Back in 2002, a Union Pacific coal train near Sharon Springs, Kansas, stopped when a journal bearing went bad causing the car near the middle of the train to derail. The crew stopped the train and walked a half mile or so back to assess the problem. As bad luck would have it, the derailed…
Matt Hannes photo News reports don’t always – no, make that almost never – tell the whole story. Case in point is the story of a difficult run made by Amtrak’s California Zephyr which operates daily in both directions between Chicago and the Bay Area. Two of the Zephyr consists encountered some pretty ferocious weather…
You like trains? Are you interested in the future of passenger rail in the United States? Or are you just looking for a great read? OK … run, don’t walk, to get a copy of Waiting on a Train … subtitled The Embattled Future of Passenger Rail Service … by James McCommons. I’m only two-thirds…
Three years ago, when I took the Coast Starlight from Seattle to Los Angeles, we didn’t pull into LA’s Union Station until 4:00 in the morning … seven hours late. Amtrak’s long-distance trains operate on track owned and controlled by the freight railroads. They are supposed to be given priority, but dispatchers for the Union…