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12

Mainline and Main Street

Posted 6 days ago by George Hamlin

In times past, railroads were a very integral part of life in much of the United States. When people traveled, particularly for longer distances, they took the train. Mail was sent and received using the railroad system; for larger shipments, there also was the once-ubiquitous Railway Express. Freight of all kinds arrived in towns and cities as a part of the production-to-user distribution cycle, often in individual carloads, or even the predecessor of today’s LTL (le...

5

The public-image value of special trains

Posted 8 days ago by Malcolm Kenton

A friend in South Carolina on April 3 chased Norfolk Southern’s business car special bound to Augusta, Ga. for the Master’s tournament for about 300 miles. Along the way, he encountered and conversed with others who had also pulled over at grade crossings to photograph the train. He remarked to me that, based on their conversations, he would categorize almost none of these people as dyed-in-the-wool railfans. Some told him they just happened to be stopped at a grade crossing and saw ...

66

Flawed federal policy, plus a stingy state, threaten Hoosier State

Posted 15 days ago by Malcolm Kenton

Amtrak announced today that it will suspend the four-times-weekly Chicago-Indianapolis Hoosier State effective July 1, unless grassroots passenger advocates in Indiana are successful in overriding their miserly governor’s wishes and getting $3 million added to next fiscal year’s state budget. This would mark the first Amtrak ‘train-off’ in 14 years and the first unintended casualty of Section 209 of the 2008 Passenger Rail Investment & Improvement Act (PRIIA). This ab...

12

Big Boy and “the 30 day miracle”

Posted 19 days ago by Justin Franz

The clock is ticking. As I write this, Union Pacific Big Boy No. 4014 is scheduled to depart Cheyenne, Wyo., in just four weeks. One of the most watched steam locomotive restorations in a generation is coming down to the wire and railroad enthusiasts, steam fans and history buffs are waiting with bated breath to see if it can be done. Although there have been few images out of Cheyenne in recent weeks, I imagine the UP steam shop is a busy place these days. Not unlike a roundhouse in Baltimor...

9

Nebraska: Enjoy the Drive!

Posted 20 days ago by Dave Crosby

Nebraska: Enjoy the Drive In May, 2019 the railroad world will turn its attention to Northern Utah and the 150th anniversary of the driving of the Golden Spike. For thousands, the promise of a Union Pacific Big Boy in steam and a once in a life time celebration of our nation’s history is enough to encourage the making of travel plans far in advance of any official schedule of events. Most any true road trip has a component known as “the drive”. For many East Coast...

9

Traveling in Style

Posted 22 days ago by George Hamlin

It won’t be easy to see, but there is an individual in silhouette visible in the rearmost window in this “PV” (Private Varnish) bringing up the markers of Amtrak’s northbound Silver Meteor as it crosses Neabsco Creek in northern Virginia on CSX’s former RF&P (Richmond, Fredericksburg & Potomac) line “linking north and south” between Washington, DC and Richmond, Virginia. (Clicking on the picture will enlarge it, enabling a better view.)...

2

Social media: A tool for branding, legitimacy in railway preservation

Posted 28 days ago by Chase Gunnoe

Crowd funding platforms and social media make it easy to solicit donations, but railway preservation groups say it’s all about building brand legitimacy and engaging new audiences that adds value to nonprofit preservation initiatives. I recently reached out to some of the more socially active railway preservation groups to understand how social media plays a role in their business models as organizations of all sectors turn to social media for financial support. “We use social med...

2

Amtrak’s Workhorses

Posted 29 days ago by Justin Franz

Cram 800 to 1,000 additional horses and 400 more gallons of fuel into a frame whose height is 10 inches lower than most diesel-electric passenger locomotives. Design a 100-mph machine with a carbody capable of 150-mph speed that must also operate over track of varying quality and with plenty of highway grade crossings. Significantly increase fuel efficiency and reduce polluting emissions. Develop a variation that can operate off 650-volt D.C. third-rail power through New York's tunnels. Explore ...

14

Continuity and Change*

Posted one month ago by George Hamlin

Railroads have had a significant presence in the U.S. since the middle of the nineteenth century, both physically and via their role in the nation’s economy. As a result, evidence of the past is often present in many cases as we look at the contemporary scene. This holds true for their geographic presence, in terms of right-of-way, in many cases and track gauge, at least once the wholesale move to ‘standard’ gauge, in the 1880s, was accomplished (and yes, there will a...

37

Trust Me, This Will End Better than it Looks Now

Posted one month ago by George Hamlin

When I took this photo on July 24, 1976, I was glad to get a shot of a locomotive that had been repainted into what we would come to know as Conrail’s “Dress Blue” paint scheme. While Conrail had been around officially a little over three months, having commenced operations on April 1, 1976, I didn’t live close to main lines where Conrail was operating, and had only a modest amount of “spare” time to head over to places in New Jersey where such...

11

Railroading’s Other Sesquicentennial

Posted one month ago by Justin Franz

In a few short months, the railroad world will be focused on a lonely stretch of desert in Utah to celebrate 150 years of transcontinental railroading. There will be speeches and fireworks and events that those lucky enough to attend are sure to remember for a lifetime. But the 150th anniversary of the completion of the First Transcontinental Railroad is not the only sesquicentennial worth celebrating in 2019. This year, marks 150 years of operation for New Hampshire’s “Railway to ...

15

A Pair of Anachronisms

Posted 2 months ago by George Hamlin

Back in the woods at Cherry Run, West Virginia, on May 26, 2000, CSX local D721 is approaching Miller Tower, on the former Baltimore & Ohio mainline between Washington, DC and Cumberland, Maryland. It’s being led by non-powered Road Slug 2208, built originally as a GP30 in December 1962 for the B&O, so it’s likely that this is familiar territory for this unit. While it retains the overall, and distinctive, contours of the GP30, the lack of radiator fans on t...

22

Private railcars and Amtrak: a clearer picture

Posted 2 months ago by Malcolm Kenton

Amtrak’s Office of the Inspector General released a report today recommending ways that the national passenger carrier could improve safety, better manage costs and increase revenue associated with the haulage of privately-owned railcars. A key takeway is that, just as Amtrak’s flawed accounting system (see Bob Johnston’s report in the January 2019 issue of Trains or this August 2018 Rail Passengers Association paper) keeps it from knowing the actual costs or profit/loss of its...

8

Short-Notice Celebration

Posted 2 months ago by George Hamlin

I wasn’t aware of the event until I saw an announcement of it in a social media post on the internet. January 16, 2019 was going to be the fiftieth anniversary of the first run of the Metroliners, and Scott Spencer, at AmeriStarRail, based in Wilmington, Delaware had arranged a series of events in Philadelphia and New York City to celebrate the anniversary. Since I saw the announcement on January 14, and the events were going to be on the 16th, a quick go/no-go decision was req...

48

A wartime lesson in infrastructure resiliency

Posted 2 months ago by Malcolm Kenton

Sometimes, unfortunately, it takes an emergency to compel those in charge to acknowledge chokepoints and vulnerabilities in America’s infrastructure, particularly when it comes to railroads. One case in point is the Long Bridge, built across the Potomac River in 1904 (though bridges existed at that location since a century before that) to connect Washington, D.C. with Virginia. The two-track formerly electrified span, now owned by CSX, is the easternmost rail crossing of this major river a...

28

A Continuing Conversation

Posted 3 months ago by George Hamlin

As of October 17, 1971, when this shot of what is now Amtrak’s “Empire Builder” was made at Morton Grove, Illinois, the “Builder” had been moved to the Milwaukee Road east of the Twin Cities by Amtrak, away from its classic/heritage routing on the Burlington, and more recently, the Burlington Northern down the Mississippi (“Where Nature Smiles 300 Miles”). But, at least the “Builder” had been ‘saved’ by Amtrak. Not so, howeve...

32

Big Bend by train in mid-December

Posted 3 months ago by Malcolm Kenton

As President Trump’s partial federal government shutdown drags on and saddening stories of damage being done to National Parks in the absence of the civil servants who normally protect them and keep them clean blanket the news, I think back on a train-to-park trip I took in mid-December just before the shutdown began. It is not one of the Amtrak-accessible National Parks that is typically marketed with tour packages, such as Glacier or the Grand Canyon, but it is one that a few fellow trai...

9

An appointment with No. 9

Posted 3 months ago by Justin Franz

Even though my marriage is just six months old, I’ve learned a few things to help keep both parties happy. One of them is not subjecting my wife to too much time trackside. That’s not to say she will protest an unplanned stop when we happen to see a train on a scenic Sunday drive, but I recognize that railroad photography is not everyone’s idea of a good time. Of course, there are exceptions to every rule. In fact, one of those instances arose a few weeks back when we were ho...

9

Requiem for Southern 722?

Posted 3 months ago by David Lester

The past several years have been a boon for steam locomotive restoration, and the future looks promising as well. This year, we expect to see the restoration of Union Pacific 4-8-8-4 “Big Boy” 4014 completed, and its inaugural run to Ogden, Utah as part of the 150th-anniversary celebration of the completion of the transcontinental railroad in 1869. That Union Pacific devoted the time, human resources, and money for this event is nothing short of phenomenal. ...

34

Nationwide Nomenclature

Posted 3 months ago by George Hamlin

Now that CSX and Norfolk Southern have digested Conrail thoroughly, and there are two large railroads in both the east and west, it’s probably time to consider what many consider to be likely in U.S. railroading’s future: two transcontinental mega-systems. The key questions, of course, are who will be paired with whom, and what will the resulting entities be called? And in addition, now that we are in 2019, celebrating the one hundred fiftieth anniversary of the...

35

Will 2019 bring a rail policy breakthrough?

Posted 3 months ago by Malcolm Kenton

My biggest hope for American railroading in the coming year is something I’ve been holding out for ever since I became a railroad and rail passenger advocate. Perhaps, however, the current moment adds urgency to the need, and the political zeitgeist may open the door ever so slightly for it. What’s needed is a public policy breakthrough. Over the past nearly five decades, Congress has managed to achieve a fairly broad consensus to provide just enough resources to sustain a skel...

3

Looking back on 2018

Posted 4 months ago by Justin Franz

If you’re a regular reader of Trains News Wire, you’ll note that this week we’ve been listing some of the top 10 stories of 2018. I had a hand in writing one of those stories, one of the many “year in review” pieces I’ve been working on for Trains and for the newspaper I work for here in Montana. These annual look backs are popular for a number of reasons, although the primary one is that the last few weeks of the year are some of the slowest when it comes t...

26

Amtrak a success? Depends how you look at it

Posted 4 months ago by Malcolm Kenton

Amtrak Senior Executive Vice President Stephen Gardner wrote a rare online op-ed column that trade publication Railway Age ran yesterday. It responds to dozens of recent op-eds about his company, most of which maintain that Amtrak is headed in the wrong direction, mainly in the areas of reliability and customer experience. In rebuttal, Gardner appears to cherry-pick examples of failure in alternatives to the Amtrak model without bothering to look into other factors that may have hampered their p...

12

Rails run deep through America’s musical traditions

Posted 4 months ago by Malcolm Kenton

Over the course of a train trip, if I’m not reading, working on my laptop or iPad, or socializing with fellow passengers, I almost invariably have my headphones on. I become absorbed in the synchronous sensual experience derived uniquely from the combination of wheels rolling underfoot, ever-changing landscapes out the window and music with a matching beat. I like to describe this zone as my happy place (or at least one of them). The music I groove to on train rides derives largely from th...

36

Analyzing Amtrak

Posted 4 months ago by George Hamlin

In his article in TRAINS’ January 2019 issue (“Amtrak’s Money Mystery”), Bob Johnston points out, correctly, in my opinion, that “The expense burden has become Amtrak’s justification for systemwide cost cutting.” This, as he discusses near the end of the article, also creates the problem that if a train is eliminated for cost reasons, system overhead costs will be spread over the remaining runs, thereby increasing the costs of the trains that w...

7

Ely on the mind

Posted 4 months ago by Justin Franz

It’s early December and I really should be getting a jump on my Christmas shopping (actually, it probably should already be done), but instead I’ve been looking at hotel rooms and pricing rental cars for northern Nevada in February. The frigid desert of Nevada in February probably doesn’t top a lot of people’s list for ideal winter vacations. Unless of course you’re into time travel. Every February, the Nevada Northern Railway turns back the clock with a winter ph...

12

One of Europe’s last boat trains offers enjoyable journey

Posted 4 months ago by Malcolm Kenton

The concept of rolling a passenger train onto a boat for a stretch of its journey that crosses a sizable body of water is one that has steady fallen out of favor over time. North America once had a handful of them, crossing waterways from the Hudson River to the Chesapeake Bay to the Great Lakes to the San Francisco Bay. Most of these met their demise along with the general decline of passenger trains, fueled by an imbalanced public policy regime that subsidized roads and taxed railroads. ...

10

Good Things, in a Small Place

Posted 4 months ago by George Hamlin

Justin Franz’s post on November 26, about the railroad museum in Conrad, Montana (http://cs.trains.com/trn/b/observation-tower/archive/2018/11/26/tiny-donations-make-the-difference.aspx), included this statement: “There are dozens of little museums like the one in Conrad all across America and each one preserves something special, something worth saving,” I concur, heartily, and offer an example closer to me, specifically the former Norfolk & Western statio...

12

What GM Tells Us

Posted 4 months ago by John Hankey

The recent moves by General Motors to close U.S. manufacturing plants and eliminate 14,000 craft and salaried jobs comes as no surprise. There will be the inevitable back-and-forth in our current politically-charged environment. It will have a minor effect on railroad traffic patterns. But I think a little historical perspective is in order. GM’s decision (as part of a global reinvention of the company following the 2008 recession) is frank acknowledgement that its future will be based on...

3

Tiny donations make the difference

Posted 4 months ago by Justin Franz

Last August, I found myself in the small town of Conrad, Montana. I was spending the weekend visiting my in-laws in nearby Great Falls and had escaped for a morning of railfanning along BNSF Railway’s Great Falls Subdivision. When I pulled into Conrad, I beelined it for the old Great Northern Railway depot in the middle of town in hopes of using it as a prop in a photo of the northbound freight I was chasing. Like many former GN structures in Montana, the Conrad depot was built to look l...

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