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Amtrak's economizing in removing the turnout and stub track at "Chase" was NOT the cause of the accident. RIcky Gates was. If there was another contributor, it was FRA, that permitted Conrail to operate diesels on the NEC with cab signals but without enforcement (which all the freight elec...

Since Mr. Norman has resuscitated this thread, and since the renewal of cities is an interest of mine (please don't assume, from my earlier negative comments about Detroit, that I'm somehow "anti-city), I'll offer a few more comments. Notwithstanding Mr. ne plus ultra's swipes at me, I've actua...

Also, check the Reading & Northern Web site. They are running several diesel-hauled trips in October, including some from Port Clinton on the former Reading to Jim Thorpe on the former CNJ, via the former Reading main, the CNJ Panther Valley Branch, and Nesquehoning Junction. These should be nic...

It's interesting to poke around the Delair neighborhood where the connection used to be. The houses look to have been constructed just a few years after the track was removed, and there are still some substantial red sandstone retaining walls to be see here and there in the housing development. I wo...

This sort of comment comes up occasionally in Congressional hearings, largely as a result of staff being uninformed about what AAR does. AAR provides various services to member railroads, including interline settlements of per diem payments and rate divisions and payments for repairs to "foreig...

Well, there are lots of issues here, but let me try to summarize briefly my thoughts on the impact of the Panama Canal expansion. 1) There has already been some shift of lower-value cargoes to all-water routing (either Panama or Suez) between the Far East and the US East Coast 2) Higher-value cargoe...

Well, insurance issues may account for some of the Amtrak contract losses, but there are other factors at work. A friend of mine was involved in the bidding by Mass Bay Commuter Rail for the MBTA contract several years ago (the one the unions managed to stop from being awarded). He told me that Amtr...

Rode Boca to Miami today, and our equipment southbound was a three-car set of the Colorado Railcar DMUs. Very comfortable equipment, with nice seats, and very tall. It was odd to look down at the roofs of the Bombardier cars. In the yard at Hialeah was a single Rotem cab car, still sitting the same ...

Rode Tri-Rail from Boca to Miami 79th Street yesterday. We bought paper tickets since we were only making a round trip. Yes, the phase-in of the new fare media makes things a bit cumbersome. The paper ticket looks just like the old Tri-Rail tickets but without the magnetic stripe. When you get to Mi...

Rode Tri-Rail from Boca Raton to Miami yesterday. I was also surprised by the progress that's been made on the Miami Intermodal Center extension. We got on Metrorail at 79th Street, and they were single tracking between Northside and Earlington Heights. I wondered why, and when we got to the future ...

There is another part to this story. A marble quarry run by a Swiss company called Omya is about three miles east of the VRS main, between Rutland and Middlebury. They ship 177 truckloads of marble a day to a processing plant that makes calcium carbonate. The number of trucks is capped at that numbe...

To get back to the connection at Petersburg and Mr. Norman's comment -- the connection used by the "Hilltopper" was actually a pre-existing piece of track, out of service (except perhaps for occasional freight moves) since through cars from ACL to N&W stopped running in the late 1960s....

I hi-railed this line twice, in 1998 and 1999, in preparation for its transfer from CSX to the State of WV. It's a fantastic piece of railroad, although I'd counsel that you should wait until trains are running again to Spruce and Big Cut. There are no grade crossings on the line between MP 39 at Be...

Trucks for EMU rapid transit cars weigh from 5,000 to 10,000 lbs. each, depending on design. NYCTA "blacksmith specials" are on the heavy end. Metrorail trucks are lighter. Lower unsprung mass (weight of truck excluding car body) means the truck is easier on the track. Of interest, 10 of t...

On the weekends, your better bet is to take the shuttle from your hotel to the airport. Airport Line service runs every 30 minutes, and weekend service on the line to Marcus Hook/Wilimington can be pretty thin. Things to do in Philly: NON-RAILFAN 1) Get off the airport train at Market East, exit the...