CPKC orders new power from Wabtec

red, yellow, and black locomotive on track

CPKC will receive some much-needed motive power help starting next year in the form of a 170-unit order of new locomotives from Wabtec. The railroad has been heavily spending on capacity work across its combined system to support new traffic and motive power has been in short supply to move tonnage across its network. The […]

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Kansas awards $13 million for rail projects

Woman and two men in high-visibility safety vests with locomotive in background

TOPEKA, Kan. — Fourteen rail projects in Kansas will receive $13 million in funding from the state Department of Transportation’s Rail Service Improvement Program, Gov. Laura Kelly announced Wednesday (Dec. 18). The projects were selected from 22 applications for projects with a total cost of more than $33 million. Projects require a 30% match from […]

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Weekly U.S. rail traffic continues to show gains

Weekly table showing U.S. carload rail traffic by commodity type and overall intermodal volume

WASHINGTON — U.S. weekly rail traffic remains up as the year winds down. Figures for the week ending Dec. 14 saw U.S. railroads move 526,166 carloads and intermodal units, a 4.8% increase over the same week in 2023, according to statistics from the Association of American Railroads. Those figures include 228,400 carloads, down 2.4% from […]

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Five mind-blowing things no longer found on passenger trains

Man getting a hair cut aboard a Union Pacific passenger train.

For many of us today, Amtrak has been the only inter-city passenger railroad. While the six Class I railroads can find passenger trains in component railroads, only the Union Pacific has a direct corporate lineage to passenger service. Long gone is the competition between railroads to provide a better passenger train experience. Also, in the […]

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Rail advocacy group GoRail launches essay contest

Logo of GoRail's Rail Champions campaign

WASHINGTON — GoRail, an advocacy group linking the rail industry with local leaders and the public in support of freight rail transportation, has announced a national essay contest for entrants to share how freight rail impacts their communities as part of its Rail Champions initiative. The 300- to 600-word essays, responding to the prompt “I’m […]

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Operation Toy Train sets record for toy donations

Collage of photos showing toy donation totals

Operation Toy Train, the annual series of train trips to collect toys for the Marine Corps Toys for Tots Foundation, set records for toys collected and toys collected in a day, the organization has announced. The expanded operation — with collection efforts on 10 railroads in five states, covering 52 stops in 48 cities — […]

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Eye for detail

A worn wooden railroad crossing warning sign.

Sometimes successful photography depends on cultivating an eye for detail. There are train chasing days where the action seems almost endless. One train whips by only to be followed by another. Nirvana. Almost. There are also days when the weather is not cooperating. The sun is consistently in the wrong spot and as you look […]

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High-horsepower, standard-cab road locomotives become rare

Black locomotives on freight train

High-horsepower, six-axle road locomotives are generally regarded to be units making between 3,800 to 4,400 hp. Over the last four decades the horsepower output has steadily grown to the high end of this range for the majority of the North American locomotives built. When this threshold was first reached with EMDs SD60 at 3,800 hp […]

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