WASHINGTON — The Surface Transportation Board will proceed with its planned hearing on the status of Amtrak Gulf Coast service on Wednesday, Feb. 14, the board announced in a decision issued Tuesday. The parties to the agreement allowing service to begin — Amtrak, CSX Transportation, Norfolk Southern, and the Alabama State Port Authority — had […]
PORT CLINTON, Pa. – A rare-mileage Rail Diesel Car excursion to Mount Carmel, Pa., the northwestern extent of Reading & Northern’s 400-mile system, is scheduled to run on April 20. Sponsored by the affiliated Lehigh Valley Chapter of the National Railway Historical Society and the Railroad Historians of the Lehigh Valley, the all-day, 104-mile trip […]
SAN CLEMENTE, Calif. — BNSF freight traffic past the site of the latest landside in San Clemente has been halted by additional slide activity, the San Diego Union-Tribune reports. Tuesday night freight movement was suspended after the slope moved another 1.5 to 3 feet in a 24-hour period through Tuesday afternoon, Scott Johnson, Metrolink director […]
WASHINGTON — An Amtrak press release issued last week, “Ambitious 2024 Initiatives Propel Amtrak Ridership Growth,” outlines the company’s goal of doubling ridership by 2040. This is based on “improving passenger train service for our customers and efficiently and effectively carrying out a massive major infrastructure capital program aimed to modernize and upgrade our infrastructure, […]
LOS ANGELES — South Korean manufacturer Hyundai Rotem has been awarded a $663.7 million contract to build trains for the LA Metro subway system, the company announced Tuesday. The Korea Economic Daily reports the contract is the company’s largest by dollars in the U.S. The order calls for 182 HR5000 cars to be delivered in […]
CUMBERLAND, Md. — The Western Maryland Scenic Railroad has received a $200,000 state grant for track maintenance, the Cumberland Times-News reports. Funding will be used for tie replacement and ballast tamping on a segment of the railroad near Frostburg, Md., railroad CEO Wes Heinz told the newspaper. The railroad had been approved for $1.5 million […]
WASHINGTON — The Federal Railroad Administration has issued an emergency order shutting down the Blackwell Northern Gateway Railroad, a 37-mile, Class III short line in Oklahoma, saying the railroad is “operating with a complete disregard for the safety of the public and has not taken corrective action to resolve safety issues … posing imminent risks […]
In every issue Trains.com, p. 4 Guide to the latest railroad content on the web News, p. 6 BNSF, J.B. Hunt take aim at trucks. Wabtec eyes hydrogen as the fuel of the future while it unveils world’s first battery-powered heavy-haul freight locomotive Bill Stephens, p. 16 Railroad investors can be their own worst enemy […]
The dynamics of dynamic braking A half-century ago, when diesel locomotives were replacing steam engines, a revolutionary breakthrough — dynamic braking — was making freight operations safer and more efficient. Dynamic braking is the method of train braking whereby the kinetic energy of a moving train is used to generate electric current at the locomotive […]
Diesel locomotive builders 1. American Locomotive Company For many years after World War II, Alco — the American Locomotive Company — was the second place diesel builder in the United States. The company’s history as a steam locomotive manufacturer dates from 1901. The Schenectady, N.Y.,-based firm began producing its first diesels in conjunction with suppliers […]
A railroad study in snow On Jan. 15, 1885, Wilson “Snowflake” Bentley, a farmer from Jericho, Vt., became the first person to successfully photograph a single snow crystal — a snowflake. Bentley, in his study of snow, went on to capture images of more than 5,000 individual snowflakes, finding that, in fact, no two were […]
Train orders The train order, variously called the “flimsy” or the “tissue” — together with its attendant operators, train order offices, and order hoops — has been rendered obsolete by the radio, the computer, and amended work rules. With its passing in the late 1980s, so did a whole concept of railroad traffic control that […]
