Athearn 200-ton crane and boom car set

Yellow and black crane train car and brown flatcar

200-ton crane and boom car Scale: HO (1:87:1) Price: $94.99 Era: 1960s+ to 1980s+ (varies depending on paint scheme) Manufacturer: Athearn Trains, 2904 Research Rd., Champaign, IL 61822; 800-338-4639; athearn.com Features: Rotating boom Boom and blocks raise and lower Flatcar with boom support arms Machined metal wheels with RP-25 contours Body-mounted McHenry knuckle couplers Injection-molded […]

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BNSF ordered to pay $228 million in suit over fingerprint data

BNSF Railway logo

CHICAGO — BNSF Railway has been ordered to pay $228 million in a federal class-action lawsuit after a jury found that the railroad violated Illinois state law by collecting employee fingerprints without prior consent. The decision is the first in a case involving the state’s Biometric Information Privacy Act, the first law passed by a […]

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‘Friar Tuck’ and the East Broad Top

Smiling gray-haired man in tan hooded sweatshirt

ROBERTSDALE, Pa. – “Little more, little more . . . Mush, you huskies! Ho!” With that chant, Gene Tucker urged his four-man volunteer crew at the narrow gauge East Broad Top Railroad to squeeze a 60-pound rail into alignment just enough to slip a J-shaped “hook bar” into place to force the track gauge back […]

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Weekly U.S. carload, intermodal volume remains down

Weekly table showing U.S. carload rail traffic by commodity type, plus overall intermodal figuresd

WASHINGTON — Carload and intermodal traffic remain below 2021 levels in the latest weekly statistics from the Association of American Railroads. For the week ending Oct. 8, overall traffic of 494,413 carloads and intermodal units represented a 2.4% drop from the same week a year earlier. That figure included 232,930 carloads, down 2.8%, and 261,483 […]

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Bangor & Aroostook locomotives remembered

Six red, gray, and black diesel Bangor Aroostook locomotives on train in wilderness

Let’s celebrate the variety and color of Bangor & Aroostook locomotives! The Bangor & Aroostook didn’t purchase its first diesels (EMD F3s) until 1947, but dieselization then came quickly, with the last steam operations in 1949. The railroad kept its older diesels in good shape for a long time, supplanting them with GP38s in the […]

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1940s Union Pacific steam locomotives

Smoking 1940s steam locomotive approaching with freight train

A childhood memory led me to chasing 1940s Union Pacific steam locomotives around Omaha has a teen. That story had its origin when I was around eight years of age. Like other boys of those times, I was fascinated by the sight and sound of a steam locomotive, but rarely saw one, since there were […]

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News Photo: NJ Transit’s ‘Bluebird’ diesel

Two GP40 locomotives in heritage paint schemes

KEARNY, N.J. — NJ Transit has unveiled its newest heritage locomotive, GP40PH-2 No. 4101, repainted into the “Bluebird” paint scheme used by New Jersey Department of Transportation’s Commuter Operating Agency, a predecessor of the current transit agency. The locomotive is one of 13 3,000-hp EMD GP40P units specifically designed for the Central Railroad of New […]

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OmniTRAX finalizes deal for San Luis & Rio Grande

Locomotive at station

DENVER — OmniTRAX has completed an agreement to purchase the assets of the bankrupt San Luis & Rio Grande Railroad, which will become the company’s 26th short line. Bankruptcy trustee William Brandt had said last month that the company had signed an agreement in principle to purchase the 155-mile Colorado railroad, a former Denver & […]

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