Rotary snowplow Snow … There are few things that mother nature can throw at the unsuspecting railroader that can wreak such havoc on operations. Those pretty little white flakes can blanket a landscape under an impenetrable frozen glaze, jamming the network and shutting down the main line. Fortunately, there are some tools in the railroader’s […]
SAN CLEMENTE, Calif. — The Orange County Transportation Authority will build a wall to protect Surf Line tracks at the site of the landslide that has halted passenger rail operations since Jan. 24, OCTA and Metrolink announced on Friday. The decision comes a day after a state emergency declaration made $10 million in funding available […]
General Electric’s U30C Up in the north woods of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula sits the last serviceable U30C — LSI No. 3009, dead and drained outside Lake Superior & Ishpeming’s diesel shop in Eagle Mills. This locomotive and its cousin, LS&I C30-7 No. 3073, had been filling in on ore trains when not enough LS&I AC4400CWs […]
SALT LAKE CITY — The Utah counties backing the proposed Uinta Basin Railway have asked the state to help fund an appeal of recent court decisions to the U.S. Supreme Court, the Salt Lake Tribune reports. The Seven County Infrastructure Coalition has asked for $750,000 from the state’s general fund, with Keith Heaton, the coalition’s […]
LINCOLN, Neb. — A filibuster has halted the Nebraska Legislature’s consideration of a proposal requiring two-person train crews within the state, the news site Nebraska Examiner reports. The filibuster, carried out over parts of three days, stalled the bill when a Friday vote was unable to obtain the 33 votes needed to invoke cloture, the […]
WASHINGTON — The parties involved in the agreement to allow the launch of Amtrak Gulf Coast service have filed a joint update on that agreement requested by the Surface Transportation Board, asking that the board scrap a hearing planned for Feb. 14 “as the Parties have no further information to offer.” The STB last month […]
OMAHA, Neb. — A Nebraska man has been sentenced to a year in prison for trying to sabotage a Union Pacific grade crossing, KETV-TV reports. Allen Love Jr., 50, of Arlington Nebraska will also receive two years of supervised release. In September 2019, a Union Pacific employee found a 6-foot metal pipe lodged between the […]
SAN CLEMENTE, Calif. — With heavy rains forecast over the next several days and no long-term solution for the latest landslide in the San Clemente area, Amtrak’s Pacific Surfliner has extended its revised schedule of cancellations and bus-bridge service through at least Friday, Feb. 9. Meanwhile, the state of California issued an emergency declaration Thursday […]
NEW YORK — New York City Transit’s first R211T open-gangway subway cars entered service on Thursday, operating on the C line between Washington Heights and East New York, following an inaugural ride featuring Gov. Kathy Hochul and Metropolitan Transportation Authority and elected officials. Hochul also announced that 1,000 of the city’s subway cars are now […]
BOISE, Idaho — Idaho rail advocates were disappointed when a route linking Boise and Salt Lake City wasn’t included in the Federal Railroad Adminstration’s Corridor Identification and Development Program announced in December. But it turns out that effort to revive part of the route of Amtrak’s discontinued Pioneer was never even considered for the eventual […]
WASHINGTON — The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating a Norfolk Southern employee fatality that occurred Wednesday in Decatur, Ala., the agency announced today. An NTSB spokesman said in an email that the incident occurred about 5:15 p.m. when a locomotive engineer was struck by freight cars. Additional information about the exact circumstances of the […]
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — CSX Transportation today (Thursday, Feb. 1) announced it had reached agreement with four additional unions to provide paid sick leave to employees, extending that coverage to an additional 600 workers. Unions involved are SMART-TD conductors/trainmen (C&O); SMART-TD yardmasters; the International Brotherhood of Boilermakers, and Carrolton Road-Transportation Communications Union-represented engineers, yardmen, and maintenance […]
