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FOLEY, Minn. — A 41-year-old man has been sentenced to 18 months in prison for climbing aboard a BNSF Railway train last year and attacking the engineer with a knife. The Minneapolis Star Tribune reports Samuel D. Hohman of Sauk Rapids, Minn., was sentenced Wednesday in Benton County District Court after pleading guilty in February […]
SCRANTON, Pa. — Steamtown National Historic Site has announced its schedule of train rides for 2023, with trips ranging from 30-minute trips exploring the park’s rail yard to full-day excursions through the Poconos. The seasonal rides resume May 11, with tickets on sale online as of April 1 for excursions in May through August. Excursions […]
WASHINGTON — The U.S. rail traffic slump continued in the week ending March 25, with volume down 7.5% compared to the same week in 2022, according to statistics from the Association of American Railroads. Total traffic was 469,958 carloads and intermodal units. That included 236,526 carloads, down 0.2% from the corresponding week a year ago, […]
PORT ALLEN, La. — No chemicals were released after about 25 tank cars carrying liquid petroleum gas and butadiene derailed Wednesday morning, WAFB-TV reports. The Union Pacific derailment, on a spur serving a plant for industrial gases firm Air Liquide America, led to a response by the Louisiana State Police hazardous materials unit, Louisiana Department […]
The many faces of Conrail Conrail, the amalgamation of many financially struggling Eastern railroads both big and small, was born April 1, 1976. When it began, the system operated thousands of locomotives on about 19,000 route-miles in 15 states and two Canadian provinces. Its mandate: to revitalize rail service in the Northeast and Midwest as […]
DEL MAR, Calif. — The California Transportation Commission has awarded more than $37 million to the San Diego Association of Governments for its continuing project to stabilize the rail line along Del Mar Bluffs, the San Diego Union-Tribune reports. The next phase in the project, scheduled to begin in November, is expected to cost more […]
COLUMBUS, Ohio — The city of Cincinnati’s plan to sell the Cincinnati Southern Railway to Norfolk Southern — which had been in jeopardy — has been revived by the state legislature. WXIX-TV reports that, after the state House and Senate passed versions of a transportation bill with conflicting language regarding the sale, a conference committee […]
BEVERLY, Mass. — A lawsuit filed Monday seeks to do away with quiet zones at pedestrian crossings in Massachusetts, an effort that pits safety concerns against quality-of-life issues in the state. The Boston Globe reports the suit was filed by Mark Layman, a former MBTA locomotive engineer whose train killed a teen walking along the tracks […]
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Joseph Sellers Jr. general president of the International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers, or SMART, will retire on May 31. Sellers announced his retirement in January, but the union publicized the news in a Tuesday press release. Sellers will be succeeded by current Assistant to the General President […]
KELSO, Calif. — Union Pacific reopened its Cima Subdivision today less than 26 hours after part of an iron ore train ran away and derailed on the 2.2% Cima Hill grade near Kelso. “Union Pacific crews worked around-the-clock to rebuild the tracks in the Mojave National Preserve, east of Barstow, where 55 railcars and two […]
Malcolm Furlow’s waterfall modeling technique: Malcolm Furlow’s article presented here originally ran in the August 1980 issue of Model Railroader magazine. While many of the brands Malcolm used in the article are no longer available, most all the products have modern substitutes, allowing a modeler to still complete similar projects. As a case in point, […]
Mind-blowing Conrail facts Arguably, the Consolidated Rail Corp. story is one of the darkest and yet brightest chapters in American railroad history. Consolidated Rail Corp. or Conrail — originally spelled ConRail — was the government-led and financially backed bailout of six Northeastern railroads. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the demise of the Penn […]
