CHICAGO — More than 430 passengers rode at least a portion of Amtrak’s southbound Saluki and northbound Illini between the Chicago and Carbondale, Ill., on Monday. Many were taking advantage of a schedule change which made it possible for customers to witness a rare four minutes of totality in the southern Illinois city during the […]
Type of Train: Passenger/Transit
Startled passengers share train platform with horse in Australia
SYDNEY, Australia — Well, that’s a horse of a different color. Passengers at a Sydney commuter train station were startled last Friday night to discover they suddenly were sharing the platform with an escaped horse from a nearby stable, which — showing good horse sense — properly remained behind the yellow safety line as a […]
Caltrain fully energizes electrified corridor
SAN FRANCISCO — Caltrain’s entire 51-mile electrification corridor between San Francisco and San Jose, Calif., has been successfully energized and tested for the first time, the commuter rail agency has announced. The milestone in the project by Caltrain, power company Pacific Gas & Electric and contractor Balfour Beatty enables full-speed testing of the electric trainsets […]
SEPTA opens new Drexel Station at 30th Street
PHILADELPHIA — Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority and other officials on Monday marked the opening of the rebuilt and renamed Drexel Station at 30th Street, the transit up for transit and bus lines adjacent to the station served by Amtrak and SEPTA Regional Rail. The new station name reflects a $3.1 million endowment from Drexel University, […]
Flying Yankee Association selected by New Hampshire to purchase Budd streamliner
NASHUA, N.H. — The Flying Yankee Association preservation group has been selected by the New Hampshire Department of Transportation as the purchaser of the historic Budd articulated streamliner Flying Yankee, the virtual duplicate of Burlington’s Pioneer Zephyr that has been owned by the state since 1996. The non-profit group announced its selection at its annual […]
BART to offer final rides on original equipment on April 20
OAKLAND, Calif. — Bay Area Rapid Transit, the 131-mile electrified rail network in the San Francisco Bay Area, is offering the public a last chance to ride the 1970s-era futuristic railcars that made up its original fleet. On Saturday, April 20, at 1 p.m. at the MacArthur station in Oakland, BART will commemorate the cars […]
PATH launches two-year, $430 million infrastructure project
NEW YORK — The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey has launched a two-year project to upgrade infrastructure of the PATH (Port Authority Trans-Hudson) system, the 13.8-mile rail rapid transit system connecting Newark, Harrison, Jersey City, and Hoboken, N.J., to two lines in Manhattan. The $430 million “PATH Forward” project announced Friday will […]
Departing SPUD
Three F units start Great Northern train No. 27, the Fast Mail for Seattle, out of St. Paul Union Depot in June 1953. Robert R. Malinoski photo […]
San Francisco train control project seeks to retire system using floppy disks
SAN FRANCISCO — San Francisco is far from a center of cutting-edge computer technology — when it comes to its light rail system. KGO-TV reports that a portion of the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, or Muni, rail system still uses an Automatic Train Control system installed in 1998 that requires its software to be […]
Superliner shortage limits Illinois eclipse viewing ridership potential
CARBONDALE, Ill. — For a few hours Thursday, travelers along Illinois’ Chicago-Carbondale Amtrak corridor could book a daytime round trip to next Monday’s solar eclipse “path of totality,” thereby avoiding monumental traffic jams along parallel highways that occurred during a similar event in August 2017. But that window of opportunity closed when seats that briefly […]
Metra to expand BNSF line weekend service
CHICAGO — Metra will make major increases to weekend service on its BNSF Line, adding six trains on Saturdays and 16 on Sundays to create equal schedules for both weekend days. The commuter operator will also make some weekday changes as part of a new schedule effective on Monday, April 29. The new weekend schedule […]
Sound Transit sets Aug. 30 for opening of Lynnwood light rail extension
LYNNWOOD, Wash. — Sound Transit’s next addition to its light rail system — the Lynnwood Link extension of Line 1 — will debut on Aug. 30, the agency announced Thursday. The 8.5-mile addition into Snohomish County will add four stations to the north of the current endpoint of Line 1 at Seattle’s Northgate station. In […]