WASHINGTON — When veteran Union Pacific locomotive engineer Michael Lindsey II looks at the industry he loves, he doesn’t like what he sees. So he has become outspoken on issues ranging from crew shortages and ongoing service problems to labor contracts and railroad regulation. He’s written two letters to the Surface Transportation Board this year. […]
KINSTON, N.C. — The latest short line of Jaguar Transport Holdings, North Carolina’s Kinston Railroad, began operation on Aug. 1. The railroad will operate on 6 miles of track owned by the North Carolina Department of Transportation, between an interchange with Norfolk Southern in Kinston and North Carolina Global TransPark, a 2,500-acre industrial and business […]
OMAHA, Neb. — Are hump yards making an unlikely comeback? Probably not, although three mothballed humps are once again using gravity to classify freight cars. Union Pacific has reactivated the hump at Davidson Yard in Fort Worth, Texas, to ease the burden on the classification yard at West Colton, Calif., where UP is expanding the […]
Working mountain Alco locomotives: Nestled in the wide rolling hills on the western edge of New York’s Southern Tier lies the formerly two-railroad town of Olean, N.Y. A quaint, unsuspecting town of 13,000 residents located along the placid Allegheny River was once a railfanning destination, that is — until the formation of Conrail. Dozens of […]
WASHINGTON — The question of how Canadian National should receive incentives or penalties for handling of Amtrak trains has no doubt chalked up hundreds — maybe thousands — of billable hours for the companies’ attorneys. The inability of the two sides to reach a new operating agreement first came to the Surface Transportation Board in […]
An Amtrak Capitol Limited day trip from Pittsburgh is one of the few Amtrak journeys with single-day, round-trip offerings featuring Class I railroading across a famous mountain pass and a second train-riding experience involving a recently restored Mallet steam locomotive. Yes, Amtrak’s Capitol Limited between Pittsburgh, and Cumberland, Md., offers this and more on its […]
WASHINGTON — The launch of Amtrak Gulf Coast service without infrastructure improvements would cause “immediate and future impairment to freight service that is unreasonable under any definition,” CSX Transportation and Norfolk Southern argue in their latest filing with the Surface Transportation Board. This is the exact opposite of the contention Amtrak makes in its latest […]
WASHINGTON — Amtrak says its additional analysis shows its proposed Gulf Coast passenger service will cause “no unreasonable impairment” on the proposed route between New Orleans and Mobile, Ala., and argues that the case for such impairment by host railroads CSX Transportation and Norfolk Southern “has failed.” Those contentions are included in the passenger railroad’s […]
Wabtec will modernize 600 locomotives over a three-year period for Union Pacific in a deal valued at more than $1 billion, the largest such program in railroading history. The Associated Press first reported the agreement on Tuesday evening. The program will include 525 AC4400 and AC6000 locomotives, as well as 75 Dash-9 units which will […]
GREENSBORO, N.C. — The North Carolina Railroad Co. will purchase a 123-year-old Southern Railway station in Greensboro for “preservation and beneficial redevelopment,” the company announced Monday. The masonry structure at 400 S. Elm Street, currently owned by Norfolk Southern, was built in 1899 and is in a downtown district listed on the National Register of […]
Sometimes big stories hide in plain sight. One of them is the jaw-dropping way BNSF Railway has outgrown the other three big U.S. Class I railroads. Over the past two decades, BNSF has owned all of the tonnage growth on the big four U.S. systems. Its gross ton-miles are up 71% since 1996, BNSF’s first […]
MILO, N.Y. — A Finger Lakes Railway locomotive overturned Monday after striking a derail protecting a track project, injuring the engineer, the Finger Lakes Daily News reports. The locomotive was running light when the accident occurred about 8 a.m., injuring its engineer, 48-year-old Thomas Lewis of Dresden, N.Y., and causing a fuel spill. Lewis was […]
