EAST CHICAGO, Ind. — The Norfolk & Western Business Car 300 Preservation Society unveiled the restored car on Saturday with an open house at repair and maintenance firm Professional Locomotive Services. Along with tours of the car — built in 1917 and modernized in 1955 — and displays of PLS equipment, visitors were treated to […]
CHICAGO — Metra has launched a rider survey to help shape its future scheduling and infrastructure plans to meet its goal of becoming a “regional rail” operation — one providing more service at all times rather than focusing on weekday commuter-rush trains. The commuter operator has already taken some steps to increase off-peak service, such […]
EAST PALESTINE, Ohio — Norfolk Southern on Thursday donated its station in East Palestine to the city, following up on a pledge made last year in the wake of the February derailment and chemical release in the community. The Times Leader newspaper reports that NS CEO Alan Shaw turned over the keys to the building […]
Trains.com Video BONUS | Behind Big Skies & Iron Rails … “Anything for The Shot.” It’s the photographer’s creed. But what does that really mean? Especially when it comes to railfan images captured by Trains.com’s intrepid adventurer Tom Danneman, who often contends with extended exposure to wild weather, rugged landscape, and outright lethal creatures too! […]
CHICAGO — Commuter rail operator Metra will offer free rides on the weekend of June 8-9, concluding a week of activities to mark its 40th anniversary. The agency dates its birth from June 8, 1984, when the first meeting was held of the Regional Transportation Authority’s Commuter Rail Division. The Metra name was adopted a […]
The recent shortage of Amtrak long-distance sleeper cars has hoisted the venerable, but rapidly aging, Superliner equipment into the spotlight again. You can read more about past and present Superliner woes in the article, “Superliner capacity not a new issue”, appearing in the July 2024 issue of Trains magazine. But first, catch a glimpse of […]
EAST CHICAGO, Ind. — The Norfolk & Western Business Car 300 Preservation Society will host an open house and unveiling ceremony to celebrate completion of the restoration of the railcar this Saturday, May 18, at Professional Locomotive Services in East Chicago. Admission is free. In additional to tours of the newly restored car, the event […]
An eastbound Toledo, Peoria & Western local behind olive-green-and-gold Alco RS2 No. 204 rolls across a steel bridge near Forrest, Ill., on Feb. 27, 1960. At the time, the road operated between Effner, on the Indiana-Illinois border, and Keokuk, Iowa, on the Mississippi River. J. Parker Lamb Jr. photo […]
CHICAGO — Metra will add a late-night train in each direction as part of updated schedules on the Milwaukee District North line effective June 3, the commuter operator has announced. The new schedules will adjust train times and stopping patterns “to more accurately reflect current operating conditions,” Metra said in a press release. Arrivals and […]
GARY, Ind. — Few rail rehabilitation projects can truthfully claim “better than ever” when physical plant and service improvements are completed, but South Shore Line commuter service appears to be one. As Northern Indiana Commuter Transit District President Mike Noland told the crowd of gathered in a tent in the parking lot of the newly […]
Host Gerry Leone sets his sights on highway construction for his HO scale Bona Vista model railroad. Catch up with his off-camera preliminary efforts, before following his technique for making authentic roads and streets using medium-grit sandpaper. As he notes, even more insights regarding this technique can be viewed in a prior Trains.com video series, […]
DULUTH, Minn. — It was a scene right out of the early 1950s: a Duluth, Missabe & Iron Range steam locomotive pulling a string of ore cars and a caboose on the line between Two Harbors, Minn., and Duluth. But the date wasn’t 1952, but May 12, 2024, as the Lake Superior Railroad Museum’s DM&IR […]
