Those of you who read Trains Magazine may have run across my column in the April issue, wherein I ridicule the moves afoot to put inward-facing cameras in locomotive cabs. Actually, that’s not really correct. I sought to beat the living hell out...

The situation facing Canadian grain farmers is almost Biblical. Their 2013 crops of wheat, canola, barley, and other grains was 40 percent greater than that of 2012 and far above average. Moreover, the harvest was a bountiful surprise forecast by almost...

In journalism we call it a slow news day, and at such times we try to think of anything we can write about. I don’t know the term securities analysts use on these occasions, but it obviously was such a day last week for two Canadian analysts, who...

When news reports revealed no CSX representatives accompanied the Midnight Rider film crew, railroad, and film professionals knew immediately the film crew was trying to steal a shot. When George Clooney's Leatherheads production worked on Norfolk Southern...

Fireball explosions, dozens of deaths, congressional hearings, emergency orders by regulators, potentially unsafe tank cars, incendiary stories by the score in newspapers . . . none of this has seemed to affect the ardor of crude oil producers and refiners...

The former C&O mainline in West Virginia and its increasing crude oil business As a relatively young photographer in the hobby, I’ve watched and made pictures of trains for slightly less than ten years. One of my initial interests was studying...

There was quite a dustup Thursday on Trainorders.com when webmaster Todd Clark published what he believed to be an internal Amtrak memo about changes coming to the Auto Train in about two weeks. I asked Amtrak for comment and thus far gotten no response...

Interesting experience on the eastbound California Zephyr today, as I head from Sacramento to Salt Lake City. We leave Sacramento at 11:28 a.m., 19 minutes late, then Roseville 22 minutes late and Colfax (at the foot of the Sierra Nevada mountain range...

In the 1930s, a lone switchman walks along the Illinois Central’s tracks near Michigan Avenue in Chicago. The First Regiment Armory appears in the background. John W. Barriger III Photo. John W. Barriger III National Railroad Library, St. Louis...

I’m going to write about a plane crash that changed the way the aviation industry does an important part of its business. Why, you ask, am I writing about the loss of an aircraft in a blog meant for people are interested in railroads? The reason...

Photo by Paul Guercio. The staff and I are hard at work on our special magazine, “Big Boy on the road to restoration,” due out in early April. Writing and editing this 100-page tribute to Union Pacific’s largest steam locomotives...

Late this afternoon, photographer Bob Eisthen and I stand on a dirt levee in the Texas border town of Presidio. To our south sits Presidio's larger sister town of Ojinaga in Mexico. To our north, literally beneath our feet, a pair of rails is smothered...

I'm coming to you from the Auto Train , a truly unique train on Amtrak or anywhere else, for that matter. It is passenger railroading on a grand scale. Consider tonight's stats: 2 P40 locomotives, 17 bilevel passenger cars, 29 auto carrier cars (all told...

We're looking at the front truck of a a Ten-Wheeler, the "4" in 4-6-0, but it is sitting under the rear of the frame where the cab goes in this shop view. All photos, Jim Wrinn. MIDDLETON, Wis. – I checked in on one of the Midwest’s most...

I've had bad luck riding Amtrak recently, but in the process I have come to realize a few things and feel like sharing them with you. Two weeks ago, I was in Chicago. The weather was bitter, below or barely above zero, with gusty winds. Conditions...

Jim Young, the retired chairman and former chief executive of Union Pacific, is dead at 61 of pancreatic cancer. It's a vicious disease that is rarely detected before it spreads to other organs; then it is incurable. Through good care and stout heart...

Much is made about the names—or lack thereof—for the railroads of the 21st century. Typically, the biggest target is Burlington Northern Santa Fe, err... I mean, BNSF Railway. Somewhere along the line, the full name fell out of favor and was...

A splash of fresh color has swept across Norfolk Southern in recent weeks, as foreign power has invaded Virginia and West Virginia. Everything from old and new, and BNSF to Canadian power, is roaming rails of the former Norfolk & Western and Virginian...

Wish me happy birthday. I begin my eighth decade Wednesday, hopefully aboard the Auto Train. As appropriate for someone of my teetering gait, I sometimes enjoy thinking of the past. I try to sift the few meaningful memories from the far larger ocean of...

Okay, where was I? In A traveling man’s further adventures , I wrote that I flew from Washington, D.C., to Chicago to ride the Pullman Rail Journey train, attached once a week or so to the rear of Amtrak’s City of New Orleans. Pullman is the...

Weather predictions of light blowing snow and moderate temperatures led me to head out for winter night photography on the evening of Jan. 15, 2014. The light snow would provide a bright fresh covering without the dangers of a big storm. Care would still...

Amtrak in Chicago is on life support. Did I just say that? Actually you could say the same of the entire railroad industry east of the Rockies and north of the Ohio. Trains are moving, but just barely. Today I don't give a hoot about the rest of the railroad...

The U.S. Department of State’s Final Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement tells us what a lot of people already suspected: TransCanada’s Keystone XL pipeline is largely irrelevant to the future of the oil business in the U.S. and Canada...

I don’t usually write about my train travels, but every now and then things happen that are so interesting or unusual that I beg your indulgence. This is one such time. It begins barely a week ago with an email from my buddy Al DiCenso: Would...

I'm working to make News Wire better this winter: more stories, more videos, more photos, more exclusives. But to make News Wire serve its readers the best it can, I want to hear from you, the News Wire readers. We've got some big ideas, but we want to...