MONTREAL — Canadian National Railway is experiencing a systemwide computer network failure affecting operations of GO Transit and VIA Rail Canada, as well as CN’s customer service. The railroad said in a post on Facebook this afternoon (Tuesday, Oct. 3) that it was experiencing “an internet connectivity and Electronic Data Interchange issue.” GO and VIA […]
WASHINGTON — Amtrak’s Office of Inspector General today issued a report highly critical of a manufacturing process that has led to defects preventing Amtrak from accepting any of the 12 of 28 New Acela trainsets and 22 of 28 café cars already produced at Alstom’s Hornell, N.Y., facility. The 38-page report contains redactions of monetary […]
WASHINGTON – The CSX Transportation carman who was struck and killed by a pair of locomotives in Walbridge Yard on Sept. 17 was walking from his truck to line and lock a switch at the time of the accident, the National Transportation Board said today in its preliminary report. Visibility was clear at the time […]
A cut of cars ran away downgrade on BNSF Railway’s Slaton Subdivision in the Texas Panhandle on Sunday morning and collided with the lead locomotive of a westbound train, demolishing its cab. The crew was warned ahead of time and was able to move to safety. Images online showed a flatcar carrying steel pipe crashed […]
CHICAGO – Union Pacific violated federal law when it terminated conductors and locomotive engineers on the basis of perceived disability, used unlawful qualification standards to screen out individuals with disabilities, and subjected the employees to unlawful medical examinations and inquiries, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission claims in a lawsuit filed against the railroad on Monday. […]
FORT WORTH, Texas – BNSF Railway has opened two new sections of main line trackage on the Southern Transcon: A third main track on the Needles Subdivision in California and a second main track on the Emporia Subdivision in Kansas. Last week BNSF opened an additional 8-mile segment of the third main between Homer and […]
How to make ‘good enough’ better: The N scale shipping house shown here isn’t finished, but I want to make a point about the roof, namely the diamond-pattern shingles. They were made from laser-cut paper by GC Laser and laid one row at a time. That was a modeling decision I ordinarily wouldn’t make because […]
WASHINGTON – The Surface Transportation Board has extended by 15 days the comment period for its proposed reciprocal switching rule. The Association of American Railroads had sought a 90-day extension for comment on the rule, officially dubbed Reciprocal Switching for Inadequate Service. The rule, proposed last month, would provide rail customers with access to a […]
INDIANAPOLIS — The Iowa Traction Railway has received the inaugural “Outstanding Railroad Historic Preservation Award,” presented Monday at the opening day of Railway Interchange by the National Railway Historical Society in conjunction with the magazines Railway Age and Railway Track & Structures. The award honors a North American common-carrier railroad for a historically significant preservation […]
WASHINGTON – Federal regulators have issued a 626-page draft environmental assessment for Savage Tooele Railroad’s proposed 11-mile Utah spur project. The Surface Transportation Board’s Office of Environmental Analysis will accept public comment on the draft report through Oct. 30. Savage Tooele proposes connecting the Lakeview Business Park in Grantsville, Utah, with Union Pacific’s Shafter Subdivision […]
WASHINGTON – The Federal Railroad Administration issued two safety advisories last week: One covering crossing gates and another regarding the operation of track maintenance machines. The grade crossing advisory notes that crossing gates attached using a king pin system could fail suddenly. King pin assemblies came into use in the early 1990s as railroads shifted […]
DELTA, British Columbia — The British Columbia government has provided environmental clearance for expansion of the container port at Roberts Bank, B.C., the Canadian Press reports, saying it could not prohibit the project from going forward in light of earlier federal approval. The C$3.5 billion Roberts Bank Terminal 2 project was approved by the Canadian […]
