Back 50 or more years ago, the private railroads in this country hauled both freight and passengers. Regulating the passenger operations was the Interstate Commerce Commission. That meant the railroads...

Here’s one to toss around over dinner: the Union Pacific Railroad has been flying drones over some of their rail yards. The company’s stated reason is that they’re monitoring safety...

Most people don’t realize that Amtrak trains run on track owned by the freight railroads everywhere in the country outside of the Northeast Corridor (Washington-New York-Boston). Amtrak pays a fee...

Trains running behind schedule are the single biggest headache Amtrak has to deal with, at least in terms of day-to-day operations. Trains can be late for any number of reasons—bad...

Back in 1970, the freight railroads made a deal: the federal government would let them get out of the passenger business,     if they would contribute money and equipment...

I have a hard time figuring out the people in Congress who have it in for Amtrak. What is it that drives them? Ideology? Spite? Ignorance? Stupidity? Maybe even all...

(The following is Part 2 of an account of one of my several trips on the Cardinal. It was originally published in the Columbus Dispatch.) At dinner, I’m seated with...

Have you seen the oil trains? There are lots of them. Three locomotives hauling one hundred or more hulking, black tank cars filled with crude oil. They’re coming from Canada...

Having traveled by train a great deal over the past couple of decades, it distresses me to read criticisms of Amtrak by newspaper and magazine columnists that are based on...

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...