North Carolina museum transports 10 cars to its property

BONSAL, N.C. – The North Carolina Railway Museum is orchestrating the 5-mile highway movement of 10 landlocked railroad cars — both passenger and freight — from a nuclear power plant site to its headquarters here. The cars were the subject of NCRM’s “Save the Ten” campaign, which successfully raised nearly $200,000, $50,000 of which came […]

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Bowing to pressure from DC, FRA revises Union Station plan

People standing in line in hallway of railroad station

WASHINGTON — Responding to citizen and District of Columbia criticism that its plan for redevelopment of Washington Union Station was too automobile-centric, the Federal Railroad Administration has revised its blueprint by eliminating a six-story, 1,575-space parking garage, according to the Washington Post. More than a year ago, D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser and other city […]

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U.S. rail traffic dips slightly in first week of May

WASHINGTON – For the week ended May 7, U.S. rail traffic registered 504,927 carloads and intermodal units, a 3.5% decline over the same period in 2021. Figures from the Association of American Railroads show the total number of carloads at 231,737, down 1.9% over the same week in 2021, while intermodal volume was 273,190 containers […]

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California governor, House Democrats locked in high speed rail dispute

drawing of high speed rail locomotive on tracks in California

SACRAMENTO, Calif. – California Gov. Gavin Newsom is deadlocked in a dispute with Democratic colleagues in the state House over the next steps in the future of the state’s $105 billion high speed rail project, according to CalMatters, an online, nonprofit news agency that covers public policy in the Golden State. The California High-Speed Rail […]

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Lake State buys first comfort cab locomotives

Freshly painted blue and grey locomotive in a rail yard.

Lake State Railway has recently acquired six SD70Ms to add to its all-EMD fleet of power. The Michigan-based railroad operates approximately 375 miles of track in the eastern half of the state. The six units were chosen from a group returned by Union Pacific to the lessor. These units had a solid reliability record on […]

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Wisconsin Great Northern resumes operations after long pandemic closure

orange dining car passing a farm

TREGO, Wis. — Wisconsin Great Northern Railroad opened its scenic bed and breakfast and dinner trains May 10, 2022, after being closed to passenger operations for 784 days due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The popular scenic train operates over two former Chicago & North Western Railway lines in Northwest Wisconsin, based out of Trego, just […]

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CN criticized for lack of French-speaking board members

Trains Magazine logo

OTTAWA, Ontario — Canadian Transport Minister Omar Alghabra has criticized Canadian National Railway Co. for maintaining an English-speaking-only board of directors in a bilingual nation where 7.9 million citizens – 22% of the population – speak French as their first language. “It’s unacceptable that the board of directors does not have a francophone representative on […]

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CP should have new merger data to STB well ahead of deadline, official says

Man in brown suit gesturing while speaking

KANSAS CITY — Canadian Pacific should file updated traffic data with the Surface Transportation Board pertaining to its planned merger with Kansas City Southern well ahead of a May 27 deadline, John Brooks, CP vice president and chief marketing officer, told the North American Rail Shippers conference on Wednesday. The STB requested updated baseline traffic […]

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Colorado Railroad Museum’s ‘Colorado Crossings’ event features operating steam locomotives, Galloping Geese

three galloping goose rail vehicles

GOLDEN, Colo. — The Colorado Railroad Museum is bringing back Denver’s largest and most colorful festival of operating trains on May 14-15, 2022. Called “Colorado Crossings: Intersections of History,” the event will feature two coal-fired narrow-gauge locomotives under steam plus three “Galloping Geese” in operation. These beloved self-propelled rail cars once carried mail over Lizard […]

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BNSF taking ‘aggressive measures’ to restore service, Farmer says

Train with double-stack container cars moves through S curve

KANSAS CITY — Service and labor issues are generally the defining issues for current public appearances by railroad officials, and so it was Tuesday when BNSF Railway CEO Katie Farmer spoke to the North American Rail Shippers conference. Less than two weeks after officials from BNSF and other Class I railroads were called to testify […]

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Secrecy issues dominate as Gulf Coast STB hearing continues: Analysis

Passenger train with theater car at rear stopped at station

WASHINGTON — Cross-examination of Jim Blair, Amtrak’s senior director of host railroads, consumed the full 8-hour, 28-minute session Monday as the Surface Transportation Board’s hearing on the effort to launch passenger service between New Orleans and Mobile, Ala., resumed after an almost three-week hiatus. Blair was questioned by lawyers from Norfolk Southern, CSX Transportation, and […]

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SceniKing announces two new backdrops for water scenes

scenic landscape for layout

Backdrops for water scenes Scale: HO (1:87.1) Price: Water Under the Bridge (HJ44), $26.95; Down by the River (HS48), $41.95 Manufacturer: BPH Enterprises, 4 Palmer Dr., Barrie, ON, Canada L4M 6V9, 705-739-4878, sceniking.com Water Under the Bridge features: Junior Roll Out line Measures 72” x 8” Extendable at either end through more than nine different […]

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