MONTREAL — The city of Montreal and the province of Quebec will spend more than C$565 million to begin operational upgrades on the city’s Metro system. CTV News reports the money will equip the Metro Blue Line with a new train control system, better managing spacing between trains, train speed, and track changes. Similar improvements […]
WASHINGTON — Amtrak will award 11 scholarships to “advance the future of rail” through the Amtrak Scholarship Program, intended to help full-time undergraduate and graduate students who are passionate about rail. “As we continue to revolutionize the Amtrak experience, hiring to address significant demand is essential,” Amtrak Executive Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer Qiana Spain […]
HOUGHTON, Mich. — Tracks to the Future, the summer railroad transportation and engineering program for high school students, has set the dates for two sessions of its program to be held at six college campuses across the country. The program is free to students thanks to sponsorship by the Federal Railroad Administration through a workforce […]
GENOA, Italy — RINA, a multinational inspection, certification, and engineering consulting organization, will enter the North American infrastructure market following its acquisition of Patrick Engineering Ltd., a Chicago-based engineering consulting company specializing in infrastructure, transport, and renewable energy. The acquisition announced Monday brings RINA an organization with 19 offices and 340 employees, mostly in the […]
Of all the railroads that tried various gambits to get out of the passenger business in the 1960s, perhaps none attracted as much vitriol as Southern Pacific. Not that SP downgraded or got rid of the most trains — that honor probably goes to New York Central — but its 1966 substitution of an […]
A late afternoon photo from 1951 at Central Station, Illinois Central’s main terminal in Chicago, finds three trains ready to depart. From left: IC’s Panama Limited to New Orleans, New York Central’s Twilight Limited to Detroit, and IC’s Seminole to Jacksonville, Fla. Part of the Seminole’s run was on the Central of Georgia, which assigned […]
The Lionel Legacy 0-6-0 switcher has a great feature set for a steam engine this small. Strasburg Rail Road’s No. 31 has immortalized in this run of the locomotive. Really, the hype for the heritage railway was the story of the Lionel 2021 Volume 2 catalog, all courtesy of the brass-hybrid offering of 2-10-0 No. […]
Florida Midland Railroad summary The Florida Midland Railroad (FMID) is a short line railroad operating in central Florida. It is one of three of the state’s shortline railroads that is part of Regional Rail, LLC. The railroad operates 28 miles of standard-gauge track on two separate branch lines, one out of Winter Haven and the […]
WASHINGTON – Union Pacific has asked the Federal Railroad Administration for permission to temporarily deactivate the centralized traffic control on a 13.4-mile section of its Winnemucca Subdivision in Nevada, saying that windblown sand and soil has made the signal system unreliable. UP says it can’t make repairs until spring because the track structure is frozen […]
LOMBARD, Ill. — A few notes from the recently concluded winter meeting of the Midwest Association of Rail Shippers: Oberman’s frustrations: During his Q&A session led by Eric Jakubowski of Anacostia Rail Holdings, Surface Transportation Board Chairman Martin J. Oberman talked a bit about the processes under which the board works. One interesting note regarded […]
LAC-MÉGANTIC, Quebec —Canadian Transport Minister Omar Alghabra made an unannounced visit to the Lac-Mégantic area late last week, facing continuing resistance to some land acquisitions needed to reroute Canadian Pacific’s line around the community devastated by a 2013 derailment and fire. In a statement released after the visit on Thursday, Jan. 19, Transport Canada said […]
SAN FRANCISCO — A 1.3-mile extension of Caltrain and California’s high-speed rail line to a transit center in downtown San Francisco would cost $6.7 billion, according to a new estimate from the agency which would oversee the project. The San Jose Mercury News reports the figure from the Transbay Joint Powers Authority represents a 34% […]
