Tabla de contenidos para January 2024 en Trains

If one location epitomizes Canadian National’s desire to control its own destiny in Chicago by acquiring the Elgin, Joliet & Eastern in 2009, it’s JB Tower in West Chicago, Ill. The two-story brick tower — still manned and sporting its orange “The J” sign — guards the junction of CN’s single-track Leithton Subdivision with Union Pacific’s triple-track former Chicago & North Western main line. CN runs about two dozen trains a day across the diamond, linking its network in Western Canada with Chicago via the EJ&E. Every weekday, UP and Chicago commuter railroad Metra send 90 or so trains over the Geneva Subdivision, the eastern leg of UP’s route to the West Coast. Yet CN is in charge here, as it is at most of the J’s at-grade junctions with…

AS CLASSIC AS A ’67 Chevrolet Chevelle SS and as smooth as a Rolls Royce, the Rio Grande’s 2-8-2 Mikado “Sport Model” K-28s turned 100 years old in 2023. Those 100 years have been spent hauling tonnage across one of the most difficult narrow-gauge lines in the U.S. In October 2023, the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad hosted a two-day photo excursion with K-28s Nos. 473 and 476 to celebrate the centennial. No. 476 served as mid-train helper with No. 473 on the point, recreating an operating scenario not occurring on the railroad’s High Line since the 1950s. The photo charter from Durango to Silverton, Colo., included runbys on the first day with Nos. 473 and 476 at nine different locations deep in the Animas River Canyon. On the…

DIRK NADON IS A NEW HAMPSHIRE radio magnate who owns Lakes Media. He and I have worked together developing radio promotions for Conway Scenic Railroad. At one point he said to me, “You’ll like this! A few years ago, I took this great train ride called the Auto Train — do you know it?” He was brimming with enthusiasm over the experience. This radio connection reminded me to call my old friend Doug Riddell, also a Trains contributor, who was once a radio announcer for WREA in Richmond (among other stations) and is a retired locomotive engineer. Doug is part of the Auto Train story, having run both the original, privately owned Auto-Train and its Amtrak successor, and is the author of two books on the subject. This allowed me…

TRAINS LIVE HOST and Associate Editor Bob Lettenberger visited railroad camp at the National Railroad Museum in Green Bay, Wis., this past summer. There he talked with three campers — Austin, Caleb, and Izzy — along with their moms. For the boys, camp is all about fun with trains and their friends. For the moms, camp has had a positive impact on their boys in a variety of ways. Will they be returning to NRM in summer 2024? Certainly, in this case, as there is more fun with trains for all involved. Railroad museums, tourist lines, railroad historical societies, even some universities host summer camp programs centered around trains. Camp participants, whether they realize it or not, are experiencing personal growth during these summer events. This is especially true for…

TRAINS’ BILL STEPHENS SPOKE with Union Pacific CEO Jim Vena after the railroad’s Oct. 19 third-quarter earnings call. Vena, 62, who served as UP’s chief operating officer in 2019 and 2020, rejoined the railroad as its chief executive on Aug. 14. Vena has pledged to make Union Pacific the safest railroad in North America and to grow volume faster than the overall economy through a combination of what he calls service and operational excellence. This Q&A has been edited for clarity and brevity. Q Union Pacific is an enigma. Investor presentations point out that UP has the best rail network in North America. Yet for the past decade UP has lagged behind all other Class I railroads in volume growth. How do you turn this around? How can UP fully exploit…

ONE PLACE MIAMI AND ORLANDO DEPARTURES must avoid conflicts is at a single-track drawbridge crossing the St. Lucie River at Stuart, 38 miles north of West Palm Beach. Remote controlled by DispatchCo from a desk in Jacksonville, Fla., the bridge historically remained open to river traffic until one of about a dozen daily Florida East Coast freight trains approached. Marine interests, fearing passage to and from the Atlantic Ocean would be “unreasonably obstructed” with more than 30 additional trains daily, filed a lawsuit to change those rules. They also engaged U.S. Rep. Brian Mast (R-Fla.) in lobbying the U.S. Coast Guard to impose a “temporary deviation” from the established practice. Without consulting Brightline, the host railroad, or the Federal Railroad Administration, the Coast Guard mandated 15-minute openings at the top…

Trout Creek is a small town in the far reaches of Northwest Montana. With a population of under 300 hearty souls, the town’s claim to fame is the proclamation that it’s the “Huckleberry Capital of Montana.” With the Cabinet Mountains Wilderness, and beautiful Clark Fork River nearby, an outdoor enthusiast would have plenty of opportunities to camp, hike, hunt, or fish in this neck of the woods. But I was there to take in the waning days of Montana Rail Link. With the pending lease buyout and acquisition of MRL by BNSF looming, this would be a good opportunity to spend some time along the railroad in this rustic little town and the surrounding area. I spent part of my time in Trout Creek documenting 24 hours’ worth of trains…

AT THE KENTUCKY STUDIO of sculptor Douwe Blumberg, a crane gently lifted a gold spike measuring 43.3 feet long and weighing just under 7,000 pounds, onto a decorated semitrailer. The spike, commissioned by Utah’s Golden Spike Foundation, is a new memorial commemorating the workers who built the Transcontinental Railroad. Starting Oct. 5, the spike traveled to Utah, making nine event stops en route. Ultimately, this new piece of public art will be installed in Golden Spike Park at Reeder Ranch, in Box Elder County, Utah, outside of Brigham City along Interstate 15. Until the Transcontinental Railroad’s 150th anniversary in 2019, the complete story of the railroad’s construction had gone largely untold. The contribution of the thousands of workers had been ignored. The Golden Spike Foundation, which organized the Spike 150…

WHEN NEW railroad locomotives, cars, and other products are announced, a press release from the manufacturer or buyer will often mention the extensive testing planned before full production begins. But what does that really mean? Michael Cahill, president of Siemens Mobility Rolling Stock, North America, talked with Trains about testing plans for the Amtrak Airo equipment the company is building. Amtrak has ordered 83 fixed trainsets, the first of which is scheduled to enter revenue service in 2026. They will be used in Northeast Corridor and state-supported passenger rail services on the East and West coasts. A prototype made its debut Oct. 11, 2023, at the Siemens plant in Sacramento, Calif. Retrofits and design changes during the development process are inevitable, so how does Siemens Mobility go about working the…

The pounding rain crashing against the window of the Premium class coach was coming down so fast and heavy that cars on parallel Dixie Highway through Vero Beach, Fla., were barely visible. Stuck by a ground stop at an airport or attempting to drive through that? No thanks. As the 2:04 p.m. departure out of West Palm Beach hurtled north through the coastal town on Sept. 26, 2023, what reflected off that window was an Italian sandwich tray accompanied by veggies, hummus, and a fruit cup. Creature comforts like these, the ability to relax or devote full attention to work, and freedom to walk around without seat-belt constraints now provide a passenger rail alternative to flying and driving between south and central Florida’s biggest population centers. That option exists because…

TWO RURAL HIGHWAY CROSSINGS represent significantly different installations designed to achieve the same result: protect highway users and pedestrians from 110-mph trains. Walton Road is a heavily-traveled, two-lane highway north of Stuart. Although in a rural area, the crossing sports nine warning devices protecting the roadway and sidewalks yet to be built. By contrast, the Shimonek Lane installation protects a private driveway in St. Lucie, Fla., north of Fort Pierce. Both are equipped with exit gates that don’t lower until the entrance gate for that lane goes down. If the radar device mounted on a pole next to the crossing (to the left of the locomotive in the bottom photo) detects an obstruction when gates are activated, the exit gate will lower after the space is clear. The system calculates…

IN OCTOBER 2023, the Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad introduced Steven Butler as its new general manager. Butler takes over for Scott Gibbs, one of the railroad’s Colorado Commissioners, who had temporarily stepped in to run day-today operations. Jointly owned by the states of New Mexico and Colorado, and overseen by an interstate commission, the 64-mile C&TSRR bills itself as the longest, highest, and most authentic steam railroad in America. It runs between Antonito, Colo., and Chama, N.M. As a lifelong rail enthusiast with a passion for preserving 19th and 20th century steam trains, Butler has experience in many areas of running a steam-powered tourist railroad. He has been involved for 30 years, and has served as a general manager, a machinist, a fireman, an engineer, and a chief mechanical…