Mass Coastal to acquire Bay Colony Railroad

TAUNTON, Mass. — Short line Mass Coastal Railroad is acquiring the assets of Bay Colony Railroad, which serves three customers on 35 miles of state-owned in southeastern Massachusetts, the Boston Globe reports. Mass Coastal currently operates 135 route-miles in Massachusetts and Rhode Island, including trackage rights on CSX Transportation, and interchanges with CSX in Taunton […]

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NJ Transit board fills vacancy

NJ Transit logo

TRENTON, N.J. — New Jersey Senate President Nicolas Scutari has named Anthony Abrantes to fill a seat on the NJ Transit board vacated by Sangeeta Doshi, whose term expired Jan. 14, the New Jersey Herald reports. Abrantes, of East Hanover, N.J., is assistant executive secretary-treasurer of the Eastern Atlantic States Regional Council of Carpenters. He […]

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Most Sacramento light rail service restored

Logo of Sacramento Regional Transit

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Most Sacramento light rail service was restored this afternoon (Monday, Feb. 5), following power outages and other storm damage that hit the Sacramento Regional Transit system on Sunday. An advisory on the Sacramento RT website says Blue Line service was restored at 2 p.m. with Green Line and a portion of the […]

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Norfolk Southern tallies $1 billion-worth of infrastructure projects in 2023

ATLANTA – Norfolk Southern’s engineering team completed $1 billion in improvement projects last year, including installation of new wayside detectors as well as repairs and replacement of tracks, bridges, and grade crossings. “Our extensive infrastructure work is an important component of being a customer-centric, operations-driven railroad and represents an investment in the safety of our […]

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Railroad reporting marks 101

New Georgia Railroad diesel locomotives on freight train in yard

Railroad reporting marks Railroad cars are identified by two, three, or four letters and by a number of up to six digits. The letters, known as reporting marks, indicate the owner of the car, while the number places it in the owner’s fleet. Reporting marks ending in X indicate ownership by a private concern as […]

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California storms disrupt Amtrak, Sacramento light rail service

Amtrak logo.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Winter storms in Southern and Central California have impacted rail service in a number of areas today (Monday, Feb. 5). Today’s Coast Starlight trains will run abbreviated routes. The train scheduled to depart Los Angeles this morning will instead originate in Emeryville, Calif., while the train departing Seattle will terminate in Emeryville. […]

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A rotary snowplow is the greatest show on rails

rotary side view throwing snow

Rotary snowplow Snow … There are few things that mother nature can throw at the unsuspecting railroader that can wreak such havoc on operations. Those pretty little white flakes can blanket a landscape under an impenetrable frozen glaze, jamming the network and shutting down the main line. Fortunately, there are some tools in the railroader’s […]

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First cold winter for General Electric’s U30C model

green and black locomotive on track

General Electric’s U30C Up in the north woods of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula sits the last serviceable U30C — LSI No. 3009, dead and drained outside Lake Superior & Ishpeming’s diesel shop in Eagle Mills. This locomotive and its cousin, LS&I C30-7 No. 3073, had been filling in on ore trains when not enough LS&I AC4400CWs […]

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