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Ironically, PTC is installed on the section of track where the derailment took place but was not yet activated. (The track is owned by Sound Transit, a regional/municipal agency, the official name is Central Puget Sound Regional Transit Authority.) The reason why is that not all of the equipment (lo...

Thanks for the link, Amtrak7. Sounds like the equipment may have traveled through the old Erie Bergen Tunnel. Anyway, Conrail SA did a good job restoring service, especially given the snowy weather conditions on Saturday. The Age article is interesting, especially as to the cause of the mishap. Thou...

Looks like they got train service resumed this morning following Friday afternoon's derailment of the CSX freight train west of Union. They were busing between Newark and Cranford over the weekend. This is from the NJ Transit website: Dec 11, 2017 08:52:41 AM Update: Raritan Valley Line Service resu...

He loved the railroad. no doubt of that. I wasn't able to find an obit either but I was told by a former colleague of Phil's, he was laid to rest today at the Gates of Heaven Cemetery in Hawthorne New York, where Phil will be able to hear Metro-North trains rumbling by. I was also told that Phil had...

I don't think this has been posted anywhere else, but the person who began this thread, Philip Martin -- known to a generation of railroaders as 'Pots 'n Pans' -- just passed away. I heard about this just now. Apparently his funeral service was today. Phil Martin had an amazing 60 year career in the...

I know very little about air brakes or their use but I recall an earlier discussion in which a number of CSX locomotive engineers took part. They said CSX teaches new engineers that dynamics are for controlling speed, the air brakes are for stopping.

DIT engines headed to Cumberland normally are shopped engines and are not able to be used for any of a variety reasons. Cumberland is still one of CSX's major locomotive shops. That's a good point and, as railroaders on another forum pointed out, there could be any number of causes for the derailme...

mmi16 that's very interesting, thanks for posting that. Railway Age has reported that the train weight was 18,000+ tons. They also indicated that there was no rear end helper assigned, that of the five units on the head end, three were dead-in-tow, and that reportedly -- this has not been confirmed ...

Thanks that seems like a pretty good analysis.

Btw, I noticed that this Metro-North forum, which used to be very lively, has gone one week between posts. Hard to believe.

I wondered about that too but apparently NTSB is investigating. Link Not a major investigation but I think they will release a report at some point.

I found this description of Q388/Q389 on line at Train Orders dot com. Q388/389 were rather strange trains established late last summer [2016]. They were Selkirk to Chicago/Belt Railway of Chicago trains. But not direct via Buffalo and Willard but via Philly, Cumberland and Willard and BRC. And they...

What surprised me is, Hyndman PA is the east end of the Sand Patch grade. A 178-car train sounds pretty big to be operating in that territory. Does anyone know if they increased the train size since Hunter Harrison took over or was that already the norm?

What I found was, this is from the preliminary report modified June 22, 2017, the traffic signal was adjusted after the crash: The NYSDOT informed NTSB investigators after the [February 2015] crash that on May 1, 2015, the NYSDOT adjusted the traffic signal preemption at the Commerce Street and Taco...

The NTSB reportedly found another factor with the accident is a faulty traffic light system. A faulty traffic control system might have led vehicles to back up at a Metro-North crossing in Valhalla in February 2015, contributing to a crash that killed the driver of an SUV who had pulled onto the tra...

I looked at the Amtrak train status site for today. The three arriving trains at GCT were on-time (or within a few minutes of on-time). The first two departures have been on-time and the last one, 239, is expected to depart on-time in about twenty minutes from now. The GCT board lists the track assi...