Fred Frailey - Trains Magazine - Trains News Wire, Railroad News, Railroad Industry News, Web Cams, and Forms

127

Foolishness disguised as journalism

Posted 9 years ago by Fred Frailey

I subscribe 365 days a year to the New York Times (the real NYT, delivered to my driveway), so I obviously think well of it. Bear that in mind as I lay into the newspaper for a really shoddy job of reporting today, reproduced at the conclusion of this blog, so that you can reach your own conclusion. Start with the headline (which reporter Ron Nixon did not write). It says that BNSF and Canadian Pacific railways are favoring oil trains over grain trains—a serious charge. But nowhere in the...

110

Amtrak has stalled out, and here's why

Posted 9 years ago by Fred Frailey

Thanks to all of you who read and responded to my blog The Joe Boardman-David Gunn Summit. I enjoyed all your comments. C.P. Crosby, in particular, made me reflect on something: Why haven’t states that subsidize Amtrak trains lavished more attention on them? To my knowledge, only Washington and Oregon have tried to manage the service, to the tune of buying Talgo trainsets and organizing a unique (and delicious) food menu in the comfortable cafe cars. The train I love to hate, the New York-...

35

A death in the family

Posted 9 years ago by Fred Frailey

Carstens Publishing this past week announced it was ceasing publication of its magazines, which include Railfan & Railroad and Railroad Model Craftsman, and putting the titles up for sale. I was saddened by the news, but not surprised. The magazine business has been challenged (to put it mildly) the past 15 years by economic events in general and the internet in particular. More than ever, you either have to have a unique product (I like to think that Trains Magazine is such) or be top dog i...

43

The Joe Boardman-David Gunn summit

Posted 9 years ago by Fred Frailey

In many respects, Joe Boardman couldn’t be less like David Gunn, his predecessor twice removed as president of Amtrak (there was a former Union Pacific vp between them, but he came and went before anyone bothered to ask his name). Boardman is skilled at maneuvering through the political jungles in Washington and getting along, having cut some teeth in the state politics of New York. Gunn is decidedly less adept at handling politicians, witness his blunt termination by the chairman of Amtra...

115

Outrages on the rails: The real story

Posted 9 years ago by Fred Frailey

Be on notice: Any rational observer would predict that American railroads are in for a terrible winter a few months hence — that is, if it is a normal, mild winter of the sort we had before last winter. How can I say that in the middle of August? Follow the trail of evidence, please. My correspondent Marcus Ruef lives not so far from me, in Charles Town, W.Va., and two or three times a month needs to go to Chicago on business. He formerly rode Amtrak’s Capitol Limited to Chicago. Th...

36

Cuff notes* on a rainy day

Posted 9 years ago by Fred Frailey

I'm writing this in western Pennsylvania, less than an hour after leaving Pittsburgh. Out my window is a dark day, with rain and mist--not the best way to end a four-day trip across the country. I'd rather it be the other way around, that is, raining across the Sierra Nevada range and sunny in the Alleghenies. The weather makes me wish I were already home, my retriever Jack happily asleep at my feet. I left you two days ago in Denver, and here I am 1,500 or so miles to the east. I should color ...

36

Last-minute decisions (and the Dining Car From Hell)

Posted 9 years ago by Fred Frailey

How would you solve this problem? You've used a jillion Guest Rewards points to book bedrooms on the Coast Starlight from San Jose, Cal., to Los Angeles, the Sunset Limited to New Orleans and the Crescent to Washington, D.C. The Starlight arrives in LA at 9 p.m., the Sunset leaves at 10 p.m., and therein lies the dilemma on the night before departure. Dogged by locomotive failures and other bad luck, the northbound Coast Starlight got to Seattle 12 hours late, causing it to leave toward you almo...

128

Visionary railroading in 2014

Posted 9 years ago by Fred Frailey

My friend Keel Middleton is a veteran BNSF Railway engineer, working out of Wellington, Kan., on the 311-mile, mostly double-track district west to Amarillo, Tex., on the Chicago-Los Angeles Transcon. Keel has seen business levels at highs and at lows, but never so high as last Friday. You should take what he witnessed as a tribute (railroad business is growing far faster than the economy) and a warning (be careful what you wish for). Keel is called for 5:05 p.m. to take a 114-car empty unit sa...

48

What to do when you run over two women

Posted 9 years ago by Fred Frailey

The Darwin Award, as you know, is bestowed by us on people whose behavior around trains is simply suicidal. Charles Darwin hypothesized that species become stronger by ridding themselves of their weaker (or dumber) elements. This leads us to today’s lesson in life. On July 10, an Indiana Rail Road unit coal train, 100 cars loaded, began crossing a long bridge, the Shuffle Creek trestle, near Bloomington, Ind. Its engineer discovered two people, 30-something women, in its midsection. There...

21

The demise of crude by rail is greatly exaggerated

Posted 9 years ago by Fred Frailey

Some of my correspondents — smart people, all — have gotten a case of the jitters regarding crude oil by rail. They point to the North Dakota Pipeline Authority, the keeper of statistics for Bakken shale production, which says rail’s market share of oil leaving the state fell from a peak of about 75 percent last November to 60 percent in May. They quote the respected Sandy Fielden of energy-information company RBN Energy as saying pipelines are grabbing more of the oil going fr...

67

Master conductors - really?

Posted 9 years ago by Fred Frailey

Be careful what you wish for, I would advise the railroad industry. If you think railroads have service issues now, watch them multiply if members of the Sheet Metal, Air, Rail, and Transportation Union (SMART) ratify the BNSF Railway agreement, which I hope they do. We are justifiably proud of North America’s freight railroads. Their infrastructure has never been stronger. At the same time, they remain competitive with other modes of transport through rigorous cost control, and thinning ...

61

Look out: CSX is in virgin territory

Posted 9 years ago by Fred Frailey

I’ve been reporting a story for Trains Magazine about the railroad mess we call Chicago, and one of the worst sinners is CSX Transportation. What bothered me was this: The railroad during April-June was still 4.7 percent shy of its traffic volume in the last peak year of 2006. So why is its whole northern tier a mess and Chicago a quagmire? The railroad’s second-quarter conference call with analysts provided some insight. Traffic across the northern tier, according to Chief Operatio...

97

Why can't Bakken oil be made safer?

Posted 9 years ago by Fred Frailey

Readers of this blog got to know columnist Sara Foss of the Schenectady Daily Gazette on June 19 in Why You May Yet Read by Candlelight. I was hard on Sara because she asked the wrong question (can crude by rail ever be totally safe?) of the wrong person (an environmentalist nitwit). Well, guess what? Sara is back, asking more questions. But this time, she’s asking the right question on an important public policy matter. Let’s visit that topic. The Wall Street Journal reported this ...

95

The passenger train as you know it is dying

Posted 9 years ago by Fred Frailey

About a decade ago the Editor of Trains Magazine asked if I would like to write a monthly column. Before answering no, not yet, I tried to think of provocative ideas. Two came immediately to mind. One I called “Why Doesn’t Dick Davidson Know It’s Time to Go?” The chief executive of Union Pacific had presided over two meltdowns, and my thesis was that someone else should have a chance to mess things up. The other idea I called “The Long Distance Train Is Dead (But Do...

318

Our railroads are a MESS

Posted 9 years ago by Fred Frailey

I don’t recall ever seeing so much of the railroad industry in such disarray. Examples are everywhere you look. Tens of thousands of new vehicles sit on lots in Detroit and Toledo, waiting for rail cars to take them to dealers. Canadian National and Canadian Pacific strain under their government’s edict to move grain to ports faster. BNSF Railway is so far behind delivering Powder River Basin coal to its customers that stockpiles at some locations are down to a few days. Chicago is a...

41

We have new Darwin Awards nominees

Posted 9 years ago by Fred Frailey

Readers of this blog were introduced almost three years ago to Florida East Coast Railway engineer David Shelley. In that episode, his southbound intermodal train rounded a curve near Boca Raton at 57 mph to find a car parked on a crossing, its driver oblivious to the approaching train and its whistle while she spoke on a cell phone. His train whammed into the car. “We just knew it was going to be a mess,” David said later. Fortunately, the woman not only survived the collision but w...

89

Why you may yet read by candlelight

Posted 9 years ago by Fred Frailey

The debate over the safety of handling crude oil by rail has become frustrating and almost pointless. Yes, tank cars that carry oil could be made more crashworthy, that is, if the Pipeline & Hazardous Materials Safety Administration would get off its duff and tell tank car owners what changes it wants. A year after the tragedy in Lac-Megantic, Que., that killed 47 people, we’re still waiting. Yes, there are a couple of other measures that would make a marginal difference. But if you&rs...

18

Recommended: “21st Century Limited”

Posted 9 years ago by Fred Frailey

Novelist Kevin Baker’s report on the present state of the American passenger train, in the July issue of Harper’s Magazine that goes on sale next week, begins thusly: “We start in darkness. After fighting our way through the dingy, low-ceilinged, crowded waiting room that serves as New York City’s current Pennsylvania Station, we pull out through a graffitied tunnel that follows one of the oldest roadbeds in America. Freight trains once clattered along open tracks here, s...

83

Help Mr. Big save the Auto Train

Posted 9 years ago by Fred Frailey

The alienation of Auto Train passengers continues unabated. It’s now the only long-distance train (other than the Cardinal, which has neither kitchen nor dining car) on which you cannot be served a grilled flat iron steak, accompanied by a baked potato. This is what Amtrak calls its “signature steak.” Now on the Auto Train you get a cheaper hunk of meat that’s been braised for hours to shed its shoe-leather toughness and then is plopped atop mashed potatoes, which are pro...

50

The tough new rules of oil by rail?

Posted 9 years ago by Fred Frailey

Railroads came to Washington this week to make the case at the White House against what could be tough new rules being drawn up by the U.S. Department of Transportation for handling crude oil. The proposals, which have not yet been made public, may involve slowing crude oil trains to a top speed of 30 mph, requiring such trains to never be left unattended, and ordering them equipped with electronically controlled pneumatic (ECP) brakes. The news service Politico revealed the June 10 meeting in ...

58

Why your next trip will induce heartburn

Posted 9 years ago by Fred Frailey

I’ve said before that any train I’m on can be as late as you like. I believe my exact words were “more train-riding pleasure for the same low price.” Well, forget that. I’ve changed my mind. Even idiots like me have their limit, and mine has been breached. Any train more than an hour and a half behind its schedule is a bummer to me. Unfortunately, present trends suggest I am going to be bummed out quite often in months to come. First, for me, there was the eastbou...

51

Joe Szabo's yada yada yada problem

Posted 9 years ago by Fred Frailey

Google invaded my turf of Washington, D.C., this week with its self-driving car. DC traffic is the ultimate test of automated driving. If Google’s sensor-topped creation can navigate the tortuous traffic of this town, it can succeed anywhere. Google’s Chris Urmson, director of this project, told Politico’s Jessica Meyers: “We still have lots of problems to solve. But thousands of situations on city streets that would have stumped us two years ago can now be navigated auto...

11

Freight cars fly two miles!

Posted 9 years ago by Fred Frailey

It’s just incredible, the power of a Midwest thunderstorm these days. Why, just this week storm winds were reportedly the cause of one BNSF Railway freight train being blown off the tracks at the east end of the Waynoka, Okla., yard and derailing another passing train as well. But we have a news bulletin that beats all others. Topeka, Kan., television station WIBW reports that strong storm winds picked up 52 empty freight cars from Union Pacific tracks and carried and scattered them over ...

25

Bouncing through The Great State

Posted 9 years ago by Fred Frailey

When last you heard from me, Mark the Amtrak red cap in Chicago had met my four-hours-late Lake Shore Limited and hustled me onto the Texas Eagle, which was being held for our tardy train. Also held were all the other westbound streamliners trains that afternoon. Good hustle! I was impressed. But what about the rest of my way to Texas? The Texas Eagle is almost unique among Amtrak trains, most of which are close to mirror images of trains established long before Amtrak came into being in 1971. ...

17

This is how it all ends

Posted 9 years ago by Fred Frailey

I left you with these questions: Would the Lake Shore Limited reach Chicago before the connectingTexas Eagle leaves, and if not, would the Eagle wait? We do get, more or less, a perfect shot from South Bend, "more or less" meaning we cross over at 45 mph between main tracks a lot, but the Chicago East and Chicago West dispatchers keep the Norfolk Southern trains out of our way. A perfect shot will get us to Union Station, I figure, at 1:45 p.m., which is also the Eagle's departure time. This ha...

2

Lake Shore Limited races the clock

Posted 9 years ago by Fred Frailey

When last you heard from me, the Lake Shore Limited had left Toledo more than two hours late, and the pregnant question was whether I would have gourmet pork belly for lunch at Blackbird or settle for a tuna sandwich from a Chicago Union Station newsstand. For pork belly, the train would need to get to Chicago by 11:45 a.m., two hours before departure of the Texas Eagle. As train 49 left Elkhart, it was clear to me we would need to run without any delay to make that 11:45 deadline. Could we? My...

10

Bad dreams and late trains

Posted 9 years ago by Fred Frailey

I had That Dream again last night. In That Dream, it is late in the school semester and I have not bothered attending the biology/geometry/chemistry class I had enrolled in. Now the final examination is coming up and I will not be able to answer a single question. Disaster looms. Panic and depression set in. Then the Lake Shore Limited goes over a rough turnout, I briefly awaken, and come back to reality. I will never have to take another school test as long as I live, I tell myself. I go back ...

27

Will Fred ever grow up?

Posted 9 years ago by Fred Frailey

I am a man in full. I am photographed with presidents. Corporate boards desire my input. Younger women steal glances at me as we pass. I know the secret formula for Classic Coke and possess Michael Ward’s cell phone number. Yet when it comes to a passenger train, I simply turn to putty, a 10-year-old kid again. Right now I am on high alert. Today is the day: my next adventure begins. &nb...

85

The know-nothings are in charge

Posted 9 years ago by Fred Frailey

Does anyone feel, as I do, that railroads have lost the message on crude oil by rail to the know-nothings and their best friends, the politicians? So far as I know, in the 150-year-plus history of railroads and crude oil, there has been but one truly horrible accident, last July’s explosion in Lac-Megantic, Que., that killed 47 people. The tragedy is almost incomprehensible in its terror and destructiveness. But this is also true: It came about by a chain of circumstances that would be alm...

12

Inside the house of dreams

Posted 9 years ago by Fred Frailey

Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 The last stop in my travels across the prairies with Tom Hoback was Alamosa, Colo., at the passenger car shop of Iowa Pacific Holdings. IPH operates nine U.S. short lines (unless I've lost count) and the Chicago-New Orleans Pullman Rail Journeys service on the rear of Amtrak's City of New Orleans. Most of the short lines have passenger operations, plus IPH is seeking to repl...

Foolishness disguised as journalism

Amtrak has stalled out, and here's why

A death in the family

The Joe Boardman-David Gunn summit

Outrages on the rails: The real story

Cuff notes* on a rainy day

Last-minute decisions (and the Dining Car From Hell)

Visionary railroading in 2014

What to do when you run over two women

The demise of crude by rail is greatly exaggerated

Master conductors - really?

Look out: CSX is in virgin territory

Why can't Bakken oil be made safer?

The passenger train as you know it is dying

Our railroads are a MESS

We have new Darwin Awards nominees

Why you may yet read by candlelight

Recommended: “21st Century Limited”

Help Mr. Big save the Auto Train

The tough new rules of oil by rail?

Why your next trip will induce heartburn

Joe Szabo's yada yada yada problem

Freight cars fly two miles!

Bouncing through The Great State

This is how it all ends

Lake Shore Limited races the clock

Bad dreams and late trains

Will Fred ever grow up?

The know-nothings are in charge

Inside the house of dreams

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