Montana’s U.S. Route 2 The former Great Northern “Hi-Line” across Montana is BNSF’s primary route to the Pacific Northwest. The BNSF route across Montana is paralleled by U.S Route 2 instead of an interstate highway and is a boon to the railfan. For 557 miles, U.S. 2 is alongside BNSF from Whitefish in the western […]
If you’re like me, you put a lot of work into your model railroad scenery, and the last thing you want to see is an operator putting his paperwork on the layout during an operating session. This situation was a concern for me, so I turned to hook and loop fasteners and piano hinges to […]
Sometime last year I took a serious look at one of my vehicles. I leave my vehicles out all year, and the weather takes its toll. I could strip the pickup and repaint it, but I’m planning a firehouse in my town, so why not make a fire truck? The vehicle is a Solido 1:19 […]
PARIS — French national rail operator SNCF reported it has completed repairs from Friday’s series of infrastructure tracks, with the high-speed TGV lines operating as planned today (Sunday, July 28) and full service anticipated for Monday. Fiber-optic cables used for system used for signals and switches were cut or damaged in arson attacks at three […]
Q: I’m familiar with where the water filler is on more modern steam locomotive tenders. But I don’t see a similar place for water to be taken in on the old wood burning engines, like The General. Can you enlighten me? — Robert Taunt A: The General was a 4-4-0 American-type steam locomotive belonging to […]
NEW YORK — New York Gov. Kathy Hochul is facing two lawsuits over her decision to block Manhattan’s congestion pricing, a move which created a $15 billion hole in the Metropolitan Transportation Authority budget and has forced the transit agency to delay a number of capital projects. The news site amNY.com reports one lawsuit has […]
WASHINGTON — Eight members of New Jersey’s congressional delegation have again written Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, asking for federal intervention in the ongoing service issues on the Northeast Corridor. The letter, dated Friday, July 26, is signed by U.S. Reps. Mikie Sherrill, Robert J. Menendez, Frank Pallone Jr., Josh Gottheimer, Andy Kim, Donald Norcross, Bill […]
Large language models (LLMs) or as they are colloquially known, AI, have made impressive progress since I last explored possible use cases relating to model railroading last summer, in the form of both chat-based programs and image generation. With a year having passed between then and now, I thought it would be worth revisiting this […]
MONTREAL — Canadian National reopened its main line through Jasper, Alberta, this morning and began moving a backlog of traffic that had built up this week while wildfires threatened and ultimately engulfed part of the resort town. “After inspecting its infrastructure on Thursday afternoon, CN collaborated with the Unified Incident Command center to revise and […]
HAMBURG, N.Y. — The James E. Strates Shows carnival train, the last of its kind, is scheduled to run to the Erie County Fairgrounds south of Buffalo, N.Y., on Thursday, Aug. 1. The train, which has been sidelined since the pandemic, is currently en route to Buffalo, N.Y., in regular merchandise service on CSX. Once […]
PARIS — Investigations are underway in France to identify who carried out a series of targeted arson attacks at key points on the country’s TGV high speed rail network in the early hours of today (July 26), hours before the official opening ceremony of the 2024 Olympic Games to be held on the river Seine […]
WASHINGTON — The Short Line Safety Institute has released a Federal Railroad Administration research results paper analyzing the 20 Safety Culture Assessments conducted on short line railroads in 2023, which identified five areas of strength across the railroads and five areas for improvement. “Our process for measuring safety culture is the most comprehensive and robust […]
