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I hope they retire them from scheduled service but keep them for charters and specials to state fairs, sports events, and conventions. All those college football rivalries beg for a train of alums going to the big game (not a bowl, "just" a game between schools with taunting chants passed down...

Something can have more than one cause, but your letter points fingers and blame (disclaimer at the end notwithstanding) entirely and totally at Amtrak. My instinct with my limited knowledge, including that the weather really WAS atypical and fatally bitter some of the shutdown days, is that...

These things are at various stages. *Second train CHI-MSP is happening this year. It'll use existing equipment and existing Hiawatha slots. Money for track improvements has been appropriated, and it's been agreed to begin service without all the improvements completed and then update the...

The Metra commuter lines in Chicago use a lot of gas switch heaters with open flames to keep switches clear. The visual of multiple switches at a major crossing (like where the UP West crosses the Milwaukee lines by the latter's Western Ave. station) grabs the attention of TV and online news...

Swapping ends is a lot less time-consuming and disruptive than a wye. And half the seats in the Venture cars face each way. I'm sure some people will sit with their traveling companion(s) in a four-seater with a table, get up at Madison to stretch their legs, and sit back down facing their...

The old depot is still standing and is in the purple "Campus" alternative near the bottom of the map in the news article. South and slightly west of the Isthmus, Washington Ave. just north of Regent St. about 15 minutes' walk from the Capitol. For ease of finding it on the map, it contains a...

I doubt there'd be any backing involved in serving a station on the Isthmus at or near Monona Terrace. A train with an engine at each end, or an engine at one end and a cab car at the other, would come into Madison station from the north and simply change which end of the train is controlling...

:rolleyes: I'd bet there's some where there's (1) a large metro area electing multiple state legislators, to (2) a capital not in that metro area, with (3) sufficiently frequent service between the metro area and the capital. Albany on the Empire Service, Harrisburg on the Keystone Service...

No final mile problem, as the page you mention says:

There's a whole page for public transportation.

I'm curious if these people who live within reasonable range of large cities but consider themselves rural in places like Ohio: *actually avoid the city/cities because they consider them a different world and assume there's nothing there for them, or *go to the nearby city/cities for medical...

When did Congress remove the profitability requirement from Amtrak's enabling legislation? During or after Covid as I recall. When did Congress finally come up with a real budget for Amtrak? About the same time. *Amtrak came up with the Corridor Development program, nobody forced that idea on...

No objection, jurisdiction. Brightline was trying to make itself wholly intrastate to Florida, with no interstate or foreign connections to bring it under STB jurisdiction.

This whole airplane thing is a bit of a tangent. *The Ventures weren't bought by Amtrak, which does seem to understand the difference between corridor and long-distance coach seating (Amfleet I vs. Amfleet 2, for instance). They were bought by the DOTs of California and Illinois, which...

Probably BNSF, which like UP runs a commuter service under contract with Metra (but minus UP's petulant drama). BNSF has its own yard for commuter trains just west of Amtrak's yard.

The Cap's been two sleepers & two coaches (and a baggage car & food service car) since Thanksgiving week came and went. Just checked 30 now on Elkhart railcam, and still so.

Thank you! To your point of disconnected studies, I notice that some of the grants are to different agencies for essentially the same project: *Amtrak and North Central Texas Council of Governments are both planning for service Dallas-Ft. Worth to Houston via the Brazos Valley. *Antelope...

I'm picturing this as a conveyor belt of projects. My understanding is none of this is a "one-off" but just this year's tranche of multi-year programs.* The projects that got real money (tens of millions to a few billions) now were either underway or shovel-ready. The projects that got...

It's all a bit moot, even if the county in question becomes officially interested in an extension. To get beyond Rockford requires using CN tracks, and CN either isn't playing ball or is asking for the moon and stars to add a couple of trains to this line. If Illinois had CN's cooperation, the...

I'm planning on watching the Canadian Pacific Holiday Train pass near my house on its way to Gurnee on 12/3. I'm guessing it'll be on the mainline (Metra Milwaukee North) but I suppose there's a chance it would take the EJ&E to Rondout, in which case it won't pass near home. Is there any way to...