Search

I just took a quick look on Historic Aerials at some old topo maps of the area, and the trail right-of-way is definitely not an old railbed. The Wisconsin Central was west of the river, and the trail itself is within the river's flood plain, to the point that parts of the trail are sometimes closed ...

The EMD AB6, of which two were built (both for the Rock Island), was another mutant E-unit. I only saw them in operation for a few years at the end of their service, long after they had been refitted for commuter service.

http://www.northeast.railfan.net/images/tr_ri751.jpg

There were some plants in West Pullman near the Racine stop on the IC Blue Island branch, but I'm not sure if they were actually owned by Pullman. One was Borg Warner in later years. At the end, I recall it being Ingersoll-Rand. At any rate, it was demolished, and it is now the site of a solar phot...

Vakharn wrote: ↑Wed Jun 05, 2019 9:44 pm Full video of Rock Springs to Evanston starting before dawn:

I guess it would need to be "double" catenary if you're not running on rails. Never thought of it. I should almost hand in my EE degree. Indeed, trolleybuses have been around for a very long time, with double trolley poles for the two wires. Chicago had some such routes, but eventually to...

Speaking strictly as a passenger, big festivals were always interesting in a "may you live in interesting times" sense. I remember coming home from the Independence Day fireworks and seeing one obnoxious drunk, after realizing he was on the wrong train, get up and pull the emergency brake ...

gprimr1 wrote: ↑Thu Jun 06, 2019 11:29 pm HTTPS is a HIGH priority.

Wasn't the old IC NYC James Whitcomb Riley route the fastest to Indy from Chi? Much of that trackage (at least, Kankakee-Lafayette) is now in the hands of short line operator Kankakee, Beaverville and Southern. It might take quite a bit of work to get it back into shape for passenger service, espec...

I occasionally see CSX running trains with DPU on Metra/Rock Island tracks, on their way to or from the New Rock Subdivision. Normally, though, the extra unit is at the very rear of the train. Sometimes, there will be a Geep idling away at the back instead of a DPU, for switching purposes, replacing...

I've occasionally seen unit ethanol trains roll by with tank cars marked as AAR ST-464, rather than the usual DOT 111 cars that carry a wide variety of products. A quick search on Google turned up absolutely no information. Are these a brand-new design meant to replace the 111?

That's the first time I've seen a stinger in use. Even though it's designed for that very purpose, it still looks scary as hell.

I'm not too keen on the workers stepping on railheads, though.

Did you ever ride the L in the 80's? The operators were trained to mumble. It was impossible to understand them, I think there was a contest between operators to mumble the most. "MANATANANNNANA-HAI, HHHHWATCHASTEP!!!!" And if it wasn't the operator mumbling, it was the snap-crackle-pop a...

When I was in grade school in the 1970s, the school library had a book, simply titled Monorails , that covered this line and a wide variety of other monorail systems that had been built or proposed. Your own article goes into far greater detail than the book did. There were some truly bizarre system...

NRK, Norway's national broadcaster, filmed the descent from Myrdal on the Flåmsbana from a camera mounted on the front of the lead loco: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFqYZJWVTto" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; An NSB engineer who has put up a variety of cab videos filmed ...

Aw, I thought they were experimenting with the revival of slip coaches.