Second of two parts Part one of this report appeared Tuesday, Sept. 5 EFFINGHAM, Ill. —The latest round of tests investigating ways to ensure trains always activate track circuits — the process known as “shunt” — involves shunt-enhancing antennas mounted on both trucks of a state-owned locomotive in Amtrak service in California. Here’s how the […]
HOUSTON – Union Pacific and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency are seeking residents’ permission to conduct soil testing on their properties this month as part of the railroad’s ongoing effort to clean up contamination from the former Southern Pacific crosstie treatment plant in the Fifth Ward. The Houston Health Department independently conducted some additional soil […]
WASHINGTON — Five of the seven Class I railroads operating in the U.S. last year were revenue adequate in 2022, the Surface Transportation Board said today. Being revenue adequate means a railroads achieved a rate of return equal to or greater than the board’s calculation of the average cost of capital to the freight rail […]
I’m heartened to see Amtrak intends to explore a 200-mph Dallas-Houston passenger rail service in cooperation with Texas Central Partners. Having driven I-45 between the two megacities, I can vouch for its clear need and likely success. Not all of Amtrak’s plans have succeeded as envisioned, unfortunately. One, in particular, comes to mind: the short-lived […]
First of two parts EFFINGHAM, Ill, —What happens when electrical current connected with signal systems doesn’t reliably travel from one rail to another when a train passes? Dispatchers “lose” the train — it disappears from their screens — and warning lights don’t flash or gates don’t lower at highway crossings as the train approaches. The […]
Electro-Motive Division BL2 No. 52 On a picture perfect Saturday Sept. 2, 2023, the Hoosier Valley Railroad Museum’s refurbished Electro-Motive Division BL2 No. 52, made three round-trip runs from North Judson to English Lake, Ind. The museum’s mechanical department, led by Mechanic Travis Hunt, has worked on returning the locomotive to service for over two […]
ATLANTA — A “software defect” led to the computer system outage that disrupted Norfolk Southern operations on Monday, the railroad said in a follow-up report. In a statement today, the railroad said during routine maintenance by its data storage vendor, “a leading global technology provider,” this software defect created an error that affected both the […]
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – CSX Transportation says Berkshire & Eastern’s operation of Pan Am Southern, which began today, should moot the concerns that Norfolk Southern raised last month in a lawsuit alleging that CSX was hampering its access to New England. NS asked a Delaware court for an expedited preliminary injunction that would bar CSX and […]
WASHINGTON — The Association of American Railroads has filed a friend-of-the-court brief backing BNSF Railway in its appeal of the Surface Transportation Board’s decision ordering the railroad to haul more export coal from a Montana mine to tidewater in British Columbia. The brief, filed yesterday with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, […]
WASHINGTON – Federal regulators have put a hold on their final environmental assessment of Union Pacific’s proposed 6-mile branch to a new industrial park being built outside Phoenix. The Surface Transportation Board’s Office of Environmental Analysis, in a decision released on Thursday, said it was delaying a decision indefinitely due to the discovery of “significant […]
Pan Am Southern quietly wrapped up operations on Thursday. Shown is one of the final trains, EDBF, making a late-afternoon departure from the former Boston & Maine yard at East Deerfield, Mass., for to Bellows Falls, Vt. Effective today (Sept. 1, 2023), Pan Am Southern lines in Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont, New Hampshire, and New York […]
NEWARK, N.J. — NJ Transit engineers have voted overwhelmingly in favor of a strike, the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen has announced. The union said in a Thursday press release that 81% of those eligible to vote returned their ballots, and 100% of those ballots supported a strike authorization. The exact breakdown: 494 members […]
