WASHINGTON — Elected officials across the country have begun announcing recipients of federal Consolidated Rail Infrastructure and Safety Improvement, or CRISI, grants ahead of the U.S. Department of Transportation’s announcement of the full list of grant recipients. Officeholders generally have the opportunity to announce the grants to their constituents ahead of the U.S. DOT announcement. […]
NEWPORT, Tenn. — A trestle on Norfolk Southern’s storm-closed AS Line in Tennessee collapsed Wednesday, leading to a series of road closures, Newport police reported. Three roads are closed until further notice as a result of the collapse of the bridge over the Pigeon River, the police said in a Facebook post. The NS line […]
BELINGTON, W.Va — The Durbin & Greenbrier Valley Railroad has unveiled a GP8 locomotive repainted to honor the Western Maryland Railway in that railroad’s red and white “Railblazer” paint scheme, known to fans as the “circus” scheme. The locomotive, repainted at Durbin & Greenbrier Valley’s Belington Shop, was built for the Wabash Railroad as a […]
BLOWING ROCK, N.C. — The Tweetsie Railroad, a tourist railroad and theme park in western North Carolina, will be closed for the remainder of its fall season as a result Hurricane Helene, the company announced Friday. An announcement posted on Facebook reads, “Tweetsie Railroad will remain closed for the rest of the fall season to […]
ATLANTA — Norfolk Southern says its line between Asheville, N.C., and Newport, Tenn. — heavily damaged by Hurricane Helene — will be out of service until at least late January, while assessment of the route between Asheville and Old Fort, N.C., is ongoing. In the area hardest hit in late September, on the AS Line […]
ASHEVILLE, N.C. — Skepticism spread throughout the railroad community after Hurricane Helene’s devastating once-in-a-generation floods wiped out roadbeds, destroyed bridges, and left most of western North Carolina and eastern Tennessee unrecognizable. Some in the industry expressed doubt that CSX and Norfolk Southern would invest the dollars needed to repair widespread damages. More than 40 miles […]
COVINGTON, Va. — Approximately 25 cars of a CSX coal train derailed this early this morning near Covington, blocking two local highways as well as both tracks of the railroad’s main line along the I-64 Corridor. A CSX spokesman said the derailment occurred about 2:21 a.m. No injuries were reported, and the railroad is working […]
ERWIN, Tenn. — Railroaders take pride in the work they do. They provide for their families. They play an irreplaceable role in the movement of goods in the U.S. economy and they re-invest their hard-earned wages into the communities they live and work — building homes, shopping local, and supporting small communities where railroads have […]
The idea for building this small disappearing O-27 layout came to me after reading an issue of Lionel’s Inside Track magazine from 2009. This track plan brought back for me memories of a similar O-27 layout at a department store during the holidays in the 1950s. – Bob Espenschied Download the track plan for this […]
In 1955, Baltimore & Ohio 2-8-2 4443 pulls an eastbound coal train past the yard at Lumberton, W.Va., where the local switcher, an 0-8-0, is working. James P. Gallagher photo […]
Two Baldwin RF16 “Sharknose” diesels of the Monongahela Railroad lug a train of empty coal hoppers along the carrier’s namesake river at Alicia, Pa., in the late 1960s. The ex-New York Central units later went to the Delaware & Hudson and for decades have been privately owned and stored at Escanaba, Mich. David H. Hamley […]
Rebuilding the S-Line | As detailed in the November 2024 issue of Trains magazine, the neighboring states of North Carolina and Virginia are up to something big! They are cooperating, collaborating, and even co-funding to create a 110-mph interstate passenger-train speedway dubbed, the “S-Line”. Watch this video to see some of the existing Amtrak trains […]
