Removal of tank cars from site of BNSF derailment, fire to begin After the Washington Department of Ecology spent the weekend emptying any remaining oil, removal of the tank cars involved in last week’s derailment and fire of a BNSF oil train in Custer, Wash., is scheduled to begin today, KING-TV reports. Multiple agencies continue […]
Three freight rail stories that may not have received the attention they deserved: FRA’s new brake rule The Federal Railroad Administration’s new rule extending the time parked freight cars can be left off air will accelerate operational changes that were already under way on the Class I railroads. The long-awaited rule, adopted Dec. 11, will […]
Perhaps no one has summed up the pandemic’s impact on rail traffic and operations in 2020 better than CSX Transportation CEO Jim Foote. “The last six months have truly been surreal,” Foote told investors and analysts on the company’s earnings call in October. “On last quarter’s call we discussed the largest and most rapid sequential […]
In a year like no other, the top story in railroading is the story that defined 2020 across the world: the COVID-19 pandemic. Freight traffic plummeted. Transit systems sustained losses from which they may not recover for years, if ever. Amtrak ridership was hammered, as was the amount of service offered. Heritage railroads and railroad […]
For more than thirty years, photographer Steve Schmollinger prowled some of the most iconic locations in Western railroading, hoisting his telephoto lenses to out-of-way vantage points and recording dramatic images that formed the backbone of several significant large-format photography books. Schmollinger died Dec. 24 at a hospital near his home in Dallas, Texas. He was […]
By: Steve Sweeney One of Trains’ sources of information on positive train control and signaling from 2016 to present has been materials from a University of Wisconsin-Madison Engineering Professional Development signaling basics course taught in Philadelphia. Trains published an article on the course in June, but as the final deadline for a nationwide PTC rollout […]
By: Steve Sweeney One of Trains’ sources of information on positive train control and signaling from 2016 to present has been materials from a University of Wisconsin-Madison Engineering Professional Development signaling basics course taught in Philadelphia. Trains published an article on the course in June, but as the final deadline for a nationwide PTC rollout […]
NEW YORK — Amtrak’s Moynihan Train Hall, the facility connected to and across 8th Avenue from New York Penn Station, will be completed Dec. 31 and open Jan. 1. The opening of the facility in the historic James A. Farley Post Office Building will conclude a $1.6 billion project that has taken more than three […]
Railfans and model railroaders alike will enjoy a glimpse of the forthcoming series, Big Skies & Iron Rails, hosted by designer, photographer, and now videographer Tom Danneman. Watch for full-length episodes highlighting stunning natural vistas and railroads of the American West to arrive in early 2021…exclusively on Trains.com! Trains.com Members have exclusive access to this […]
Montana Rail Link has unveiled its latest special locomotive, SD70ACE No. 4404, which pays tribute to essential workers during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Montana Television Network reports the locomotive, wrapped with 1,600 square feet of graphics by Alphagraphics of Missoula, Mont., at the MRL shops, was unveiled in Missoula on Dec. 23, with the railroad’s […]
Ride along with host Drew Halverson, Kent Johnson (KJ), and Allan Dahncke (Sherpa Al), as they motor across the middle of Missouri to a bustling BNSF transcontinental railroad route. In the final day of their Show-Me State Summer trek, the guys managed to find epic railfanning locations to capture BNSF, UP, NS, and Amtrak trains […]
Thursday afternoon rail news: UP train derails near Dixon, Ill. Thirty-nine cars of a Union Pacific train derailed near Dixon, Ill., on Thursday morning. WIFR-TV reports UP initially informed the Lee County, Ill., Sheriff’s Office of the derailment at 1:49 a.m., and just before 5 a.m., updated its initial report to say diesel fuel, nut […]
