Canada’s GMD1 diesel locomotive was the first to be completely designed by General Motors Diesel Ltd., Electro-Motive’s subsidiary at London, Ontario. GMD built 101 copies in two variants between 1958 and 1960. The locomotive was powered by a 12-cylinder, non-turbocharged 567 prime mover producing 1,200 hp. A news brief in Trains’ July 1959 issue called […]
Women in railroading Research deflates the idea that a woman’s place was in the home in the 19th century. In 1838, during the Industrial Revolution when women were already working many jobs outside of the home, railroads employed female car attendants. In the 1800s, the most important breakthrough for women in railroading came when women […]
Q: I’m planning my first layout and I need to learn about train movements and switching a model railroad. Specifically, how are cars spotted on facing-point turnouts versus trailing ones? How do I plan for trains running in both directions? – Jesse Brinson A: For those who are new to switching a model railroad, let’s […]
ATLANTA — Norfolk Southern has become the first railroad to reach paid sick time agreements with all 12 railroad labor unions. NS and the SMART-TD union that represents yardmasters announced on Friday that they had come to terms on a deal for the railroad to provide yardmasters with up to seven paid sick days per […]
WASHINGTON — The Federal Railroad Administration has awarded more than $570 million for grade-crossing elimination projects in 32 states, the U.S. Department of Transportation announced today. The funds, from the Railroad Crossing Elimination Grant Program, will fund a total of 63 projects, addressing more than 400 grade crossing by separating roads and rail rights-of-way, closing […]
The best-selling Dash-2 EMD diesel locomotives will come as no surprise to diesel locomotive fans. By the late 1960s, the horsepower race had quieted, with 3,000-hp locomotives becoming the norm for fast freight (EMD’s GP40 and SD40, GE’s U30B and U30C) and 2,000 for local service (EMD’s GP38). EMD had successfully introduced a new, […]
The rainbow fleet — on May 1, 1971, the passenger train at the station was Amtrak, but it sure didn’t look that way. Locomotives and cars from the railroads buying into Amtrak were pooled to keep passengers moving along. It was a rainbow of equipment and color. This leads us to five mind-blowing facts — […]
BALTIMORE — Baltimore’s Board of Estimates, which awards contracts and supervises city spending, will vote this week to settle a lawsuit by CSX Transportation over a water main failure that caused a 2019 derailment in the Howard Street Tunnel. The Maryland Daily Record reports the board will vote Wednesday, June 7, on a proposed $245,000 […]
COUNCIL BLUFFS, Iowa — The Union Pacific Museum is auctioning the opportunity for one person to ride in the cap of Big Boy No. 4014 on Monday, July 3, from Pine Bluff, Wyo., to the UP Steam Shop in Cheyenne. The auction is being held in lieu of a passenger excursion fundraiser for the museum. […]
NEW YORK — Madison Square Garden’s location and boundaries are no longer compatible with the operation of Penn Station, the station’s three passenger operators say — a statement likely to complicate the effort by the arena’s owners to extend their permit to operate the structure. The current Madison Square Garden, which opened in 1968, was […]
BOSTON — The incidents that led federal officials to reject a Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority safety plan included one in which a track worker was hospitalized after being struck by a 2,000-pound counterweight, the Boston Herald reports. The Herald reviewed documents with details on six incidents that caused the Federal Transit Administration to order the […]
Throughout the past few months, I have shown you how different small Amtrak trains can be modeled with only a few pieces of equipment. If you’ve read those previous articles, you might have noticed a pattern. Amtrak trains that operate between a big city and a much smaller city or town, such as Chicago and […]
