MONTICELLO, Ill. — Canadian National Railway has donated a former Illinois Central E9 to the Monticello Railway Museum in central Illinois. The locomotive arrived at the museum via Norfolk Southern earlier this month. The unit wears a variation of CN’s classic 1950s green-and-black paint scheme — most notably with the CN “noodle” logo in place […]
CINCINNATI — In close balloting, Cincinnati voters have approved the sale of the city-owned Cincinnati Southern Railway to Norfolk Southern for $1.62 billion. With 100% of precincts reporting, Issue 22 passed by a 51.6% to 48.4% margin — 43,173 votes to 40,599. City officials, led by Mayor Aftab Pureval, had favored the sale, which will […]
Intermodal analyst Larry Gross is fond of pointing out that rather than creating a truly competitive intermodal service that can attract freight from the highway, the Class I railroads have for too long relied on outside forces like truck driver shortages or high diesel fuel prices to push freight their way. The strategy — or […]
MONTREAL—Beginning Nov. 18, VIA Rail Canada is introducing long-promised improvements to its booking system by offering a calendar view of pricing on adjacent days and online seat selection for Quebec City-Windsor, Ont., corridor customers. Those are some of the changes VIA announced this week in a press release, which also outlines a revised — and […]
MANASSAS, Va. — Members of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen are voting on a tentative contract for engineers who operate trains for Virginia Railway Express through contract operator Keolis Rail Service Virginia. The tentative five-year agreement, covering 11 engineers, is retroactive to 2021 and would include pay increase compounded at 22.2% over the […]
In late November 1978, just after the Thanksgiving holiday, I was called off the Auburn extra board to deadhead to protect the Bremerton local. The Bremerton local had been abolished so the company would not have to pay a crew for the holidays (some things never change). I was a newbie, having only hired out […]
J.B. Hunt and BNSF Railway today launched faster, more reliable premium domestic intermodal service that they say will eventually convert millions of truckloads to rail. The Quantum service — which revives a name that Santa Fe and J.B. Hunt used when they began their TOFC alliance in 1989 — shaves as much as a day […]
VANCOUVER, British Columbia — Ballard Power Systems, which has provided the fuel cell engines for CPKC’s first hydrogen-powered locomotives, announced it has received an order for another 12 engines totaling 2.4 megawatts of power. The dozen 200-kilowatt engines, to be delivered this year, will support CPKC development of additional hydrogen fuel-cell locomotives for switching and […]
ALTOONA, Pa. – The Altoona Campus of Penn State University has donated a former Conrail SD60I road freight locomotive to the Railroaders Memorial Museum for continued use by undergraduate engineering students. Recently moved into the museum, the 3,800-horsepower unit is now available for public viewing in the Harry Bennett Memorial Roundhouse, near the restoration work […]
LOS ANGELES — Commuter operator Metrolink and the LOSSAN Rail Corridor Agency, which oversees Amtrak’s Pacific Surfliner, have expanded their codeshare program, allowing ticketholders to ride either train service between Los Angeles and Ventura. The new program, which began Monday, Nov. 6, is a pilot program currently scheduled to run through June 30, 2024. It […]
DULUTH, Minn. — The Lake Superior Railroad Museum’s Duluth, Missabe & Iron Range 2-8-0 No. 332 has returned to operation with weekend test runs. The locomotive ran Nov. 4 on the North Shore Scenic Railroad. The museum’s steam crew, headed by Scott Carney, operated the engine between the museum in downtown Duluth and the siding at […]
Mind-blowing facts — New York Central passenger trains We are 50-plus years into the Amtrak era, which began on May 1, 1971. A few Amtrak trains still carry the identity of the conveyances they imitate — California Zephyr, Empire Builder, and Crescent — to mention a few. What lives on today is a contemporary train […]
