OTTAWA, Ontario — Pablo Rodriguez has been named Canada’s Transport Minister as part of a large-scale reshuffling of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s cabinet announced Wednesday. Rodriguez replaces Omar Alghabra, who departed after announcing he would not seek reelection to Parliament [see “Canadian Transport Minister Alghabra to step down,” Trains News Wire, July 25, 2023]. Rodriguez […]
MARSHALL, Texas — A wide variety of state and local officials, as well as current and former representatives of Amtrak and its host railroads, assembled last week to honor two people in large part responsible for keeping alive a proposed extension of Amtrak’s Crescent between Meridian, Miss., and Fort Worth, Texas. Retired Harrison County Judge […]
Slug units As avid railfans, we often find ourselves drawn to locations where we can witness a high volume of train activity. Cities like Chicago, Atlanta, or Portland boast major classification yards that serve as hot spots for freight operations. At such locations, we may encounter a peculiar sight: unusual-looking “locomotives” performing switching duties alongside […]
WASHINGTON — The Federal Railroad Administration has proposed requiring the Class I railroads to provide monthly data that tracks train length and tonnage as well as the number of reportable accidents for trains over and under 7,500 feet. The FRA, in a notice published in the Federal Register today, says it wants to use the […]
The traditional life cycle for new locomotives on a Class I roster would be revenue service, followed by lease return if the railroad leased the power or retirement and sale if they were purchased. In a handful of cases, power that departed a Class I roster will find its way back into its original owner’s […]
MONTREAL — High-frequency rail is developing at something other than a high-speed pace in the hands of the Canadian government. The CBC reports that Transport Minister Omar Alghabra said Thursday that he hopes the proposed passenger-only route between Toronto and Quebec City could be operation by the mid-2030s, rather than early in that decade, as […]
RICHMOND, British Columbia — An “undesired release of air brakes” led to a 2019 derailment of 15 cars of a Canadian Pacific train in the Upper Spiral Tunnel near Field, B.C., the Transportation Safety Board of Canada said in a report released Wednesday. Train makeup, and the nature of hoses and other hardware on at […]
CALGARY, Alberta – Mark your calendars for April 2024. That’s when Canadian Pacific 4-6-4 No. 2816 will embark on a celebratory tour of the Canadian Pacific Kansas City system from Calgary to Mexico City. The Final Spike Steam Tour will depart Calgary on April 14, the one-year anniversary of the merger of CP and Kansas […]
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. — With the Saratoga horse racing season having begun last Thursday, Amtrak has announced it will extend Adirondack operations 37 miles beyond Albany-Rensselaer, N.Y., to Saratoga Springs starting Monday, July 24. The New York City-Montreal train was the last state-supported corridor to be restored following nationwide discontinuances in March 2020 as a […]
News & Products for the week of July 17th 2023 Model railroad operators and builders can get the latest information about locomotives, freight cars, passenger cars, tools, track, and more by reading Model Railroader’s frequent product updates. The following are the products Model Railroader editors have news on for the week of July 17th 2023. […]
Hydrogen locomotive Hydrogen powered locomotives have been getting plenty of press lately, with several railroads, large and small, taking the concept seriously. Long before the current plethora of projects however, BNSF, in conjunction with Vehicle Projects, a Colorado-based fuel-cell company with transportation interests, commissioned a prototype hydrogen locomotive in the early 2000s. The core of […]
The Lionel 2023 Volume 2 catalog is here! Sometimes Christmas does come twice a year, in the world of toy trains this celebration is typically associated with a catalog drop. For Lionel, that takes place in January and July. I typically can find something in each catalog that gets me excited for what’s to come. […]
