FORT WORTH – Analysts and industry observers suspected that BNSF Railway had to pay a pretty penny to buy out Montana Rail Link’s long-term lease on the former Northern Pacific main line. It turns out they were right. BNSF’s financial report suggests the railroad paid MRL around $2 billion to tear up the lease well […]
The Powder River Basin was North America’s last, great railroading frontier. By the time of Fred W. Frailey’s article in 1989, PRB was served by Class I railroads where before railroads scarcely traveled — all in the later half of the 20th century. Enter your email address below to read this classic 24-page article that […]
CLEVELAND — OmniTRAX’s Newburgh & South Shore has purchased a battery-electric locomotive, becoming the first short line in Ohio to deploy such a unit. The GP9-based locomotive from AMPS Traction features 1,700 gross horsepower, reduces fuel consumption by half, and cuts NOx emissions and particulate matter by 77%, removing 4.2 tones of nitrogen oxide from […]
MISSOULA, Mont. — Montana Rail Link plans to retain several branch lines that are not part of the lease agreement with BNSF Railway that it is ending, but has no plans to operate those lines, a company spokesman said recently. KPAX-TV reports that spokeman Jon Bennion told a recent meeting of the Big Sky Passenger […]
JOPLIN, Mo. — The Missouri Eastern Railway, a new subsidiary of transportation company Jaguar Transport Holdings, began operation Tuesday, March 1, in the St. Louis area. In January, the company acquired 42 miles of track between St. Louis and Union, Mo., previously operated by Progressive Rail’s Central Midland Railway. In February, it acquired leasehold rights […]
MICHIGAN CITY, Ind. — South Shore Line commuter train No. 106, the 5:45 a.m. departure from Carroll Avenue station in Michigan City, Ind., makes its way down 11th Street at Franklin Street on Monday morning, Feb. 28, 2022, en route to a scheduled 7:13 a.m. arrival at Chicago’s Millennium Station. The train was the last […]
ROCKHILL FURNACE, Pa. — The East Broad Top Foundation posted a sold-out Winter Spectacular celebration Feb. 18-19, with 10 internal-combustion-powered trips over its restored main line between Rockhill Furnace and Colgate Grove and tours of the roundhouse and station archives. This year’s winter event built on the success of the Foundation’s first Winter Spectacular in […]
MICHIGAN CITY, Ind. — Michigan City, the Northern Indiana Commuter Transportation District, and a developer have reached agreement on an $80 million mixed-use project that will include a rebuilt South Shore Line station at the site of the recently torn-down 11th Street Station. The Times of Northwest Indiana reports the project, to be built by […]
GUADALUPE, Calif. — Equipment from the former Fillmore & Western continues to find its way to new locations. A GP35 from the defunct tourist and movie-filming operation in Southern California is now in operation at the Santa Maria Valley Railroad, the 14-mile operation on the Central California coast interchanging with the Union Pacific at Guadalupe. […]
Winter hit Southern Ontario hard over the Feb. 19-20 weekend. A widespread blizzard whipped up snow for hundreds of miles, accumulating on rights of way and proving especially difficult on Canadian National and Southern Ontario Railway branch lines in Southwestern Ontario. CN’s north mainline is an internal short line, operated by crews formerly of the […]
WASHINGTON — A conductor at an Illinois short line was killed when he was pulled off his train by the gate he was attempting to open while entering an industrial track, according to the final report on a November 2020 accident issued Tuesday by the National Transportation Safety Board. The 35-year-old conductor of the Decatur […]
MICHIGAN CITY, Ind. — The end is apparently at hand for the majority of street running for South Shore Line commuter trains in Michigan City. Beginning Monday, Feb. 28, buses will replace commuter trains between the Carroll Avenue station in Michigan City and Dune Park in Porter, Ind., as part of the project to double-track […]
