Table of contents for March 2023 in Trains

AFTER TWO DAYS OF HEARINGS in which regulators and shippers were highly critical of the practice, Union Pacific has paused its use of embargoes to regulate traffic. UP CEO Lance Fritz announced the move in a mid-December letter to Surface Transportation Board Chairman Martin J. Oberman, writing that the railroad would “take a hard look at our use of congestion-based embargoes.” The railroad had previously said it would evaluate customer suggestions in the wake of the hearing and report back to the STB on steps it might take to ease the burden on shippers. UP’s use of embargoes soared from 27 in 2017 to more than 1,000 in 2022. In April and November, with congestion rising in some of its local yards, UP asked some carload customers to reduce their…

“ARE YOU FAMILIAR WITH L&N 2132?” The inquisitor was Jeff Cawood, then a graduate intern working for the Corbin (Ky.) Tourism and Convention Commission. The 2014 occasion was a meeting between Cawood and his boss, Maggy Monhollen, Jeremy Williams of the Kentucky Extension Service, and this writer. Cawood immediately had my attention, and I answered in the affirmative. Louisville & Nashville Railroad steam historians knew of the wayward 0-8-0, one of only three extant L&N steam locomotives. All the L&N’s USRA-design Mountains, Mikados, home-built variations of several wheel arrangements and classes, and, of course, the 42 Baldwin and Lima-Hamilton “Big Emma” 2-8-4s that were the high-water mark of steam on the Old Reliable, had been reduced to scrap. The trio of survivors included Kentucky Railway Museum’s 1905-built Rogers Pacific-type No.…

TRAFFIC ON “THE 401” — Ontario’s main highway — is oppressive. Every day, this and other limited-access roads from Windsor, Ontario, to Quebec City, more than 700 miles northeast, are clogged with hours of excruciating traffic jams. Though the corridor is a ripe travel market that VIA Rail Canada has focused on since the company’s inception, the opportunity to provide a comfortable, reliable alternative has never been greater. So it’s not surprising VIA’s new president, Martin Landry, enthusiastically accompanies Trains on a September 2022 tour of a Siemens Venture trainset, intended for this market, at the company’s Montreal Maintenance Centre. Landry had been immersed in VIA’s procurement process before being elevated to his current position in June. While technicians continue revenue service preparations, he surveys the coaches and cab car…

TWO HISTORIC New York Central electric locomotives stranded near Albany, N.Y., — one, the world’s first mainline electric — have been moved 200 feet to a temporary storage area, but remain on the Beacon Island development location. This initial move was required as major work began on the site. The locomotives, owned by the Danbury (Conn.) Railway Museum, were located within the footprint of initial construction [see “Museum works to save two rare NYC electric locomotives,” “Preservation,” June 2022]. “This is a critical step in the final phase of saving and restoring these engines,” says Stan Madyda, project manager. A key project facilitator was Henry Posner III, of Railroad Development Corp., who has been a strong advocate for saving S-1 No. 6000 and T-3a No. 278. He provided significant resources…

AS THE NAME INDICATES, Fort Madison, Iowa, was a military establishment. In 1808 it became the first permanent U.S. military fort on the Upper Mississippi and the site of the only battle in the War of 1812 to take place west of the big river. The city is also home to the famous Sheaffer pen, but we’ll get to that later. Railroading, in the form of the Santa Fe, came to Fort Madison in 1887. There was a bit of civic chicanery involved in bringing the Santa Fe to Fort Madison. The railroad was considering a river crossing at Keokuk, Iowa, just over 20 miles downstream. Upon hearing this news, the citizens of Fort Madison granted 80 acres of land to the Santa Fe and agreed to pay 25% of…

UNION PACIFIC IS READY to launch pilot programs testing the feasibility of redeploying conductors from locomotive cabs to ground-based positions, the railroad said during a December 2022 hearing on the Federal Railroad Administration’s proposed two-person crew rule. UP believes the ground-based conductors — which the railroad dubs “expediters” — would more safely and efficiently play the role conductors do today from the locomotive, Rod Doerr, UP’s vice president of crew management services and interline operations, told the FRA. Positive train control has significantly reduced the conductor’s tasks out on the main line, Doerr says, and an expediter would be better able to handle troubleshooting and fixing mechanical problems. “Union Pacific envisions a role where the expediter receives a call for service from an en route train, drives to that train…

IN THE FIRST CASE of its kind, Amtrak has asked the Surface Transportation Board to investigate what it calls the “abysmal” on-time performance of the Sunset Limited, which it attributes largely to the operating practices of Union Pacific. The Dec. 8 filing is the first case brought before the STB under a provision of the Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act of 2008, which charges the board with the responsibility to investigate passenger on-time performance issues and how to address those issues. Amtrak has also proposed a framework for the proceeding in a separate 17-page filing. Amtrak’s filing alleges that during its fiscal year concluding in September 2022, and in violation of Amtrak’s statutory right to dispatching preference, the train averaged more than 15 instances of freight train interference per…

ON A SUNNY SATURDAY in August 1980, more than 25,000 visitors flocked to the South Louisville Shops open house, climaxing a three-month celebration marking the diamond jubilee of Louisville & Nashville’s major shop facility. Featured displays included Clinchfield Railroad steam locomotive No. 1 (a stand-in for the hundreds of steamers that went through the Shops), two vintage diesels—L&N E6 No. 770 and Monon BL2 No. 32 — and L&N U23B No. 2803. The GE locomotive had been rebuilt by shop forces after a wreck, sporting a special 75th anniversary logo incorporated into its Family Lines paint scheme. The Shops being celebrated were constructed between 1902 and 1905 to replace antiquated facilities downtown near Union Station. When the facility was completed in 1905, it was one of the largest railroad shop…

Steel is an interesting material; it can be recycled repeatedly. After its useful life is over, it’s gathered up, shredded (e.g., in the case of old automobiles) or chopped into required sizes for melting in a furnace — either electric arc or basic oxygen — and then transformed into a new steel product. But there is another path for old steel called the re-roller. Re-rolling is the practice of taking an old piece of steel, putting it in a reheat furnace, then converting it into a new product. The metal is not melted, it’s just brought up to a temperature that doesn’t change its metallurgy and formed into a new shape. There are a few re-rolling operations in the U.S. In Cincinnati, Ohio, there is one that rolls old freight…

THE ROCKY MOUNTAIN RAIL SOCIETY continues to make progress on the operational restoration of former Canadian National 4-8-2 No. 6060. The locomotive is one of 20 Mountain-type, U1f locomotives built by Montreal Locomotive Works in 1944. The design incorporated a conical smokebox front, earning the name “Bullet-Nosed Betty.” The class was used in passenger and freight services across Canada until retired in 1959. CN rebuilt No. 6060 in the 1970s and put the locomotive to work powering scheduled steam excursions from Toronto to Niagara Falls. There were several other trips made in Quebec and Ontario [see “They were nice white pants,” “In my own words,” September 2022]. In 1980, CN donated the locomotive to the Province of Alberta to celebrate its 75th anniversary. No. 6060 continued to operate in Western…

Q When multiple units are used as DPUs, must each unit have a DPU antenna? — Scottie Hicks A When there is more than one locomotive in a DPU set, one locomotive acts as the receiver and the other(s) respond to MU commands from that locomotive. It’s not necessary for these locomotives to be equipped for DPU. — Greg McDonnell Q Back in the 1950s on Missouri Pacific passenger trains, the conductor would pull a metal cord in the vestibule that made a loud hissing noise in order to get the engineer to either stop or start. What was this signaling system and how did it work? — Bill Chapline, Port Orange, Fla. A In the 1950s, the two-way radio was not the reliable tool of today. Train crews needed to find…

AMTRAK HAS OFFERED a first look at the exterior graphics and interior décor for its fleet of Siemens Mobility push-pull trainsets due to enter service in 2026, as well as a new brand name, Airo. In a December 2022 press conference at New York Penn Station’s Moynihan Train Hall, Amtrak President Roger Harris and other officials sketched out the broad outlines of an 83-train fleet of semi-permanently coupled equipment that will operate primarily from Maine to North Carolina and west to Pittsburgh, with some on the West Coast. They will retire the carrier’s aged Amfleet I cars, Amtrak’s first bought-new rolling stock now nearing 50 years old, and replace other equipment. Entering service first on the Cascades route between Portland, Ore., and Vancouver, British Columbia, Airo trains will resemble Siemens’…

At a mere 12 miles long, south central Saskatchewan’s Poplar River Railway supplies mined lignite coal from a loadout to the Poplar River power generation station near Coronach, Sask. The railway operation was built in 1978 to become a rolling coal-supply conveyor belt to feed the two power generation units for Saskatchewan Power Corp. The railway has an outside-world connection near Coronach with the Great Western Railway, but runs autonomously with its own locomotives and hopper cars. A balloon track at each end allows for quick loading and unloading from the bottom-dump cars to ensure multiple daily round trips, with 20 to 40 cars each trip. SD40-2 No. 6973, a former Ontario Northland unit, is heading south toward the Poplar River power plant with a load of lignite coal from…

WELCOME TO THE LOUISVILLE & NASHVILLE RAILROAD’S Corbin, Ky., passenger station on a cold and snowy December evening about a week before Christmas, 1948. The “Big Emma” (M-1 class No. 1962, one of four equipped with steam heat connections and air signal lines for passenger service) has just replaced an L-1 class 4-8-2 on First No. 32, the 13-car baggage, mail, express, and coach section of the Southland, while the locomotive on the left — L-1 No. 421 — will depart with train No. 22 to Louisville after both sections of No. 32 depart for Cincinnati. On the right, C-1 class 0-8-0 switcher No. 2132 stands with a couple of sealed baggage cars of mail and express swapped out on First No. 32 while engines were being exchanged. No. 2132…

ANOTHER INTERESTING FACT about the Franklin plant is that it’s served by an Alco-powered short line — the Western New York & Pennsylvania Railroad. The WNY&P serves the plant on a branch stretching from Meadville, Pa., to Rouseville, Pa., an old Erie Lackawanna branch resurrected after near abandonment by Norfolk Southern. The railroad brings in cars of rail and takes out scrap left over after rolling. This scrap likely ends up in an electric arc furnace at a mini mill. At present, service is Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, handled by a crew out of Meadville. The crew normally shows up in the late morning and during the afternoon if they work over to fellow Alco-powered short line Oil Creek & Titusville Railroad in Rouseville. Power is usually one of WNY&P’s…

THE METROPOLITAN ATLANTA RAPID TRANSIT AUTHORITY has donated a railcar from the Authority’s original fleet to the Southeastern Railway Museum in Duluth, Ga. The donation of the 42-year-old railcar is one of several activities planned as MARTA transitions to its new railcar fleet. Railcar No. 509, built by Société Franco-Belge, began service in 1981 along with 20 other identical cars and was retired at the end of its useful life 30 years later. It has a 75-foot-long aluminum body, weighs 81,000 pounds, can seat 46 passengers, and has operator cabs at both ends. The car was transported from MARTA’s Avondale Yard to the museum on Nov. 16, 2022. Construction of MARTA’s heavy rail system began in 1975, with the first railcars rolling out in 1979. The existing heavy rail fleet…