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Former UPS executive Jim Barber Jr., an activist investor’s candidate to replace Norfolk Southern CEO Alan Shaw, says his experience at the parcel giant is directly applicable to a railroad. UPS’s package network relies on the very same principles as the low-cost Precision Scheduled Railroading operating model that Ancora Holdings wants to fully implement at […]
WASHINGTON — Union Pacific is not preserving dispatching information relevant to its handling of the Sunset Limited, Amtrak has claimed in a new filing with the Surface Transportation Board that asks the board to order UP to show cause why the railroad is not complying with an STB order to do so. The “petition to […]
CHICAGO — Metra has seen a 70% increase in bicycles brought onto its trains since it made its more bike-friendly policy permanent on Feb. 1, Streetsblog Chicago reports. Metra had relaxed its policy, which previously restricted bikes to non-peak trains, during the COViD-19 pandemic, when it also began introducing its fleet of bicycle cars [see […]
SASKATOON, Saskatchewan — A report by city staff members has advised the Saskatoon city council that there is merit to a proposal by a group of Saskatchwan mayors seeking to reroute VIA Rail Canada’s Canadian from its current route to a less-trafficked line north of the city, the Saskatoon StarPhoenix reports. The mayors say that […]
CHICAGO — More than 430 passengers rode at least a portion of Amtrak’s southbound Saluki and northbound Illini between the Chicago and Carbondale, Ill., on Monday. Many were taking advantage of a schedule change which made it possible for customers to witness a rare four minutes of totality in the southern Illinois city during the […]
WASHINGTON — Nighttime visibility made it impossible for the train engineer to prevent or mitigate the accident in which a Norfolk Southern conductor trainee was struck and killed by protruding metal from a gondola car on an adjacent track in a incident in Bessemer, Ala., the National Transportation Safety Board said in the final report […]
SAN FRANCISCO — Caltrain’s entire 51-mile electrification corridor between San Francisco and San Jose, Calif., has been successfully energized and tested for the first time, the commuter rail agency has announced. The milestone in the project by Caltrain, power company Pacific Gas & Electric and contractor Balfour Beatty enables full-speed testing of the electric trainsets […]
MIAMI — Florida’s railroad industry is applauding one provision of a wide-ranging transportation bill signed last week by Gov. Ron DeSantis that increases penalties for failure to yield or provide sufficient clearance at a grade crossing. The updated provisions in HB 1301 set penalties of a fine of $500, 25 hours of community service, and […]
From short lines to Class I railroads, you’ll likely come across a mainline steam excursion with one or more tenders/tank cars coupled right behind the locomotive’s main tender. Water is the primary commodity, all for the steam locomotive when out on the road. The use of an auxiliary water car, sometimes referred to as a […]
DENVER — Colorado legislation limiting train lengths and requiring wayside detectors, among other provisions, has passed the state’s House of Representatives and been introduced in the Senate. HB24-1030 is sponsored in the House by state Rep. Javier Mabrey (D-Denver) and in the Senate by Sens. Lisa Cutter (D-Lakewood) and Tony Exum (D-Colorado Springs.). As passed […]
DECATUR, Ill. — Decatur was not within the narrow 13-state path of totality for the solar eclipse today (April 8, 2024) but — as shown above, in an image taken just before totality — the community did not miss by much, experiencing a 97.6% partial eclipse. The effect of the eclipse is visible as a […]
OAKLAND, Calif. — Bay Area Rapid Transit, the 131-mile electrified rail network in the San Francisco Bay Area, is offering the public a last chance to ride the 1970s-era futuristic railcars that made up its original fleet. On Saturday, April 20, at 1 p.m. at the MacArthur station in Oakland, BART will commemorate the cars […]
