SAN CARLOS, Calif. — Caltrain will receive $43 million for its electrification project from the omnibus spending bill passed by Congress and awaiting the signature of President Joe Biden, the commuter rail agency said. The federal money will help fill a funding gap in the project expected to be completed in 2024. “The electrification of […]
The Center for Railroad Photography & Art and Chicago author Sandra Jackson-Opoku have received 2022 research grants, each worth $2,500, from the Railway & Locomotive Historical Society. R&LHS President Robert Holzweiss said “the proposals could not be more different, but both were adjudged to be worthy of our support. The Center applies every year and often […]
LEXINGTON, N.C. — One passenger was reportedly hospitalized after a Charlotte-bound Amtrak Piedmont train struck a tractor-trailer at a grade crossing on Tuesday morning, the Raleigh News & Observer reports. The accident occurred about 9 a.m. No additional information was available on the injured passenger. No other injuries to passengers or crew were reported, and […]
WASHINGTON — Communications issues within Amtrak have contributed to changes in equipment orders, costs increases, and schedule delays for Amtrak’s forthcoming Airo corridor equipment and the maintenance-facility changes planned to accommodate that equipment, the Amtrak Office of Inspector General in a report issued today (Tuesday, Dec. 27.) As an example of what it calls “early […]
BALTIMORE — Five passengers were taken to hospitals with non-life-threatening injuries, the Maryland Transit Administration said, after a Baltimore Metro SubwayLink train derailed Monday evening on an above-ground portion of its route. WBAL-TV reports the accident occurred about 6 p.m. as the train approached the Rogers Avenue platform. One car derailed, remaining upright and connected […]
At the beginning of 2022, no one would have considered Silvis, Ill. a center of the railroad preservation community. The massive former Rock Island shop facility had just been downgraded by owner National Railway Equipment. It was closed in March 2021 as part of a plan to consolidate NRE rail operations to its shops in […]
Continuing our countdown of the Trains News Wire Top 10 stories of 2022, as determined by a vote of Trains editors, columnists, and masthead correspondents: Rapid progress continued in the restoration of the narrow gauge East Broad Top Railroad in Pennsylvania, a once-endangered short line that is a National Historic Landmark. Owned by the EBT […]
CHICAGO — While sub-zero cold and blizzard conditions had begun to moderate somewhat across much of the Midwest toward the end of the holiday weekend, Amtrak has continued to cancel trains on less than 24 hours’ notice for “mechanical” and “manpower” issues, as well as the weather. A running list of trains not operating continues […]
MONTREAL — After two days of cancellations, VIA Rail Canada will resume service on the Toronto-Ottawa and Toronto-Montreal portions of its corridors today (Tuesday, Dec. 27), albeit with a modified schedule combining trains. All trains on those corridor routes were canceled both Dec. 25 and Dec. 26 because of the derailment of a Canadian National […]
DES MOINES, Iowa — An Iowa representative of the SMART-TD union says the union will try again next year to advance a bill that would limit freight train lengths in the state. House File 2339, introduced last February, was sponsored by outgoing Rep. David Maxwell (R-District 76). It would not allow any train “that exceeds […]
ATLANTA, Ill. — Severe weather and equipment shortages sometimes lead to atypical events on the nation’s rail passenger operator. A case in point was Monday’s northbound Amtrak Texas Eagle, train No. 22, shown in Atlanta, Ill., about 20 miles southwest of Bloomington, with P32-7BWH No. 518 leading heritage-painted P42DC No. 161. The 518 was part […]
The star of the show for 11 mainline passenger excursions on Reading & Northern in 2022 was the railroad’s newly restored former Reading Co. Class T-1 4-8-4 steam engine No. 2102 (Reading Shops, 1945). Most of the trips ran from Reading, Pa., to Jim Thorpe, Pa., about a 135-mile round-trip. All of those trains ran […]
