Tipping on trains

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A dining car crew sets up for breakfast on the ‘Auto Train’ in 2012. Al DiCenso Q Having been a tipped employee, I know how important service and tips are to customers and employees alike. What would be an appropriate tip for average service for one guest in a roomette? What about tipping for meals […]

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Trains Presents: Durango & Silverton

Allen Harper, owner and chief executive of the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad, speaks at length about the former Denver & Rio Grande Western narrow gauge route that his tourist railroad operates over between Durango and Silverton, Colo. […]

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Get-r-done

  Norfolk Southern train No. 375 passes maintenance equipment at “North Wye” near Faulconer, Ky., as the train prepares to head onto the Louisville District on April 25, 2016. Photo by Jeff Wagoner […]

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Trains Presents Cumbres & Toltec: A vision NEWSWIRE

Cumbres & Toltec No. 487 steam locomotive traveling through a heavily forested landscape

ANTONITO, Colo. — Coal smoke flavors the crisp morning air in Antonito, Colo., where brilliant morning sun belies the snowstorm brewing on Cumbres Pass. Barely a week remains before the Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad opens its 2016 season with plenty of work left to do before Memorial Day weekend. Today two coaches, two parlor […]

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My memorable summer of 1959

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CP Consolidation 3422, pictured at North Bay, Ont., in October 1954, was among the engines author Quastler came to know during his 1959 summer at London, Ont. Mert Leet In that memorable summer, I was 18 and about to enter my sophomore year in college. My father worked for a Detroit firm that had a […]

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Broadside steam

  Former Nickel Plate Road 2-8-4 No. 765 on the Indiana Harbor Belt Railroad passes under the BNSF Railway “Race Track” at LaGrange, Ill., on June 10, 2016, en route to the 2016 Franklin Park Railroad Days. Photo by Benjamin J. Muciek […]

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Two ways: Chicago to Galesburg, Ill.

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Learn about BNSF Railway’s amazing main lines between Chicago and Galesburg, Ill., with our three-page foldout map! See today’s track arrangement, find what abandoned lines one ran in the area, and understand the rich history of railroading in Northern Illinois. […]

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NS ‘barcode’ unit

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SD70ACe No. 1111 Randy Olson Q I recently saw a Norfolk Southern locomotive passing through Vermillion, Ohio, with only four vertical stripes on the cab where a unit number should be. Can you explain what this designation is? — Joseph McCormick, Oberlin, Ohio A The stripes are really four “1s” for NS’s SD70ACe No. 1111. […]

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