New Locomotives The Amtrak Cascades, which operate in the busy 310-mile long corridor from Vancouver, BC to Eugene, Oregon, by way of Seattle and Portland, have just taken possession of eight brand new Charger locomotives. These new beauties bring a lot to the table: they’re lighter and quieter than their predecessors, they accelerate…
If you were to stop a hundred people on the street and ask them who owns the tracks used by Amtrak’s long-distance trains, I’d guess that probably a third would say all that track is owned by the government, another third would say the railroads, and most of the rest would have no idea. …
Who’d have thought that the federal government—specifically the Surface Transportation Board—would publicly poke a finger in the eye of one of the Class I railroads? Who’d have thought that since the STB is, after all, part of the U.S. Department of Transportation, a federal department run by Elaine Chao, a Trump appointee and wife…
Some months ago, CSX found itself with a new boss when Hunter Harrison became President and CEO of the railroad. Shortly after assuming control, in a performance worthy of Gordon Gekko, Harrison effectively nullified all the work that had been done to reintroduce passenger service between New Orleans and Orlando. Indeed, figuratively speaking, Harrison…