Search results

The opposition to this project has been all about politics: "Texas is an oil/trucks/highways state!" and "How dare a private company (that's not an electric utility, or oil pipeline, or....) use eminent domain!" If there was any under-the-table money here, the pols would "stay bought" and this...

A useful article for its description of the circumstances and lay of the land, but IMHO the reporter uncritically relayed the farmer's layman's opinion that "the railroad" is at fault. Which, curiously, the article managed to not identify. It repeatedly says "the railroad" without ever saying...

Of course it's the standard bearer: just like standard bearers in pre-WWI armies, it's been constantly harried and shot at by its enemies to prevent it going forward. Has it had real issues? Yes. But IMHO opponents have repeatedly and grossly exaggerated them in an effort to make it out to be a...

Did the "hoods from Chicago" thing actually happen, or did some paranoid locals pull this out of their ... hats? This sounds like the old "loot rail" crap from the early Internet of the Nineties defrosted and warmed over for a new decade. Firstly, they've got cars, whether their own or stolen...

I've seen potatoes with skins that were naturally beige or brown, red, and blue. Blue potatoes. "Stretch" beige into white and you've got the traditional tricolors.

The lengths of most long distance trains can be seen on railcams, including free ones on YouTube. Of late, the Capitol Ltd. has had three coaches (including a baggage car AND a baggage-coach), the combined Lake Shore Limited has had five coaches, and the Southwest Chief has had three coaches...

Equipment shortages aren't done, but March isn't necessarily a fair measure a couple of months later. YouTube also has live railcams, and I've recently seen five coaches on the Lake Shore Limited and three coaches on the Capitol Limited when both stopped at Elkhart IN.

Nope, a grant is not a loan and is not repaid.

San Jose Diridon is owned by Caltrain*, so of course Amtrak should spend money installing wifi there. (Sarcasm, thrust! Sarcasm, parry!) *Peninsula Corridor Joint Powers Board, technically.

As I understand it, several sleepers (and other cars) were mothballed during Covid. As Amtrak hires to fill openings at its shops, many will come out of mothballs a lot sooner than new cars can be ordered. Maybe I'm recalling badly from the relatively short time between 65/66/67 having sleeper...

Sounds a bit like the Great Chicago Flood, where contractors driving piles to protect one of the Chicago River bridges punched through to one of the old freight tunnels, which were connected to the subbasements of a lot of older Loop buildings to (in previous decades) deliver coal and...

Amtrak's careers website advertises several positions at Beech Grove and a "hiring event" just yesterday. I'm strictly a white collar worker so I don't know exactly which positions are mechanical, but the advertised openings include journeyman carmen, journeyman machinist, journeyman...

I'm not sure that's true. I've been watching various railcams since spring 2020 when I felt much more stuck at home than now. While I don't watch every day and haven't wrote down how long the consists were and are, I get the definite impression various long-distance trains that got really short...

Alas, Metra arrivals to Union Station aren't listed in one place. Even in the station, the screens display Amtrak arrivals, Amtrak departures, and Metra departures. I suspect the controllers or dispatchers in the booths by the station-side end of the platforms may have screens listing all...

I would think Amtrak's devising a corridor development program -- nobody imposed that on them from above or outside -- is a significant change since 2019 and belies the idea of Amtrak still having "no-growth priorities". Yes, it's corridor-focused, but at least it's seeking to extend and expand...

Don't know about the dining car for sure, bit I think the railroad itself ran those (vs. Pullman for the sleepers) and diner meals were not included in sleeper fare. I think the diner was for whoever paid to eat in the diner. Seat during the day folding into a bunk, with two seats facing...

It is possible this Lincoln Service run-through ekes out enough savings that Missouri restores trains 311 and 316?

Here's a Palm Beach Post columnist suggesting an old-school solution: horns.

Those orphans are running daily when a lot of other LD trains aren't. Which reminds me, the run-through schedule(s) with the long stop at St. Louis was supposed to end May 2. Did it?

Unless the Ethan Allen extension to Burlington begins first, it seems the first new service since Covid will be Berkshires seasonal service, NY to Pittsfield on Friday afternoon and the other way Sunday afternoon, through the summer. Per Business Insider (yes, I know, but linking to an Amtrak...