WASHINGTON — Amtrak says checked baggage service is being dropped this fall from two state-supported routes “due to equipment shortages” — even though the company received 70 new baggage cars as part of its 125-car Viewliner II equipment order from CAF USA in 2014-15. The company now says, however, that a notice posted in at […]
WASHINGTON — CSX Transportation’s use of a weather alert system which did not sufficiently account for extreme rainfall was a contributing factor in a Feb. 13, 2020, derailment and fire caused by a mudslide in Draffin, Ky., the National Transportation Safety Board concluded in its final report on the incident. The report, completed in August, […]
JACKSON, Mo. — Tourist operator St. Louis Iron Mountain & Southern Railway has repainted its former Pennsylvania Railroad E8, No. 5898, in the classic Pennsy pinstripe livery. The locomotive, built by EMD in La Grange, Ill, in 1951, was purchased from the Reading Blue Mountain & Northern Railroad in 1998. Since 2020, the engine has […]
PHILADELPHIA — The Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority’s board of directors has approved acquisition of some 70 pieces of property for its proposed King of Prussia Rail Line, the Philadelphia Business Journal reports. The agency is also on the verge of purchasing land for a new trolley barn, about 18 months after it was outbid by […]
WASHINGTON — The independent safety agency that oversees the DC Metrorail system says the wheel problems that have sidelined most of Metro’s newest railcars also existed on older cars, and may stem from a track issue the agency was told about in 2015 but never addressed. The Washington Post reports the Washington Metrorail Safety Commission […]
MIAMI — Four people were injured Saturday evening when two CSX freight trains collided near Miami International Airport, WPLG-TV reports. The accident was reported about 7 p.m. near the area of Northwest 15th Street and South Perimeter roads, with Miami-Dade Fire Rescue dispatching more than 25 units, including a hazardous materials team. The four people […]
The Lionel 1926 Cardinals Train Set was offered in the 2021 Lionel Volume I “Big Book.” It’s a top-of-the-line Legacy outfit that features a recently cataloged 4-6-2 USRA Pacific steam locomotive, a combination car, two Pullman coaches, and an observation car. The base set gives you an 98-inch passenger train requiring O-54 curves. Lionel offers […]
BERLIN — The prospects for a number of transformative passenger projects, as well as the potential for more rail electrification, have the CEO of Siemens Mobility in North America upbeat as he considers his company’s future. Marc Buncher heads a company that has grown rapidly in North America, with its Sacramento, Calif., manufacturing site employing […]
CHICAGO — Amtrak’s westbound California Zephyr has been cancelled this Sunday, Sept. 25 — continuing a week of disruptions for the service between Chicago and Emeryville, Calif. The sequence that led to Sunday’s cancellation began with the westbound departure of Monday, Sept. 19, which sustained delays totaling 16 hours, 35 minutes on its way to […]
PITTSBURGH — Service on the big four U.S. Class I railroads is improving slowly but remains uneven amid ongoing and sporadic crew shortages, shippers said this week at the North East Association of Rail Shippers conference. One thing that’s helped improve service is the resumption of hump operations at several yards over the past few […]
BERLIN — Progress Rail will provide up to four EMD Joule battery-electric locomotives to BNSF for testing in Southern California, the company has announced today at InnoTrans. The trial, to be supported in part by government grants, will also see Progress provide two charging stations for the locomotives. The SD70J units will have 8 Megawatt-hours […]
The two biggest rail unions don’t expect to tally members’ votes on their tentative contract agreements with the Class I railroads until the middle of November. The SMART-TD union that represents conductors and the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen that represents engineers both outlined ratification vote timelines this week in updates to their members. […]
