WASHINGTON — The Surface Transportation Board would get more teeth under a shipper-friendly bill that would reauthorize the agency that regulates freight railroads. The Freight Rail Shipping Fair Market Act, introduced Tuesday, would give regulators more authority to deal with service emergencies, require railroads to include service standards in contracts with customers, and give shippers […]
OMAHA, Neb. — Are hump yards making an unlikely comeback? Probably not, although three mothballed humps are once again using gravity to classify freight cars. Union Pacific has reactivated the hump at Davidson Yard in Fort Worth, Texas, to ease the burden on the classification yard at West Colton, Calif., where UP is expanding the […]
A rail line through the small European country of Lithuania has become the site of serious geopolitical wrangling between the Lithuanian government, the European Union, and Russia. The rail line connects the otherwise isolated small Russian region of Kaliningrad with the rest of Russia, via both Lithuania and Russian ally Belarus. Financial and other sanctions […]
THETFORD, England — Passenger trains of British operator Greater Anglia were disrupted for about an hour Monday afternoon because of an escaped giant tortoise on the tracks. Yes, you read that correctly. The BBC reports that the animal, about 2½ feet long, had escaped from pet and aquarium store Swallow Aquatics on Sunday. It was […]
ALBANY, N.Y. — Amtrak has resumed service through Albany, N.Y., as of Monday afternoon, ending a three-day suspension of service triggered by falling pieces from a building next to the tracks. The trains will operate with a speed restriction past the Central Warehouse, a long-vacant cold storage facility. Pieces from the wall of the 12-story […]
The Iowa Interstate Railroad has reactivated SD38-2s Nos. 152 and 153 after three of its General Electric ES44-AC locomotives suffered damage in grade crossing accidents. The locomotives handed train PESI (Peoria-Silvis, Ill.) on Sunday, July 31, with ES44AC No. 508, pulling 90 grain empties and two steel loads. The non-turbocharged, normally aspirated engines are fan […]
ALBANY, N.Y. — A bus bridge was hastily set up Friday to ensure the inaugural run of the Ethan Allen Express from its new northern terminus of Burlington, Vt., wouldn’t have to be cancelled. But getting travelers past a crumbling warehouse adjacent to the tracks that carry the Ethan Allen, Lake Shore Limited to […]
VERGENNES, Vt. — The inaugural run of Amtrak’s Ethan Allen Express from Burlington, Vt., arrives at the Ferrisburg-Vergennes station on Friday, July 29, 2022. The train had previously originated and terminated in Rutland, Vt. The station — added to the National Register of Historic Places in May 2021 — is a Rutland Railroad building dating […]
BOSTON — The Federal Transportation Administration on Friday ordered ‘an immediate safety standdown” for Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority workers dealing with out-of-service trains in the wake of three recent runaway-train incidents, the latest of which happened last week. The Boston Globe reports the order, effective at 12:01 a.m. Saturday, requires worker operating or securing out-of-service […]
WASHINGTON — The question of how Canadian National should receive incentives or penalties for handling of Amtrak trains has no doubt chalked up hundreds — maybe thousands — of billable hours for the companies’ attorneys. The inability of the two sides to reach a new operating agreement first came to the Surface Transportation Board in […]
BAY ST. LOUIS, Miss. — The status of Amtrak service on the Gulf Coast remains very much undetermined, but that’s not stopping the city of Bay St. Louis: It plans a ceremony today to mark “reactivation” of its Amtrak station, idle since passenger service was halted after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Al.com reports U.S. Department […]
COOK, Minn. — Fourteen cars of a Canadian National train derailed Saturday night north of the town of Cook, KMSP-TV reports. The St. Louis County Sheriff’s Office reported the accident occurred about 7:45 p.m. and involved a 123-car northbound train. A county emergency management team responded because some of the cars involved contained hazardous materials, […]
