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Thanks. It's a good map. Many maps are so dumbed down and over-simplified that only a Congresscritter could love them. Others show roads in such detail we can't make out the rail lines. This one emphasizes the NEC rail line and all the station names, without any road clutter. Go to http://www.opens...

More or less, a train has more ability to slow down if its wheels are still rolling at the very limit of their adhesion (before they break loose and skid), than it does for them to skid. The rolling friction coefficient limit of steel on steel (or any material on any other material) is higher than ...

On some forum or other, I read that the maximum throughput (in, say, trains per hour or passengers per hour) was reached at something like 40 miles per hour. ... I was surprised at this, so I put together a rather simple-minded mathematical model. ... That is, the maximum transport is reached when ...

The article does not say that BNSF is making any acquisitions. It also does not say that Berkshire Hathaway is making any acquisitions. All it says is that Berkshire Hathaway has been buying railroads and railroad stocks over the past few years, and oh, by the way, here are two shortline railroad st...

Apparently, Warren Buffett suggested to BNSF that they should stop hedging diesel: "Well, when we buy the Burlington Northern, they're hedging diesel fuel. Now what I tell them is I wouldn't do it if I were them, but it's entirely up to them ... I tell them: if they really don't want diesel fue...

New Jersey Transit has finally released the GTFS files to any developer who registers. That only took two years ... http://www.njtransit.com/tm/tm_servlet.srv?hdnPageAction=PressReleaseTo&PRESS_RELEASE_ID=2602 May 12, 2010 NJT-10-027 NEWARK, NJ — NJ TRANSIT today announced the launch of a new De...

No, it was not at all customary to tip 25% of the sleeper fare. Perhaps you read something that referred to a "quarter" and assumed that it meant a quarter of the fare. More likely, it referred to the US coin that's more than a dime, less than a half-dollar. In the 1910s, Alex Haley's (aut...

In every news article about the VRE contract, one gets the impression that Amtrak and VRE are barely on speaking terms. This was true even back in December, and it seems to be as true as ever. As for the seniority -- what's happening to the Veolia employees on Metrolink? Most of them were ex-Amtrak,...

Most of the new-build system in the US over the past twenty years has been proof-of-payment. It's very simple: once you've hired the conductors to check tickets, you'll have a hard time getting rid of them. Some have succeeded (Caltrain), but most have stuck with the system that they already had. If...

The Mennonites are a large Amtrak demographic because they do not fly on airplanes. But many (most?) of them do not use telephones either, much less computers. No, the German-version Amtrak.com is there for German tourists. They do get six weeks of government-guaranteed vacation time, after all. If ...

Private ownership of rights-of-way seems to be a bad idea in the long run. Private turnpikes and toll bridges were eventually eliminated almost universally; private railway tracks, except on industrial sites, have been eliminated from most countries in the world. Depends on what you mean by "u...

I thought it was quite clear from reading the article that the passengers (at least the ones that were interviewed) were being very reasonable. The lack of communication is the real problem. Search the forum -- it happens every time. You can generate an enormous amount of goodwill by talking to peop...

The stranded Capitol Limited made it into an article in the New York Times through cellphone interviews. A refreshingly-factual article, without sensationalizing. Some choice quotes: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/07/us/07train.html A Wicked Storm, and a Train Trip Interrupted By LIZ ROBBINS Publish...

VRE surely has numbers for passenger off/ons at each station (though these don't seem to be publicly available?). Of course, having to transfer trains will change the dynamics somewhat.

What was the lawsuit?

Ironically, if these managers are truly hated by the rank-and-file, then they've already solved one problem for Keolis. Keolis is required to offer VRE positions to the Amtrak employees who are currently holding them.