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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 […]
CANCÚN, Mexico — A third section of Mexico’s tourist-focused Maya Train, a 68-kilometer (42-mile) segment between Cancún and Playa del Carmen, was inaugurated Thursday, Feb. 29, with a trip including President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, local officials, and media members. It was the final portion of the project to be launched before a March 1 […]
NEW YORK — Norfolk Southern and RapidSOS, which provides secure data information to first responders, have unveiled a rail safety system to increase availability of critical information at significant incidents. The collaborative effort announced today will be free to public safety agencies across the U.S. It will provide access to cargo and hazardous material information, […]
OMAHA, Neb. — Union Pacific has added Dallas and Phoenix to the lanes it is serving with on-dock international intermodal service from Houston. “In cooperation with Port Houston, ocean carriers and Beneficial Cargo Owners (BCO) have access to rail service between Barbours Cut Container Terminal at Port Houston and 11 key Union Pacific-served markets. The […]
DENVER — Light rail service in downtown Denver will be halted from late May through September as part of a four-phase, $152 million project to rebuild much of the infrastructure dating to the opening of the light rail system in 1994, the Regional Transportation District announced Wednesday. The closure of the downtown loop will begin […]
ALEXANDER, W.Va — West Virginia’s Beech Mountain Railroad appears to have reached its final chapter. Owner Carter-Roag, a subsidiary of United Coal, has returned its two leased SW1500s to LTEX (also known as Larry’s Truck & Electric); those engines had been brought in to move the stockpile of coal remaining after the closure of Carter-Roag’s […]
WASHINGTON — The Norfolk Southern engineer killed in a Jan. 31 incident in Decatur, Ala., suffered fatal injuries when his locomotive was struck by a group of 35 railcars rolling on an adjacent track, the National Transportation Safety Board said in a preliminary accident report released today (Wednesday, Feb. 28). The incident occurred about 4:15 […]
ELKO, Nev. — Sixteen railcars of corn from a Union Pacific train derailed near the Amtrak station in Elko early today (Wednesday, Feb. 28), striking the support of a street overpass and raising question about the bridge’s structural integrity. No injuries were reported and no hazardous materials were involved. The Associated Press reports the derailment […]
CHICAGO — Jim Derwinski hates the phrase “that’s the way we’ve always done it.” At a Wednesday presentation for Northwestern University’s Sandhouse Rail Group, Derwinski, Metra’s CEO/Executive Director, illustrated why that’s the case, and the potential that comes from putting that approach in the past. “Here’s a little story about where we’re not going to […]
