NEW YORK — Amtrak has awarded a construction contract for major rehabilitation of the East River Tunnel, the connection between Manhattan and Queens that sustained major damage from floodwaters during 2012’s Hurricane Sandy. The East River Tunnel Rehabilitation Project will demolish all existing tunnel system down to the liner before completely restoring the two tubes […]
CHICAGO — The first of 17 Venture coach-café cars built by Siemens for Midwest States has finally debuted on one daily Chicago-St. Louis Lincoln Service round-trip. Trains News Wire sampled the new entry out of Chicago to Bloomington-Normal, Ill., last week on train No. 305, a 5:20 p.m. departure. The trainset returns the next morning […]
ALBANY, N.Y. — New York state has begun work on a new rail bridge across the Hudson River in Albany to replace a structure with portions dating to 1865, and also awarded funding to tear down a deteriorating, vacant warehouse that led to interruptions of rail service in 2022, Gov. Kathy Hochul announced today. The […]
CHICAGO — Amtrak’s stretched-thin and aging fleet is encountering significant challenges to reliability across the entire system this week as national network trains remain sold out for many segments. Sunset cancelled With Tropical Storm Beryl causing widespread flooding in the Houston area early in the week, Amtrak truncated the eastbound Sunset Limited at San Antonio, […]
WASHINGTON — Circumstantial evidence gleaned from Amtrak’s booking site portends mid-November changes to the operation of the Chicago-Washington, D.C. Capitol Limited and the New York-Miami Silver Star. A Trains News Wire review of ticketing availabilities on the two trains indicates tentative plans to combine their operation as a single-level Chicago-Miami train. Doing so would allow […]
NEW YORK — Officials signed off on a $6.88 billion federal grant Monday for the Northeast Corridor’s Gateway Tunnel project — the largest single federal grant ever for a transit infrastructure project, and part of $11 billion in federal money for the $16 billion project to build two new bores under the Hudson River between […]
WASHINGTON, Mo. — No injuries were reported when Amtrak’s Missouri River Runner derailed this evening (Monday, July 8), KSDK-TV reports. All cars remained upright. Amtrak said in a statement that the train hit a tree on the tracks at about 4:55 p.m. CT, derailing the locomotive’s rear axle. There were 124 passengers and five crew […]
Union Pacific and BNSF Railway shut down their operations in the Houston area Sunday in preparation for Hurricane Beryl, which made landfall today (Monday, July 8) as a Category 1 storm. Beryl, which was downgraded to a tropical storm this morning, came ashore at Matagorda, Texas, about 90 miles southwest of Houston. Beryl is expected […]
NEW YORK — Amtrak service on the Northeast Corridor between Boston and New York City was restored as of about 9 p.m. Saturday night, the passenger operator announced late Saturday evening. The company says the preliminary cause is a lightning strike that disrupted power. Normal operations are planned for today except for three early trains […]
NEW YORK — Amtrak service between New York City and Boston was cancelled for the remainder of today (Saturday, July 6) as of mid-afternoon because of “an ongoing electric power issue,” the passenger operator said in a service alert on its website posted at 5:50 p.m. ET. An earlier notification indicated that the problem was […]
WASHINGTON — Three labor organizations have opposed Amtrak’s request for a waiver allowing installation of a device the company claims will prevent incidents where trains fail to trigger track circuits. As a result, a decades-old issue that recently has forced Amtrak to assign at least seven Superliners to trains operated over Canadian National’s Chicago-Carbondale, Ill., […]
NEW YORK — Amtrak announced on Friday, June 28, that had awarded a construction contract to build a new Connecticut River Bridge on the Northeast Corridor to replace the existing 116-year-old structure. A joint venture of O&G/Tutor Perini received the contract award for the $1.3 billion project, which has received a $827 million Federal Railroad […]
