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It is time for us railfans trying to revive old train / route names. The general public has no idea what some of these proposed names mean. I've often thought that some sort of naming convention would help the traveling public identify the services and offerings better. IE "___-Rocket" wo...

Of course there are signs that read "riding between cars prohibited" and "do not stand in the vestibule". Makes sense, but on crush load NJT trains, often riders end up doing such. Bingo. Tell me where to stand when there are 200 people aboard a Friday evening South Shore car (x...

Also, in regards your comment on qualified pairs of eyes, I think not Chatsworth where there was but one set of eyes distracted, but the VIA Rail Aldershot derailment of 2012 in which three employees on the head end all missed a key signal with disastrous results, is more to the unfortunate point t...

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...