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…
In prior posts on the subject of grade crossing accidents, I’ve said that 100 percent of these accidents are preventable. I may have to revise that pronouncement, however, after reading about an incident that occurred yesterday in Centralia, Washington, south of Olympia. Picture this: The driver of a semi-trailer truck, which was hauling a second…
High time to do something about being on timeEveryone who has taken any of Amtrak’s long-distance trains is aware that late arrivals are a big problem. Everywhere except in the Northeast Corridor (Washington-Boston), Amtrak trains run on track owned by the various freight railroads. In theory (and, indeed, according to law), the freight railroads are…
On-time performance for Amtrak trains has been a problem for years. Sometimes there’s a stretch when it’s not so bad, but it seems those times are invariably followed by a period when trains are often very late. A couple of years ago, for example, my wife and I were on the Coast Starlight traveling from…