The Canadian Transportation Safety Board is investigating a bizarre fire aboard a Canadian Pacific Kansas City Railway freight train in a London, Ontario residential neighborhood around 10:49 p.m., April 21, according to reports from numerous news agencies and the London Fire Department. Witnesses reported seeing the CPKC train moving through the city as flames shot […]
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LAS VEGAS, Nev. — The moment for Brightline West has arrived. But to Brightline founder Wes Edens — as well as Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and others — a groundbreaking ceremony today on a lot a short distance south of the Las Vegas Strip marked more than just the official start of construction on the […]
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CSX today announced the winners of its third annual CSX Customer Environmental Excellence Awards, which salute shippers who convert a portion of their freight from truck to rail. “Sustainability is a shared priority between CSX and our customers. Helping them reduce emissions by converting from trucks to rail is an important part of our strategy,” […]
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Helena, Mont. — BNSF Railway attorneys told a Montana jury Friday that the railroad should not be held liable for the lung cancer deaths of two former residents of an asbestos-contaminated Libby, Mont., one of the deadliest sites in the federal Superfund pollution program, according to an Associated Press story. BNSF attorney Chad Knight said […]
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Omaha, Neb. — Recognizing the vital role played by its train dispatchers when it comes to safe operations, the Union Pacific Railroad has presented its Guardian Award to nearly 300 dispatchers for their work in 2023. The honored dispatchers work in three locations – Omaha, Neb., San Bernardino, Calif., and Spring, Texas. UP train dispatchers, […]
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The Colebrookdale Railroad’s rebirth as a successful tourist railroad breathes new life into a former Reading Company branch in southeastern Pennsylvania. The revival was sparked by a determined man named Nathaniel Guest and a supportive community. Guest, a Pottstown native, learned the railroad was going to be officially abandoned. Believing the line’s history made it […]
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Norfolk Southern says that activist investor Ancora Holdings’ detailed plan for the railroad, released last week in a 193-page presentation, contains misleading operational data and vastly overstated cost-savings projections. Ancora says its proposed management team would reduce costs by $800 million through a full-blown implementation of the low-cost Precision Scheduled Railroading operating model at NS. […]
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Walt Disney’s railroads It is no secret that Walt Disney loved trains. His passion for railroads runs to the time of his youth and can still be seen throughout today’s Disney empire. For Walt, as you will see, railroading was an early job — one that made him little money — but one that put […]
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MOUNT CARMEL, Pa. — For the first time in decades, a passenger train Saturday (April 20, 2024) covered the full length of Reading & Northern Railroad’s Mahanoy & Shamokin Branch, carrying 194 riders aboard a trio of Budd Co. Rail Diesel Cars. Sponsored by the affiliated Lehigh Valley Chapter of the National Railway Historical Society […]
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What was your first byline in Trains? Mike Wilson: My first byline in Trains was “Winter in Coal Country,” published in January 2022 featuring an in-depth look at the former Norfolk & Western, now Norfolk Southern, Pocahontas Division within the backwoods of southern Virginia and West Virginia. In my humble opinion, the Pocahontas Division serves […]
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The assassination of Abraham Lincoln on April 15, 1865, sent a Civil War-battered country into 20 days of national mourning. At the center of it all was a black-draped train, slowly and sadly carrying the former commander in chief’s body from Washington, D.C. to his hometown of Springfield, Ill. The U.S. rail network is no […]
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PIERRE, S.D. — South Dakota’s transportation secretary has injected a note of reality into discussion of possible Amtrak service in the state. That discussion gained life in February with the inclusion of two routes serving South Dakota among the 15 in a Federal Railroad Administration report on its ongoing Amtrak Daily Long-Distance Service Study [see […]
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