Hot Spots issue preview

Top portion of a magazine cover showing a n orange locomotive.

Check out Trains‘ latest special issue: Hot Spots! You’ll learn where to find trains, brush up on basics of railroad photography, decode train symbols and railroad signaling, find out how to maximize scenery on your next Amtrak ride, and more! This issue packs in 75 of the best train-watching spots with 50 detailed maps. Don’t […]

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Ahead of the rest

AcelaExpressPerryvilleMD

A southbound ‘Acela’ races across a stretch of positive train control trackage on Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor at Perryville, Md., on June 5, 2011. Michael T. Burkhart This story first appeared in the October 2011 issue of Trains Magazine. The Advanced Civil Speed Enforcement System highlighted here was not active at the time of the of […]

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Confidential Close Call reporting basics

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Confidential Close Call reporting basics A New Jersey Transit train zips northward from Atlantic City to New York’s Penn Station on Jan. 23, 2010. If the crew were to err, they could report the close call and be part of a bigger program to improve safety, rather than be punished. Dennis A. Livesay photograph Confidential […]

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Positive Train Control: Beyond the basics

UPCajonPassCA

Positive Train Control Tick, tock. U.S. railroads have collectively spent decades and billions of dollars on positive train control research. Tick. Public outcry after a 2008 commuter crash that killed 25 people — a crash that a Federal safety panel says PTC could have prevented — pushed Congress to act. Tock. With a Congressional deadline […]

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Where the steel hits the road

IntelligentGradeCrossings

Intelligent Grade Crossings will warn motorists and trains that approach is imminent. Federal Railroad Administration Train crews and motorists may have the ability to “see” one another earlier than ever thanks to “Intelligent Grade Crossings” currently under development through the Federal Railroad Administration’s Research and Development Office. Since the dawn of railroading, one of the […]

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MARTA signs deal to refurbish cars NEWSWIRE

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ATLANTA – The Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority has signed a $146-million contract to refurbish 118 of its railcars. Kinkisharyo International, the U.S. subsidiary of Japan’s Kinki Shayro Corp., will do the work at its factory in Piscataway, N.J., a former plastics factory converted by the company in 2015. The contract, part of MARTA’s Rail […]

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