CHICAGO — Amtrak is dealing with several days of operating issues for a number of long-distance services, with the Coast Starlight, Empire Builder, and Sunset Limited all experiencing disruptions, most of them weather-related. Some of California’s Pacific Surfliner service also continues to be canceled because of weather-related issues. In California, the northbound Coast Starlight scheduled […]
Norfolk Southern next week will shift its Chicago-New England intermodal trains to a faster CSX trackage-rights route east of the Albany, N.Y., area thanks to the completion of bridge-clearance projects on CSX’s former Pan Am Railways main line between Worcester and Ayer, Mass. NS trains 264 and 265 currently run single-stack to and from the […]
STOCKTON, Calif. — Amtrak’s state-supported Gold Runner service, which restored a seventh round trip between Stockton and Bakersfield in December, has now canceled one daily round trip between Bakersfield and Oakland through March 5. The trains affected are No. 713, an 8:58 a.m. departure from Bakersfield that arrives in Oakland at 3:14 p.m., and No. […]
PORTLAND, Ore. — Transit agency TriMet would shorten one of its light rail lines and eliminate or alter some 35 bus routes under a proposal unveiled Monday, Jan. 5, to address a projected $300 million funding shortfall. The agency says those cuts, which would be effective in August, would come after it has already identified […]
PITTSBURGH — New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority has exercised an option with Wabtec to purchase 45 additional R255 hybrid locomotives for subway system maintenance work. The battery-diesel hybrids improve working conditions for maintenance crews, especially in tunnels, eliminating emissions with the ability to run on their approximately 500 kilowatt-hours of battery power for several hours. […]
GAVIOTA, Calif. — Union Pacific and Amtrak operations along the Coast Line in Santa Barbara County have been shut down by a washout that led to an incident in which a maintenance worker was injured. The Santa Barbara County Fire Department reports it responded at 7:47 a.m. today (Jan. 6, 2026) to an incident north […]
MIAMI — South Florida’s Tri-Rail set a ridership record in calendar 2025 with 4.5 million rides, breaking the record of 4.4 million set pre-pandemic in 2019. The calendar-year mark follows a record of 4.5 million in fiscal 2025 (July 2024 to June 2025), which broke the mark set in fiscal 2019. “We were not kidding […]
CARTHAGE, N.Y. — A long-dormant Upstate New York rail line has returned to life after 25 years of inactivity. Genesee Valley Transportation subsidiary Mohawk, Adirondack & Northern restored freight rail service to its Newton Falls Line on Nov. 7, 2025, operating a five-car train to Benson Mines, N.Y. The five gondolas, bracketed by MA&N Alco […]
WASHINGTON — The Federal Railroad Administration announced it has collected $15.4 million in civil penalties from Class I railroads under what it calls a new streamlined settlement negotiation process. The process involves discussions on the most significant cases while continuing to collect data to improve railroad safety, the FRA says. Class I railroads and Amtrak […]
NEW YORK — New York City’s congestion pricing program has reduced vehicular traffic in lower Manhattan by 11% and increased transit ridership by 7%, officials said on Monday as they marked the first anniversary of the tolling program that helps fund Metropolitan Transportation Authority capital projects. The congestion tolling, which began on Jan. 5, 2025, […]
MINNEAPOLIS — Minnesota’s Northstar commuter rail line, launched in 2009 with service between Minneapolis and Big Lake, Minn., made its final run Sunday (Jan. 4), with a special-event round trip to the Minnesota Vikings’ season-ending home game against Green Bay. The Metro Transit service was ultimately done in by low ridership along a shorter route […]
CHICAGO — Despite challenging weather conditions on both coasts and in the upper Great Lakes region, Amtrak trains generally reached their destinations unscathed during the holiday travel period. “Mechanical assessments,” however, did continue to impact service throughout the network during the period ending today (Sunday, Jan. 4). Starlight and Builder disruptions Amtrak’s long-distance operations generally […]
