NOTE: Don’t click on any words or phrases in blue appearing here or in the text below. That will lead you to ads. It’s an insidious bug that has somehow...

There’s almost no end to things that can go wrong on a railroad. Locomotives break down; boulders tumble down rocky slopes and block the tracks; several cars on freight train...

Norfolk Southern, one of the country’s largest freight railroads, has just filed suit against an Alabama company for selling the railroad almost five million defective wooden cross ties. And, yes,...

As just about everyone knows, for many years–a dozen or so, at least–Amtrak has been in a cost-cutting mode. Just one example: for the past couple of years, despite protests...

Take a long-distance train ride and, if you look for them, you’ll see people taking your picture as you roll by. I was surprised to discover that railroad photography is...

An interesting question came in by email the other day asking about “Quiet Zones” … that is, specific stretches of track, usually running through or adjacent to residential areas, where...

It has always been interesting to me how expressions belonging to a specific activity or sport or occupation eventually become part of everyday language but with a broader meaning. Baseball,...

A veteran Amtrak employee once said to me that if you can’t be flexible, you’d better not work for the railroad. It’s very true and, in fact, the more I...

Travel by train around the United States and, if you’re paying attention, you’ll soon notice that Amtrak engineers blow the whistle quite a lot. And if you’re really paying attention,...