Officials sign off on $6.88 billion grant for Gateway Tunnel

Large group of people with oversized check for $6.88 billion

NEW YORK — Officials signed off on a $6.88 billion federal grant Monday for the Northeast Corridor’s Gateway Tunnel project — the largest single federal grant ever for a transit infrastructure project, and part of $11 billion in federal money for the $16 billion project to build two new bores under the Hudson River between […]

Read More…

Brian Sheron’s Long Island Rail Road

Title screen showing skyline, yard, and elevated line on an HO scale model railroad.

Brian Sheron’s Long Island Rail Road is a 27 x 48-foot HO scale model railroad that depicts Queens, Brooklyn, Manhattan, and the north shore of Long Island. He built the layout, featured in the August 2024 issue of Model Railroader, in three phases. Brian started work on the model railroad in 1988 with the Port […]

Read More…

Brian Sheron’s Long Island Rail Road

Title screen showing skyline, yard, and elevated line on an HO scale model railroad.

Brian Sheron’s Long Island Rail Road is a 27 x 48-foot HO scale model railroad that depicts Queens, Brooklyn, Manhattan, and the north shore of Long Island. He built the layout, featured in the August 2024 issue of Model Railroader, in three phases. Brian started work on the model railroad in 1988 with the Port […]

Read More…

‘Borealis’ carries more than 18,500 in first month, Amtrak says

Passenger train on slight curve under cloudy skies

CHICAGO — Preliminary figures for the first month of Amtrak’s state-supported Borealis show the train is averaging about 300 passengers each way daily, or more than 18,500 people in the first month, according to Amtrak. The second train on the Chicago-Milwaukee-St. Paul portion of the route also served by the Empire Builder launched on May […]

Read More…

First hearing on future of Chicago transit set for Tuesday

Commuter train passes under signal bridge

CHICAGO — A series of hearings to consider the future of public transit in the Chicago area — including a proposal to merge the four boards overseeing three transit systems and the umbrella agency overseeing them — is set to begin Tuesday in Chicago. The six hearings of the Illinois Senate Transportation Committee have been […]

Read More…

Amtrak service between New York, Boston restored

Amtrak logo.

NEW YORK — Amtrak service on the Northeast Corridor between Boston and New York City was restored as of about 9 p.m. Saturday night, the passenger operator announced late Saturday evening. The company says the preliminary cause is a lightning strike that disrupted power. Normal operations are planned for today except for three early trains […]

Read More…

Amtrak NEC service halted between New York, Boston

Amtrak high speed train meets Metro-North electric multiple-unit trainset

NEW YORK — Amtrak service between New York City and Boston was cancelled for the remainder of today (Saturday, July 6) as of mid-afternoon because of “an ongoing electric power issue,” the passenger operator said in a service alert on its website posted at 5:50 p.m. ET. An earlier notification indicated that the problem was […]

Read More…

Rail labor opposes Amtrak request for waiver to deal with ‘loss of shunt’ until testing data is shared (updated)

Passenger train next to signal bungalow and signal worker's truck.

WASHINGTON — Three labor organizations have opposed Amtrak’s request for a waiver allowing installation of a device the company claims will prevent incidents where trains fail to trigger track circuits. As a result, a decades-old issue that recently has forced Amtrak to assign at least seven Superliners to trains operated over Canadian National’s Chicago-Carbondale, Ill., […]

Read More…