Back for the first time in a while, here’s some weekend recommended reading — rail news and features from various media outlets:
— The website Urban Milwaukee reports on an ambitious/unrealistic (take your pick) proposal for a privately developed commuter rail system that would serve 32 stations in a five-county area around Milwaukee, using existing freight lines. Funding would come from grants and real estate development around stations sites.
— Washington Post cartoonist Christine Mi illustrates her experiences on a cross-country Amtrak trip on the California Zephyr and Lake Shore Limited, offering a rail neophyte’s take on the experience. (Use of a subscriber’s “share” option should mean this is not behind the Post’s paywall.)
— Canada’s Global News reports that two executives for BC Rail — the vast majority of which was sold to Canadian National Railways in 2004 — earned a total of more than CA$500,000 in the 2023-24 fiscal year, even though the company now exists mainly to manage 40 kilometers (25 miles) of track to the Roberts Bank terminal in Delta, British Columbia; other port infrastructure; and real estate.
— A Toronto Sun columnist points to the involvement of Germany’s Deutsche Bahn in a new company taking over back-office operations at Toronto’s GO Transit in January as a sign that the system should run far better — apparently unaware that Deutsche Bahn itself is now characterized as “travel hell,” as the Financial Times reported in July.
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