Former Metra CEO Orseno joins agency’s board NEWSWIRE

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Don Orseno receives a gift marking his retirement as Metra CEO during a Chicago Rail Superintendents Association event in November 2017. Behind him is current Metra CEO James Derwinski. Orseno was named to Metra’s board of directors on Wednesday. TRAINS: David Lassen This Metra locomotive was repainted in Rock Island colors and named for Don […]

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Amtrak to close Kalamazoo ticket office NEWSWIRE

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KALAMAZOO, Mich. — Kalamazoo will become the latest Michigan city to lose a staffed ticket office at its Amtrak station, WWMT-TV reports. The TV station reports the ticket office will close “at the beginning of 2020.” It follows similar moves East Lansing, Niles, Jackson, and Flint, which saw their ticket offices close in 2018 [see […]

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Open houses bring proposed Metra extension to the public NEWSWIRE

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The westbound California Zephyr blasts through Plano, Ill., on Dec. 2, 2019. Plano’s Amtrak station could become a station for an extension of Metra’s BNSF line into Kendall County, Ill. TRAINS: David Lassen PLANO, Ill. — The opportunity has begun for the public to inspect and consider aspects of the proposed extension of Metra commuter […]

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CN begins construction of western Wisconsin auto facility NEWSWIRE

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NEW RICHMOND, Wis. – Canadian National subsidiary Wisconsin Central has begun construction on a new AutoPort automobile processing and transshipment facility just west of New Richmond along its former Soo Line/WC Minneapolis Subdivision. The facility will serve as an unloading site for vehicles, which will then be trucked to dealers in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area. […]

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The train that never came

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Michigan Central’s elusive train to Joliet, Illinois, approaches the Maple Street crossing in Matteson, Illinois, in mid-1968. Ralph Eisenbrandt photo, Paul Jaenicke collection In the mid-1960s, I attended a parochial school in the far south Chicago suburb of Matteson, Illinois, that bordered on the Joliet branch of the New York Central. Old-timers in town referred to it […]

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