Gulf, Mobile and Ohio Railroad freight trains remembered: All through July 2022, Classic Trains editors are celebrating the grit, panache, and charm that was the Gulf, Mobile and Ohio. As part of the celebration, please enjoy this freight train photo gallery as the perfect accompaniment. Each month since October 2019, Classic Trains editors have showcase one “Fallen Flag” […]
ELM GROVE, Wis. — In an unusual and unheralded move, Amtrak moved an eight-car train of privately owned legacy equipment from the Twin Cities to Chicago on Thursday, July 28. The train, scheduled to originate at Midway in the Twin Cities at 11:45 a.m. and arrive in Chicago at 8:30 p.m., was photographed in the […]
BLUE ISLAND, Ill. — Metra has broken ground on a $3.8 million rehabilitation of the Vermont Avenue station in Blue Island, a structure dating to 1868 on Metra’s Rock Island District. A Thursday, July 28, ceremony including Metra CEO Jim Derwinski and other state and local officials marked the start of a project including a […]
Rock Island perishable traffic: One thing you learn quickly as a new railroad employee is that if you can hold a regular job, it’s because nobody else wants it. In 1973 Rock Island perishable traffic stopped icing at Silvis, Ill. This coincided with Pacific Fruit Express’s exit from the iced reefer business and represented the […]
Church garden railroad display: During the Kansas City Garden Railway Society tour, I met the pastor of the Heartland Community Church in Olathe, Kansas, Dan, and his father, Mike who was from California and had his own railroad garden. Dan told me his church had an enclosed area in the lobby called a “light box” […]
WASHINGTON – Illinois Sens. Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth, along with two of the state’s representatives, have told federal regulators that they oppose the merger of Canadian Pacific and Kansas City Southern, citing projections of increased freight traffic in Chicago and its suburbs. “The proposed merger will reportedly more than triple freight rail traffic on […]
Santa Fe’s all-Pullman Chief from Los Angeles has just passed through the busy interlocking at 21st Street, Chicago, as it nears the end of its run at Dearborn Station in October 1950. Wallace W. Abbey photo […]
PEORIA, Ill. — Officials from Peoria and nearby communities have announced results of a feasibility study for a Chicago-Peoria passenger rail corridor over former Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific tracks that last saw passenger trains in 1978. The clear intent of last week’s announcement is to compete for $1.8 billion in the Federal Railroad Administration’s […]
INDEPENDENCE, Ohio — The Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen has ratified a new agreement with the Illinois & Midland Railroad, a Genesee & Wyoming short line in central Illinois. The BLET said the agreement includes general wage increases of 29% over the five-year life of the contract, which runs through 20206, as well as […]
Amtrak Hiawatha Chicago day trip: Chicago is indisputably the heart of American railroading. Represented by six Class I railroads, Amtrak, Metra, the South Shore Line, Chicago Transit Authority, and a long-list of short line and regional railroads, the city offers a magnitude of rail focal points and it’s little surprise that access to Chicago’s greatest […]
WASHINGTON — The National Transportation Safety Board says grade-crossing design specifications and railcar crashworthiness will be among the factors it continues to examine as it investigates the fatal grade-crossing collision and derailment involving Amtrak’s Southwest Chief. The NTSB released its preliminary report Thursday on the June 27 accident near Mendon, Mo. The preliminary report outlines […]
KEYTESVILLE, Mo. — A second wrongful death suit has been filed over the June 27 derailment of Amtrak’s Southwest Chief, this one taking aim at the company whose truck was hit at a grade crossing, triggering the derailment. The Kansas City Star reports the family of Bihn Phan, 82, of Kansas City, has filed suit […]
