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...

"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...

Overview: With Norfolk Southern’s announcement of Norfolk its 20 “heritage fleet” of new diesels in March 2012, I immediately thought, "I have to catch the N&W engine (NS 8103) on former N&W rails and the VGN unit (NS 1069) on...

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...

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...

It’s increasingly likely that come March 1, Amtrak and every other federally supported agency, including the military, are going to collectively share $85 billion in non-negotiable budget cuts for the ensuing seven months. Sequestration is the awkward...

My father, to whom I owe my interest in railroads, was a long-time subscriber to both Trains and Model Railroader . He and I made many trips during my childhood to watch trains at various places in central Massachusetts, where I grew up. But he didn't...

There are bragging rights for we Amtrak customers, and for years the gold standard has been achieving Select Plus status with Amtrak Guest Rewards. To get there, you must amass 10,000 “tier qualifying points,” two points being awarded for...

The best idea I’ve ever had made a couple hundred grand for my employer. I felt good about it. So imagine the pride of Amtrak employees who thought up and pushed through a genuinely good plan that deals with a perennial customer-service issue involving...

It’s not true what they say of Kansas: That it is flat. Okay, central Kansas is flat, say, from WaKeeney east to Salina. But western Kansas flat? Definitely not. Call it gently rolling. However, western and central Kansas were both definitely empty...

Many of you wonder why I sign each of my articles, columns, and blogs as Fred W. Frailey instead of plain old Fred Frailey. The American way, after all, is to avoid affected airs of this sort. Just who does this Frailey guy think he is, sticking that...

I am writing this while sitting on a hard, unforgiving wooden bench inside the Amtrak station in Glenwood Springs., Colo., pecking it out one letter at a time with my right index finger, onto an iPad. This is not my ideal work environment. But what else...

Amtrak and the California High Speed Rail Authority are joining forces this coming week to begin the process of ordering up to 62 sets of high-speed trains for use in both the Northeast Corridor and in the Golden State. Thirty-two of the train sets would...

I am 17 years old, and I live in the remote and beautiful countryside of Southwest Virginia, in the small community of Indian Valley. My main interests are photography and railroads; both have intrigued me since I was 5, when I acquired my first camera...

The railroad career of Edwin Earl Ellis has been anything but common and ordinary. He started two short-line conglomerates (and was fired by the first one). He bootstrapped Amtrak’s mail and express business into a $150 million-a-year behemoth that...

I was west of Topeka today, more than half way from Virginia to the Colorado Rockies, driving a steady 79 on Interstate 70 and admiring the layer of snow the season’s first storm had delivered the day before, when I saw the exit sign: McFarland...

Thanks to all of you for acting as my travel agents. A week ago I asked for your best ideas for getting me from Sarasota, Fla., on February 19 to Vancouver by 8:30 p.m. on February 22, to ride VIA Rail Canada’s train No. 2, the Canadian, with 55...

Editor Jim Wrinn interviews photographer Olaf Haensch in Wernigerode, Germany in September 2012. Olaf Haensch photo. Harz train steams by the Quedlinburg, Germany, railway station. Olaf Haensch photo. A Harz 2-10-2T steams at the summit of Brocken...

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...

Cars from the Union Pacific business train fleet were on display in Sacramento for the 150th anniversary event. John P. Hankey photo. It was how things used to be, and may never be again. Over the last weekend in September, the Union Pacific Railroad...

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...

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...

As you know, Englishman Charles Darwin (1809-1882) was a naturalist who popularized the idea of survival of the fittest. Those species who could evolve and deal with change survive, he said, while those that cannot perish. These two awards honor his memory...

The U.S. is the world’s biggest producer of corn. To put this in its most basic perspective, corn is a major foundation of our economy. We export oceans of the stuff. The portion we feed to livestock keeps meat affordable. So I was struck by a press...

We’re learning more about the Miami-Orlando passenger service that Florida East Coast is ramping up, thanks most recently to release of an environmental impact statement covering the 66 miles between downtown Miami and West Palm Beach. Forgive me...