Across the country, the stories play out simultaneously on a weekday morning: Two businessmen headed for the 8:03 Boston-bound Acela Express dive into the crowd at New York’s Penn Station; a cluster of Purdue University students shuffles down the platform at Lafayette, Ind., for a ride on the Hoosier State to Chicago; and a conductor […]
Trains Magazine looks at passenger trains per day across the United States in its May 2010 issue. Our “Map of the Month” compares today’s train volumes with those Amtrak was running on its first day of operation, May 1, 1971, and what was running the day before. Check out the May issue and see which […]
NEW YORK — Amtrak will replace modified café cars on its Chicago-New York/Boston Lake Shore Limited with “Heritage” dining cars, beginning with westbound train No. 49 today, Dec. 14. The cars, operating to and from New York, feature booth-style seating, large picture windows, and modern cooking equipment, and an expanded menu will result. “Putting dining […]
At Martinez, Calif., an Amtrak passenger rolls her wheelchair onto a built-in lift on one of the California-owned passenger cars used by Amtrak’s Bay Area corridor trains (San Joaquin and the Capitol Corridor). Bob Johnston In the January 2010 issue of Trains Magazine, Bob Johnston reports on Amtrak’s efforts to improve accessibility at train stations […]
A Norfolk Southern freight prepares to diverge from Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor onto NS track at Newport, Del., while Amtrak’s Vermonter passes, on Aug. 26, 2008. The NS freight is bound for the “Shellpot Secondary” and Edgemoor Yard in Wilmington, and has been riding the Corridor from Perryville, Md. […]
Daniel Malzhan and Tom Douglas put together new dining car recipes in Amtrak’s Wilmington, Del., test kitchen. All photos: Bob Johnston Amtrak is rolling out new menu items for long-distance dining car patrons and first-class Acela Express passengers. Trains magazine brings you the details behind the new offerings and what riders can expect in the […]
Q Lately I have noticed that many freight cars, including tank cars, boxcars, and hoppers, have five to seven vertical reflective strips on their sides. What’s the deal? — Frank C. Darling Jr., Wolcott, N.Y. A The objective is better nighttime visibility. In January 2005, the Federal Railroad Administration issued “The Final Rule on Reflectorization […]
NEW YORK – Dining on Amtrak trains is sometimes wonderful and sometimes it’s awful. However, according to the New York Times Magazine, one Amtrak food item is winning universal praise: bratwurst. The hickory-smoked pork sausage is seasoned with onion, garlic, and spices and isn’t emulsified like many other brats, so “you get more meat flavor,” […]
Even before he joined Amtrak as a locomotive engineer in 1986, Doug Riddell had been operating the corporation’s passenger trains under contract as a Seaboard Coast Line engineer, and had been photographing their colorful locomotives and consists in and around his native Virginia since Amtrak’s inception in 1971. Here we present some of his favorite […]
As Don Sims explained in the August 2003 issue of TRAINS Magazine, Beaumont Hill is a railroader’s term, taken from the small town of Beaumont, Calif., very near the 2591-foot summit crest of the former Southern Pacific Sunset Route linking Los Angeles and New Orleans. While much has changed from author Sims’ account of 1950s […]
If you want to know railroads, you’ve got to know Chicago. And Trains Magazine takes you there in its July 2003 Special Issue. You’ll see how 500 freight trains a day thread their way through the city, check in at the 30 active interlocking towers, pay homage to the city’s six great passenger stations, and […]
A westbound CSX freight approaches the diamond at Palmer, Mass., in February of 2000. James B. Winters Palmer, Mass., is one of two New England hot spots profiled in Kalmbach’s Guide to North American Railroad Hot Spots by TRAINS Senior Editor J. David Ingles. Read below: DescriptionGrade-level crossing of CSX’s single-track Boston Subdivision (former Conrail […]
