INDEPENDENCE, Ohio — Members of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen ratified have ratified a contract agreement with Kansas City Southern and the Dakota, Minnesota & Eastern in the event of a KCS-Canadian Pacific merger, and with Pittsburgh’s Union Railroad. Ratification of both agreements was announced March 3. The KCS and DM&E agreement is […]
Installing sensors on freight cars is the only way to prevent another disastrous derailment like the Feb. 3 Norfolk Southern hazardous materials wreck in East Palestine, Ohio, a wheel bearing expert says. Constantine Tarawneh, a mechanical engineering professor who heads the University Transportation Center for Railway Safety at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, […]
WASHINGTON — Amtrak has begun offering coach passengers on the Empire Builder, California Zephyr, Southwest Chief, Coast Starlight, and Sunset Limited the opportunity to buy meals in those trains’ dining cars, a practice that began March 1. Since mid-2021, these are the only long-distance trains offering breakfasts, lunches, and dinners prepared to order for sleeping-car […]
News & Products for the week of March 6th 2023 Model railroad operators and builders can get the latest information about locomotives, freight cars, passenger cars, tools, track, and more by reading Model Railroader’s frequent product updates. The following are the products Model Railroader editors have news on for the week of March 6th 2023. […]
CTT author Peter Riddle has been a fixture in the magazine over the years, and now on Trains.com. He has also authored a number of books and is proof a love of toy trains can truly last a lifetime. We’ve asked him a few questions. My first train set (or locomotive) was…? It’s likely that […]
Norfolk Southern will take several steps to improve its wayside defect detector network in the wake of the National Transportation Safety Board preliminary report on last month’s disastrous derailment in East Palestine, Ohio. NTSB officials say the Feb. 3 wreck of train 32N was likely caused by the catastrophic failure of a wheel bearing on […]
ORLANDO — A Brightline train has hit speeds of 130 mph in testing on passenger operator’s corridor between Orlando and Cocoa, Fla., the company announced this morning (March 6, 2023), making it the fastest train ever to operate in Florida and the southeastern U.S. The 35-mile route paralleling the Beachline Expressway (State Route 528) is […]
NEW YORK — Amtrak will take a portion of one track out of service on of its Hell Gate Line between Penn Station and New Rochelle, N.Y., and adjust most Northeast Corridor schedules as of today (Monday, March 6) as part of its effort to cooperate with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s Penn Station Access project, […]
BISMARCK — North Dakota’s Attorney General said during a State Historical Board Friday that BNSF Railway owns the Bismarck-Mandan Rail Bridge, the first time the attorney general’s office has weighed in on the ownership issue contested by a group that wants to preserve the 140-year-old bridge, which BNSF wants to replace. The Bismarck Tribune reports […]
MONTREAL — Two Canadian unions whose contracts with Canadian National Railway expired at the end of 2022 have voted in favor of a strike, CityNews reports. Unifor Local 100 and Unifor Council 4000 have voted 98% and 97%, respectively, in favor of a strike. The two unions represent about 3,000 workers in mechanical, intermodal, and […]
PENINSULA, Ohio — The Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad, which had planned to resume full operations on Friday, March 3, instead has had to suspend all operations as of that date. A news release on the heritage railroad’s website says “ongoing geotechnical soil monitoring in recent weeks identified increasing erosion along the 26-mile scenic and educational […]
WASHINGTON — U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), in a letter to Surface Transportation Board Chairman Martin J. Oberman, has asked that the STB deny the merger of Canadian Pacific and Kansas City Southern, saying the merger “would reduce competition in an already highly consolidated market and could cost increased shipping costs.” Warren, in the letter […]
