In August of 2005, Hurricane Katrina hammered the Gulf Coast, killing more than 1800 people and causing $108 billion in damage. Included in that mess were many miles of track belonging to the CSX railroad that were washed out along the coast. That, of course, meant the cancellation of the New Orleans-to-Orlando segment of Amtrak’s…
Airline pilots are only permitted to be work for a specific number of hours. In most instances, a two-person crew can only be on duty for no more than ten hours in a 24-hour period. It’s the same for a railroad engineer—in fact, for the entire operating crew, which includes the engineer, the assistant…
With the NARP* board meetings over, and a day-and-a-half to kill before a Red Sox-Orioles game in Baltimore, I hopped Amtrak regional train #67 in Alexandria and headed south to Williamsburg, Virginia. The train was just a few minutes late arriving in Alexandria, but no matter. It was a lovely morning, the air still crisp,…
Some interesting ideas were recently presented by Hunter Harrison, president and CEO of Canadian National Railway, who laid out his view of the future of freight rail in a speech to the Canada Maritime Conference. First of all, Harrison predicts that multiple mergers will create two mega railroads in place of today’s “Big Six”: Union…