Trains

cswanson@kalmbach.com @TrainsMagazine @trains_magazine When Amtrak’s 83 new short- and medium-haul push-pull trainsets, now being assembled by Siemens Mobility in California, are delivered in 2026, they will wear a new graphic design and bear a new name — Airo (see News, page 5). The name is intended to suggest both ‘aerodynamic’ and ‘arrow’ (a nod to Amtrak’s 1971 arrow logo). The trainsets are being built under a $7.3 billion contract and will replace cars that are, in some cases, a half-century old. Amtrak says its newly named Airos will combine sustainable transportation with modern design and world-class amenities. Sounds good — but we’ll have to wait until 2026 to answer Shakespeare’s question, “What’s in a name?”…

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 a truck,…

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’ Venture coaches…

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 inventory of…

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 trip. These…

New York’s METROPOLITAN TRANSPORTATION AUTHORITY missed a self-imposed, end-of-2022 deadline to begin Long Island Rail Road service to GRAND CENTRAL MADISON, the new station beneath Grand Central Terminal, as station work continued. No launch date was set for initial service, in the form of shuttle trains between the new terminal and the Jamaica station in Queens. Full service, which will represent completion of the long-delayed EAST SIDE ACCESS project and see the LIRR add 274 weekday trains each day, will come later in 2023. The GOVERNMENT OF ONTARIO has placed an order for three bidirectional trainsets from SIEMENS MOBILITY for revival of Northlander service on Ontario Northland Railway between Toronto and Cochrane, Ont. The train last operated in 2012. Government of Ontario A federal grant application from the SOUTHERN RAIL COMMISSION seeks…