This is an excerpt from my book, ALL ABOARD–The Complete North American Train Travel Guide. * * * Wherever the train may be, its progress is controlled every inch of the way by a dispatcher. The airline equivalent is the air-traffic controller, but there is an important difference: Railroad dispatchers are employees of the individual…
The awful accident involving the Southwest Chief and a dump truck brought to my mind the five hours I spent in the head end of an Amtrak locomotive. I was working on the first edition of my All Aboard book and wanted to include a chapter describing the jobs of each of the on board…
Question: What happens eight or nine times a day, kills more than 250 people a year, and injures almost 850 more? . Answer: trains hitting cars or trucks at railroad crossings. The injuries and deaths are bad enough, but the real tragedy is that every one of those incidents could have been avoided. . Spearheaded…
Since the first of this year, five people have been struck and killed by Brightline trains, the new rail passenger service running between Miami and West Palm Beach in Florida. And for the calendar year 2017, a total of 17 people died after being struck by Tri-Rail trains. That’s the commuter railroad serving Palm Beach,…