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PARADISE, Pa. — Strasburg Rail Road’s 4-8-0 steam engine No. 475 collided with a tracked excavator or “trackhoe” parked on a spur Wednesday morning, Nov. 2, punching a hole in the engine’s smokebox. No injuries resulted and the engine, running light, remained on the track. A combination of a misaligned switch — apparently left open when […]
BOSTON — Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority General Manager Steve Poftak has announced his resignation, effective Jan. 3. The Boston Globe reports the resignation comes nearly a full year ahead of the end of his contract, but will coincide with the arrival of a new governor. It will end four years during which Poftak has led […]
SCRANTON, Pa. — Pennsylvania will provide $3.7 million for track improvements needed for a possible Scranton-New York City Amtrak route, the Pocono Record reports. The grant through the state’s Redevelopment Assistance Capital Program has been awarded to the Monroe County Industrial Development Authority. It will provide half the funding for 43,000 new crossties on a […]
GLENDALE, N.Y. — John Gleeson has been named director of sales and marketing for the New York & Atlantic Railway as of Oct. 17. He will succeed Charles Samul, who will retire in early 2023. Gleeson has nearly 20 years in on the customer and supplier side of the rail industry. He previously developed rail […]
About halfway through the Lionel 2021 Volume II catalog we found this post-transition-era workhorse: the EMD SD45. A model previously released by Lionel in 2016, the return of the SD45 is a welcome sight for those who model the early high-horsepower diesel years. A solid seller The prototype was built by the Electro-Motive Division of […]
WASHINGTON — DC Metrorail’s Silver Line extension to Dulles International Airport will open Nov. 15, the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority has announced. The 11.5-mile, six-station extension will open about four years behind schedule, the Washington Post reports, completing a 23-mile line on which construction began in 2009. The Post notes Metro still needs a […]
CAMDEN, N.J. — South Jersey Transit Partners, a joint venture of infrastructure consulting firm AECOM and architectural and enginerering company STV Inc., will handle preliminary engineering and design and project management for the Glassboro-Camden Line light rail project. The 18-mile, 14-station project is being managed by the Delaware River Port Authority with NJ Transit and […]
NORTHAMPTON, Mass. — Valley Flyer service between New Haven, Conn., and Greenfield, Mass., will be made permanent, Massachusetts Department of Transportation and Amtrak officials announced Friday. The extension of New Haven-Springfield service to Greenfield was launched as a two-year pilot program on Aug. 30, 2019 [see “‘Valley Flyer’ shuttles … to being Aug. 30,” Trains […]
I never met David “Dave” A. Fink, but I felt his presence for a while in the late 1990s. The pugnacious president of Guilford Transportation Industries had a reputation for being difficult with journalists, but long about 1997 I decided Trains absolutely had to have a profile of his railroad, no matter what. Fink proved […]
ANDOVER, Mass. — The Massachusetts Bay Railroad Enthusiasts organization is seeking applicants for the 2023 edition of its grant programs, the H. Albert Webb Memorial Railroad Preservation Award and the Mass Bay RRE Railroad Preservation Fund. Applications and instructions for the awards are available here. The H. Albert Webb Award is an annual grant of […]
BOSTON — Speed restrictions introduced after the MBTA’s 30-day shutdown of the rapid-transit Orange Line will remain in place as late as December, the agency’s general manager has said. WCVB-TV reports GM Steve Poftak informed U.S. Sen Ed Markey that the five slow orders in each direction “are scheduled to be lifted in November and […]
BALTIMORE — Tradepoint Atlantic, developer of the former Sparrows Point steel mill at the Port of Baltimore, has announced plans for a 165-acre container terminal with on-dock rail as the next major step of redevelopment of the 3,300-acre site. The project, a partnership with Terminal Investment Limited, should lead to hundreds of new jobs during […]
