Recent content by rookzie

I might be wrong, but I think ScotiaBound's point in the analogy to freight in the NEC, is that the sheer volume of passengers moved back and forth on that corridor including the Regionals, is as if the service to passengers were a "commodity" for lack of better phraseology. Perhaps a better...

Then perhaps you only watched the first 15 seconds or less of the video or were oblivious to the direct impact of the pickup with the SUV, around the 25-27 second frame marker of the clip. That range shows the pickup literally shoving the SUV beyond the white stop band on the pavement. That the...

So now someone needs to get the driver of that pickup cited and put on the hook for all that damage compensation; so far no one has mentioned this.

Gisborne Airport, with the the Palmerston North–Gisborne Line, crossing the main runway. At Wynyard, TAS, Australia, the Far Western Railway of TasRail once crossed the north end of a runway at Burnie Airport Chicago Municipal Airport (Midway) early in its life had its old and new field...

I had no idea that the river was as shallow at that sight near Hains Point as was reported, although I have learned that depth away from channels varies in that tidewater portion of the Potomac; some 10 feet in the Tidal Basin, even shallower in the Pentagon Lagoon.

My experience on the CL was at least decent, on both one-way rides CHI-WAS in July 2019 and the last time in early Sept. 2020 before L-D service was reduced that fall. On the 2019 trip, the community shower gave me trouble, as some panel had fallen loose and posed a jagged-edge hazard for...

Well at least so far, they fared better than the firemen in the 1989, fire truck collision with Amtrak’s Crescent in Catlett, Virginia, resulting in injuries and deaths of two firefighters, and serious injuries of three others in that truck (one of which is believed to have succumbed to...

For clarity, originally, the South Wind did use the Schererville, Logansport route on the northern Panhandle, and this lasted throughout its years prior to Amtrak. It used the Pennsy Chicago line between CUS and South Chicago, then via the SC&S (South Chicago and Southern - [aka the "Bernice...

A rider’s perception of speed depended largely on boarding point, destination and direction of travel. The Chicago-to- Louisville tracks were the worst on its route; the Louisville-to-Nashville stretch came in second. Slow freight trains helped hold up the train. The Floridian averaged 36 mph...

While I've ridden all East-West routes since 2009, I admit that until I rode the S-L in May 2010, I had never seen some many prickly-pear cacti in full bloom at one time, nor had I ever seen apricot groves and shrimp farms. Combined with a stop-over Westbound in Tucson to visit family friends...

I'm offered 4X, kind of surprising to me considering my annual activity has dropped precipitously since my last LD trip in June 2021 (MIA - WAS)

As zephyr17 stated, no it isn’t a half-step or even futile effort to create a substitute for a revived Floridian (former “South Wind”). The primary goal of this change seems overwhelmingly aimed at better utilization of whatever serviceable equipment remains in the long-distance pool. This is...

Correction in my previous comment of a photo scene at Atlanta Terminal Station. The termini of the SAL "Silver Comet" were New York and Birmingham, (not DC and B'Ham). The train suffered a slow and "painful" death (as opposed to a sudden discontinuance), beginning in 1968 with the loss of its...

Yes, the "Crip", as I sometimes refer to it from laziness, had been a well-known tenant of DUS. Most older locals recall the "Rocky Mountain Rocket", the Rock Island's (CRI&P) long-distance run from La Salle St. Station (Chicago) to Denver and to Colorado Springs (with the train splitting and...

An aerial view of Chattanooga Union Station, with the Read House Hotel looming above the station headhouse and its trainshed, rather "squatty" in comparison. The Read House, as it stands today.