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That's a tough sell. What if the part isn't train-specific. For example, a contactor or light ballast is intentionally obsoleted by GE or Sylvania. GE and Sylvania are not about to give up their light technology to Amtrak. Also in case of bankruptcy, the secured creditors have a stronger claim than ...

How about the Grain Belt special to honor their tasty beer?

If you look closely, Via has horizontal bars that fold up to block passengers from approaching doors and leaning out. I don't see why this is so hard to do as opposed to a central door locking system.

Any news on the Duluth train? Would love to ride that some day.

Don't forget the F59. It was no beauty queen, either in box shape nor the streamlined shape that it seems Chuck Jordan penned to look like a 1990 Pontiac minivan. But it had the 710 engine which is a massive winner. Amtrak bought 20+ of them which all went to Metra recently. Meanwhile Metra bought q...

There's going to be a lot more vacancies the way current and prior leadership manages the city. I didn't agree with everythign the Dalys did but the city was growing rapidly and many big-name employers came to town. That's not happening now.

I lived there for five years and the new airport is such a boondoggle. We "needed it". Well we didnt' remember to put in freeway access nor move the rental car facility, so you have to bush whack it to the freeway or take a 20+ minute ride to a rental car. Kind of crazy. But well over half...

Interestingly, pre-deregulation, the railways were a part of the JIT supply chain and gamed it to their advantage. Because regulation made it equal cost or cheaper to route things circuitously, sometimes bulk (esp lumber) from out west was shipped before a buyer was found. It was usually routed thro...

I'm sure many of us have seen this already, but it's the pic of the month in my book. Two newish Siemens Chargers died on the northbound City, leaving it seven hours late. CN found an IC SD70 conventional cab still in "death star" black and it led the City back to Chicago. Lots of good pic...

Don't have a myopic accountant in charge of parts. Any accountant with basic understanding of downtime knows what a gamble it is not to stock parts. But as David notes, folks are apt to tighten their belts and that doesn't always work out. In our industry it's 6-8 weeks minimum for custom spares, co...

Since you seem to imply that life has a measurable value and can be monetized, what is the value of a life? And where is you empirical evidence (since you demand that be presented) that central door locking hasn't reduced death and injury in railways? Gotta love when we get to this point in the arg...

I see that the cooperation between Amtrak and Siemens has been slowly declining since 2022. Hardly any major new contracts are being awarded to Siemens. Does anyone know if Amtrak has found a new partner? And if so, what is the reason for the change? Every few years Amtrak decides their mistakes ar...

It's operating on a publicly owned and taxpayer subsidized ROW and any problems that train has that have a negative impact on taxpayer subsidized services. Not only that, the cost of caring for the injured is picked up by taxpayers. It's all private gain and public risk to allow this company to con...

Trains buried the lede to throw shade on Siemens again... If these are really parts needed for regular or routine maintenance, then the real issue here isn't availability from Siemens, but some purchasing manager at Amtrak deciding it was wastefull to keep the required quantity of a part in stock. ...

I learned to do that on my car doors from a ski bum in high school! They would freeze shut and this dude told me to shoot the weather strip with wd40 and they won't freeze. Miracle!