Beech Mountain Railroad shuts down

ALEXANDER, W.Va — West Virginia’s Beech Mountain Railroad appears to have reached its final chapter. Owner Carter-Roag, a subsidiary of United Coal, has returned its two leased SW1500s to LTEX (also known as Larry’s Truck & Electric); those engines had been brought in to move the stockpile of coal remaining after the closure of Carter-Roag’s […]

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Weekly U.S. rail traffic remains ahead of 2023 levels

Weekly table showing U.S. carload traffic by commodity, plus overall intermodal volume

WASHINGTON — Weekly U.S. rail traffic for the week ending Feb. 24 was again up compared to 2023, according to statistics from the Association of American Railroads. Overall traffic was 483,656 carloads and intermodal units, up 7.7% from the same week a year ago. It was the fifth straight week volume has bettered figures from […]

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UP train derails in Elko, Nev.

Derailed grain hoppers

ELKO, Nev. — Sixteen railcars of corn from a Union Pacific train derailed near the Amtrak station in Elko early today (Wednesday, Feb. 28), striking the support of a street overpass and raising question about the bridge’s structural integrity. No injuries were reported and no hazardous materials were involved. The Associated Press reports the derailment […]

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Train Watching — Short line: Connecticut Southern Railroad

Grey diesel locomotive leads freight train past an old station building.

Connecticut Southern Railroad was created by short line holding company RailTex in 1996, assuming Conrail’s freight operations over 55 miles of Amtrak’s Springfield Line between Springfield, Mass., and North Haven, Conn., as well as branches the new railroad purchased from Conrail. Four years later, RailTex was purchased by RailAmerica, which in turn was acquired by […]

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Work begins on wall at San Clemente, Calif., slide site

Drilling rigs on railroad track next to ocean

SAN CLEMENTE, Calif. — Work has begun on a 200-foot-long wall to protect the Surf Line rail right-of-way from landslides at the site that has halted passenger train traffic through San Clemente since Jan. 24, the Orange County Transportation Authority announced. The wall, expected to be 10 to 15 feet tall, will be anchored by […]

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Broken wheel led to 2020 CN potash train derailment, TSB says

Diagram of derailed train at site including bridge

VANCOUVER, British Columbia — A broken wheel led to the derailment of 61 cars of a Canadian National potash train near Floods, B.C., in the Fraser River Canyon in a 2020 incident, the Transportation Safety Board of Canada determined in its final accident report. The report on the Sept. 14, 2020, derailment of the Vancouver-bound […]

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BNSF to pay $75 million to settle biometric privacy suit

Trucks and containers at intermodal yard

CHICAGO — BNSF Railway will pay $75 million to settle a biometric privacy lawsuit in which it was originally assessed a $228 million penalty, only to have that award thrown out on appeal, Reuters reports. The settlement was originally reported last September, but terms had not been disclosed until a Monday filing in federal court […]

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