Toilet on the go They appear to be almost everywhere and go by many names, few of which can be mentioned at the dinner table. Nobody really wants to talk about them, yet they are an essential part of the industrial scene used by many railroaders. They exist due to the federal government’s Occupational Safety […]
MONTREAL — VIA Rail Canada has begun operating additional Siemens Venture trainsets between Montreal, Ottawa, and Toronto, and is slated to add more departures in April. Meanwhile, the company hosted an open house for journalists to highlight the extraordinary efforts required to keep passenger cars built in the mid-1950s operational. It sought to make the […]
OMAHA, Neb. — Berkshire Hathaway Chairman Warren Buffett’s widely read annual letter to investors, released on Saturday alongside the company’s 2023 financial results, included a long passage on railroads in general and BNSF Railway in particular. BNSF’s revenue and profits fell last year, which Buffett termed a disappointment. But he noted that the national labor […]
OMAHA, Neb. — BNSF Railway’s revenue and profits tumbled in 2023 due to a combination of lower volume and lower revenue per carload and intermodal unit. Pre-tax earnings declined 14.2%, to $6.6 billion, as revenue declined 6.9%, to $23.4 billion, BNSF parent company Berkshire Hathaway reported on Saturday. The railway’s operating ratio increased 2.5 points […]
Irish Rail It was the early 1990s and I was an Electro-Motive Division export locomotive district sales manager in the International Locomotive Business Group, based at EMD’s headquarters in LaGrange, Ill. At the time, I was responsible for our locomotive and spare parts sales in Europe, and one of my customers was Irish Rail. During […]
DENVER — A new plan released last week might finally lead to passenger rail service between Denver, Boulder, and Longmont, Colo., but not exactly as originally envisioned. That route was part of the Fastracks commuter rail plan approved by voters in 2004, but has never been built out because of a lack of funding. Now, […]
CRYSTAL LAKE, Ill. — Metra service on the Union Pacific Northwest line has been suspended today (Saturday, Feb. 24) between Crystal Lake and Harvard following a low-speed derailment this morning, WLS-TV reports. Inbound train No. 710, which was scheduled to originate at Crystal Lake at 10 a.m., had no passengers aboard when it derailed as […]
NORWALK, Conn. — The East Norwalk Station on Metro North’s New Haven line will be closed March 11-31, the Connecticut Department of Transportation has announced, to accommodate construction activity related to the WALK Bridge Replacement Project. As part of the work to replace the 128-year-old swing bridge over the Norwalk River, a new underdrain system […]
BOSTON — The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority has announced the March schedule for shutdowns as part of its ongoing effort to eliminate slow orders on its rail transit lines, along with scheduled work on several of its commuter rail lines. Already in progress are a group of shutdowns on the B, C, and D branches […]
CHURCHILL, Manitoba — The Canadian and Manitoba governments will provide up to C$60 million to complete work on the Hudson Bay Railway, the only year-round way of reaching the remote Port of Churchill, as well as funding the start of redevelopment of the port itself, officials announced today (Friday, Feb. 23). Churchill is Canada’s only […]
VALLEY FALLS, N.Y. — A broken rail was responsible for a derailment earlier this month that sent two cars of a train on the Berkshire & Eastern Railroad into the Hoosic River, a Genesee & Wyoming representative told WRGB-TV. The Feb. 7 derailment involved 10 cars of a 94-car train on the Pan Am Southern, […]
TORONTO — A member of the Toronto Transit Commission and Toronto city council is questioning whether the transit agency performed sufficient maintenance on the Scarborough Rapid Transit line before a July 2023 derailment that led to the premature closing of the line, the CBC reports. Council member Josh Matlow is raising his concerns based on […]
