KINSTON, N.C. — The latest short line of Jaguar Transport Holdings, North Carolina’s Kinston Railroad, began operation on Aug. 1. The railroad will operate on 6 miles of track owned by the North Carolina Department of Transportation, between an interchange with Norfolk Southern in Kinston and North Carolina Global TransPark, a 2,500-acre industrial and business […]
EAST GALESBURG, Ill. — Some 30 to 40 cars of an eastbound BNSF Railway train derailed Tuesday night, according to East Galesburg’s mayor, blocking both tracks on the Chillicothe Subdivision of the railroad’s Southern Transcon mainline. The Galesburg Register-Mail reports the accident occurred about 9 p.m. Tuesday. Mayor Darrell Corbin said he was told no […]
BOSTON — The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority will shut down its second most used rail rapid transit route, the Orange Line, for a month to conduct major repairs, Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker has announced. The Boston Globe reports Baker said the line, used for an average of 104,000 trips per day as of October 2021, […]
MONTREAL — Members of Canada’s Unifor union have ratified the contracts from last month’s tentative agreement between the union and VIA Rail Canada covering some 2,400 VIA worker. The union represents on-board personnel, maintenance workers, and those in VIA’s customer center and administrative offices. The new agreements will be retroactive to Jan. 1, 2022, and […]
CHESTERTON, Ind. — The Northern Indiana Commuter Transportation District is reviving long-dormant plans to relocate the South Shore Line station at the airport in South Bend, Ind. At its Monday meeting, the NICTD board of trustees voted to issue a request for proposals to update engineering and environmental planning for a project to move the […]
CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — Watco’s newest short line, the Texas Coastal Bend Railroad, is scheduled to begin operation today (Wednesday, Aug. 3, 2022), taking over 12 miles of trackage owned by the Port of Corpus Christi along with 8.5 miles of Union Pacific trackage rights. The railroad unveiled two locomotives with the port’s logo at […]
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 […]
