Great Plains museum welcomes steam locomotive for Railfest

Logo of the Great Plains Transportation Museum

WICHITA, Kan. — The Great Plains Transportation Museum will be offering rides behind a visiting steam locomotive over the next two weekends to raise funds for the restoration of its Santa Fe FP45, part of the railroad’s last order for passenger locomotives. The rides behind Lehigh Valley Coal Co. No. 126, a 0-6-0T built by […]

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Analysis: Coal producers bet on met (coal) in 2022

Black locomotives lead train around curve in mountains

Part two of a look at the U.S. coal industry. CHARLESTON, W.Va. — The COVID-19 pandemic may have shuttered economies and slowed industrial momentum, but a global rebound is helping coal producers refocus their long game on metallurgical coal investment as a broader initiative to diversify the sector. Met coal is a higher-priced coal used […]

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Weekly U.S. rail traffic remains below 2020 levels

Weekly table showing U.S. rail traffic by commodity and intermodal volume

WASHINGTON — Reduced intermodal traffic continued to drop weekly U.S. rail volume below 2020 levels, despite an increase in carloads, according to the latest statistics from the Association of American Railroads. For the week ending Sept. 25, U.S. railroads moved 511,713 carloads and intermodal units, down 1.3% from the corresponding week in 2020. That included […]

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Automobile boxcar

Steel boxcar with end doors for automobile loading

Automobile boxcar Northern Pacific no. 4914 is a 50-foot, single-sheathed, double-door car built in the late 1930s and shown here in 1940. Note the Dreadnaught end door. Jay Williams collection […]

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Toronto prepares to open new light rail line in 2022 (corrected)

Black and white light rail trainset on tracks in center of roadway

TORONTO — The next generation of transit in Canada’s largest city is expected to debut in 2022 when the Eglinton Crosstown light rail line begins service. The 19-kilometer (11.8-mile) east-west line will traverse the mid-section of Toronto along Eglinton Avenue, through densely packed residential and commercial neighborhoods both at grade and with 10 kilometers (6.2 […]

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News Photos: VIA’s first Siemens trainsets arrive in Canada

Passenger equipment pulled by Canadian National locomotive

TORONTO — The first portion of VIA’s C$989 million order for 32 Siemens Charger trainsets has arrived in Canada. Running in darkness in Michigan and Ontario, it arrived in Toronto early Wednesday. With urgency, the train operated as CN P698 from Chicago to Montreal, arriving in Montreal less than 24 hours after it departed Chicago, […]

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