“It’s sealed,” a securities analyst emailed me today about the fight to control the future of Canadian Pacific. Institutional Shareholder Services had condemned the stewardship of CP by its present board of directors and recommended...

Developments last week deepened Amtrak’s dilemma about how to sustain its Chicago-Los Angeles Southwest Chief. The states of Kansas, Colorado, and New Mexico told the passenger train company they won’t ante up the $10 million of so needed...

The one thing we can all agree on is that Fred is not perfect. I have been persuaded by you that I could have cast “CSX fillets the Auto Train for supper” in a less-combative tone that would have engendered a more civilized discussion. So...

Edited April 23, 2013 By early next year or even sooner, Union Pacific will begin experimenting with locomotives fueled by natural gas. This follows tests that began last year on Canadian National and BNSF Railway’s announcement that it may decide...

Guess what everyone is doing at Canadian Pacific HQ in Calgary? The place is like a besieged city that has sent up the white flag and now waits for the invading army to enter the gates and plunder. So yes, copier machines are running off copies of...

I spent much of this week watching trains on the CSX North End Subdivision, between Richmond, Va., and Rocky Mount, N.C. Usually, you can count on spotting on this heavily trafficked, mostly single-track line the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, their...

Hunter Harrison has wasted no time putting his imprint on Canadian Pacific. My friends at that railroad say he is already a making changes large and small. To my knowledge no one has been dismissed. That will come later. Harrison has been making his way...

Wow, I’m never leaving on vacation again. You folks really kicked up the dust in response to my blog two weeks ago (see “Where Is The Southwest Chief Headed?” Sept. 3). The back and forth dialogue was furious and sometimes ferocious...

I’ve been called to account for my column in the April issue of Trains Magazine that argues Hunter Harrison would make a better chief executive officer of Canadian Pacific than the incumbent, Fred Green. The arguments against my opinion piece...

My email inbox this week contained a press release from the National Association of Railroad Passengers, denouncing a “partisan political attack” on a proposed high-speed electrified railroad between Victorville, Calif., and Las Vegas. Letters...

"Do not be dissuaded by a few detractors," Ray LaHood, the soon-to-be former secretary of transportation, told the U.S. High Speed Rail Association this week. LaHood spoke after learning that Florida Republican congressman John Mica will again try to...

Actually, the world’s oldest argument goes like this: If a tree falls deep in the forest and nobody knows, is it still the husband’s fault? But here’s one almost as old: Is Amtrak worth it? I’ve been reading the manuscript of a...

But only upon the third conviction. After all, I am not a vindictive man. On the first conviction, those who spray paint on railroad equipment would only have their first two fingers of each hand amputated, making it more difficult to press the button...

The Lexington Group is an annual gathering of men and a few women interested in railroad history. The presentations are always detailed and sometimes downright fascinating, so I enjoy going. But gosh, what a bunch of old dolts we are! I keep expecting...

I’ve been wrapping my arms around the announcement this week that BNSF Railway will test-fuel locomotives with liquefied natural gas (LNG), with a view toward starting large-scale conversions away from diesel fuel as soon as 2014. This is a game...

You enjoy traveling by train in winter. In part it's the comfort of being warm while outside your window it is bitterly cold. Trains aren't crowded this time of year, either, and the introvert in you likes that. Plus, there is a feeling of adventure you...

Updated March 1, 2013 I am just back from two transcontinental train trips, one after the other, from Chicago to Seattle on Amtrak’s Empire Builder and from Vancouver, B.C., to Toronto on VIA Rail Canada’s Canadian. I enjoyed both experiences...

CSX Transportation dispatchers may not realize that less than five years ago they played a role in changing national transportation policy, but not the kind of change their employer likes to talk about. They and dispatchers of Union Pacific handled Amtrak...

Yesterday morning near St. Augustine I watched two of Florida East Coast’s blue GP40-2s wheel 177 containers and trailers (yes, I counted) northward at a brisk 55 mph. Two smallish diesels can do that because the vast majority of those boxes...

My friend Bill Schafer, retired recently as a Norfolk Southern poobah, is having a party on February 22. You’re invited, by the way. The party starts on VIA Rail Canada’s Canadian leaving Vancouver, B.C., on that evening and ends four nights...

A happy group of people rode what I dub The Celebration Train to Norfolk this week, the day before start of daily Amtrak service between points on the Northeast Corridor and Norfolk, Va. Nobody was happier than I. You see, Virginians love passenger trains...

I’ve been AWOL lately, wrapping up work on one feature story for Trains and starting work on the next. That first story you’ll see when the October issue gets delivered in late August (yes, it is amusing that an October issue comes in August...

I’ve been on the gossip circuit lately, asking people what’s holding up Hunter Harrison’s appointment as chief executive officer of Canadian Pacific. The hotly contested election of CP directors was five weeks ago, and the faction...

The Financial Times today reports that Phillips 66, a refining spinoff from ConocoPhillips, is ordering 2,000 tank cars able to carry some 120,000 barrels of crude oil a day out of the Bakken Shale oil fields in North Dakota. This is just the latest...

One nice thing about living in western Kansas or Nebraska is that you’ll never lose power due to downed trees. Here in northern Virginia we have trees, lots of them. Any storm worthy of the name topples trees onto power lines and there goes electrical...