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...

A week or so ago, I wrote about the argument brewing between the FRA—the Federal Railroad Administration—and the nation’s freight railroads. The issue has to do with when there must...

Later this month, members of the National Association of Railroad Passengers will be gathering in Washington for three days … one of which will be spent knocking on Congressional doors...

It’s got to be frustrating. After months of haggling, the Indiana Department of Transportation was finally on the verge of an agreement with Iowa Pacific Holdings and Amtrak to continue...

We all know that over the past several years Amtrak’s On-Time Performance (OTP) has gone from pretty-good to not-so-good to just-plain-awful. The usual reason given for all these late trains...

The news is coming in bits and pieces, and it’s too early to know for sure how significant it is, but [breaking into song] “It’s beginning to look a lot...

The fright railroads own the track over which most of Amtrak’s long-distance trains operate and if they had the choice, they would refuse to accommodate any passenger trains. The thing...

Several interesting items relating to passenger rail have been in the news in just the past couple of days and these three are just the most recent indication that there...

Amtrak has added between 90 minutes and three hours to the schedule of the Empire Builder in an effort to regain some semblance of on-time performance. As we all know,...

Amtrak wants to replace the high-speed equipment – the Acela trainsets – now operating on the Northeast Corridor between Washington and Boston via New York City.  The first Acelas began...