive UP stack train carrying […]
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LORTON, Va. — Amtrak has begun testing its Siemens Charger ALC42 long-distance locomotives in Auto Train service, with two of the diesels making their first appearance as part of a four-locomotive consist on the southbound train on Friday, June 21. Photographer Sol Tucker shot the locomotives putting the train together in Lorton; Nathan Richters photographed […]
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