Free Republic

Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe 4-8-4 2926 will be under steam on September 27 and 28 for New Mexico Railroad Days at the Albuquerque South Rail Yards. The free, family-friendly event will give attendees the chance to see the recently restored locomotive up close. ATSF 2926 was built by Baldwin in 1944 and retired after just nine years of service. New Mexico Heritage Rail (also known as the New Mexico Steam Locomotive & Railroad Historical Society) spent nearly two decades restoring the locomotive and it returned to service in 2021. Since then it has made brief trips around Albuquerque on...

WASHINGTON — Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), the Senate Democratic leader, has spoken out against the proposed Union Pacific-Norfolk Southern merger. In remarks Thursday (July 31, 2025) on the Senate floor, Schumer said approval of the merger “would cut down the industry from four major players to just three, pushing us even further down the road of dangerous consolidation and monopoly power.” Schumer noted the companies are saying the merger will promote competition, improve service, and benefit workers and customers. “History tells us the opposite,” he said. “The last four decades of railroad mergers have led to worse service, worse safety,...

BNSF Railway donated a historic SD70MAC to the Illinois Railway Museum. Locomotive 9400 was built in 1993 and is notable for being the first production locomotive (i.e., non-demonstrator) to feature modern AC traction, making it the precursor to thousands of units with this groundbreaking technology. BNSF made the donation earlier this summer, and IRM announced it on July 31. IRM plans to eventually restore the unit to its as-delivered appearance, Burlington Northern’s green and cream “Executive” livery from the early 1990s. Following testing of freight diesels equipped with AC traction motors in the early 1990s, BN ordered the first production...

OMAHA, Neb. — Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern executives touted their proposed merger as a way to return to volume growth after losing market share to the highway since rail traffic peaked in 2006. “We can only go so far independently. And let’s face it, this industry has faced contraction over the last couple decades in terms of volume growth,” NS CEO Mark George told investors and analysts on a conference call this morning. “We’ve been losing share to truck — and this is one way to reverse that trend.” The historic combination — which would create the first transcontinental...

The dream of high-speed, magnetically propelled trains zipping between Washington, D.C., and New York City will, at least for now, remain just that — a dream. The Federal Railroad Administration has officially canned the environmental review process for the section of the proposed Northeast Maglev train between D.C. and Baltimore, halting a plan that would be transformative for the region but has drawn the ire of community groups in parts of Maryland along its path. The proposal would cause “significant, unresolvable impacts to federal agencies and federal property,” according to a letter the FRA sent Thursday to Maryland Transportation Secretary...

PORTLAND, Ore. (KATU) — A new era of train travel is set to begin in the Pacific Northwest as Amtrak Cascades introduces a fleet of new trains in 2026. The eight new trainsets and two locomotives will operate along the I-5 corridor, connecting cities such as Seattle, Vancouver, B.C., Eugene, and Portland. The new trainsets will feature the iconic Amtrak Cascades color scheme of evergreen, cream, and mocha, adorned with Cascade Range mountain graphics. The trains comply with the Federal Railroad Administration Buy America Standards and were manufactured in the U.S. at Siemens facilities. Earlier this year, Amtrak pulled it's...

SAN MATEO COUNTY, Calif. (KGO) -- Two former Caltrain employees were sentenced to a collective six months in jail this week. Both men were charged back in 2024 with the felony theft of public funds after they embezzled money to build secret apartments -- one at the Caltrain station in Burlingame and the other at the nearby Millbrae station. "This is why I say to people, never say you've seen it all, because something new like this will come up," said San Mateo County District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe. Wagstaffe tells ABC7 News the men lived inside the apartments for several...

"This boondoggle, led by the incompetent Governor of California, Gavin Newscum, has cost Taxpayers Hundreds of Billions of Dollars, and we have received NOTHING in return except Cost Overruns."

Sacramento-area congressman Kevin Kiley took to the floor of the House of Representatives recently to declare the following: “Mr. Speaker, I am very happy to report that the newly formed Department of Government Efficiency has honed in on perhaps the single-greatest example of government waste in United States history,” the Republican from Rocklin intoned. “And that is California’s high-speed-rail boondoggle.”

The High Speed Rail Authority shared an update on the Fresno River Viaduct .. They were widely mocked with Elon Musk and Billy Markus piling in .. California has been mercilessly mocked for boasting about completing the 'world's most pointless crossing' to nowhere at a cost of $11billion. The California High Speed Rail Authority shared an update on the Fresno River Viaduct in Madera County last week, proudly saying it was one of the 'first completed high-speed rail structures'. The Tweet did not get the reaction officials were hoping for with Elon Musk and Dogecoin creator Billy Markus piling in...

---SNIP--- Every day, SEPTA employees see criminal acts, fare evasion, people experiencing mental illness, homelessness, or drug addiction. The union I lead, Transport Workers Union Local 234, which represents 5,000 SEPTA workers, has been sounding the alarm that unless conditions improve, the very survival of the public transit system is at stake. In response, we have been asked by image-conscious SEPTA managers and other public officials to tone things down and not draw too much attention to the transit agency’s challenges.

The Société nationale des chemins de fer français (SNCF), a French state-owned railroad operator, came to California in hopes of helping the state build a high-speed rail system from Los Angeles to San Francisco but left for North Africa in 2011 because the region was 'less politically dysfunctional' than the Golden State. Within 7 years, they built a functioning high-speed rail system in Morocco, the New York Times reported. California sought to have the first high-speed rail system in the country, but a new report from the Times showed political disagreement on the train's route slowed the ambitious project to...

This New York Times article on the failure of California’s high speed rail reminds me of the chapter “The Moratorium on Brains” from Ayn Rand’s 1957 novel Atlas Shrugged.In that chapter from the fictional book, everyone on a passenger train died because the train was controlled by politics instead of common sense.This new article from the New York Times explains how the real world train’s ridiculous, absurd, irrational route was chosen based on politics instead of on common sense.The New York Times article states:“… the design for the nation’s most ambitious infrastructure project was never based on the easiest or...

Delivering Amtrak's New Acela High Speed Trains In February 2020, Amtrak's first Avelia Liberty Acela set departed the Alstom factory in Hornell, NY. We made the trip to capture the action, along with the first "production" set which departed a month later to the Northeast Corridor!

If a railroad locomotive is an iron horse, then a vast herd of them has been put out to pasture in Salt Lake City. They’re lined up, nose to tail, waiting to go nowhere — at least for now. By some estimates as many as 200 railroad engines — each one costing about $3 million — have been sidelined over the last year or so in a Union Pacific rail yard just north of downtown Salt Lake City. And it has nothing at all to do with the new coronavirus. A company spokeswoman for Union Pacific refused to answer detailed...

In the midst of Sunday's presidential debate between Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders, Biden blurted out that his campaign's high-speed rail plan would take "millions of automobiles off the road." This is the second debate in which the former vice president brought up the belief that bullet trains will get people out of their cars. This is, to put it mildly, extremely unlikely. Biden's campaign site calls for "the construction of an end-to-end high speed rail system that will connect the coasts, unlocking new, affordable access for every American." Would bullet trains passing through major cities scattered across the U.S....

California High-Speed Rail Authority on Wednesday bumped its overall cost estimate for completing the rail line between San Francisco and Los Angeles to $80.3 billion, blaming inflationary increases and better cost projections... After years of embarrassing cost overruns and delays, managers of California’s ambitious bullet-train project insisted that they are on pace to meet a preliminary 2022 federal deadline for laying track along the first segment in the Central Valley. But that will use up virtually all the money the project has available. The authority’s latest business plan comes amid unrelenting pressure from state lawmakers, some of whom want to...

With a stroke of his pen, California Governor Gavin Newsom has redirected part of the money you pay at the pump with the state’s gas tax to the railway system and other projects. Governor Newsom signed Executive Order N-19-19. It calls for leveraging billion in annual state transportation funds to reduce green house gases and emissions. The order directs money away from fixing local highways, stalling important projects here in the valley. Valley Assemblyman Jim Patterson (R)-Fresno, is upset and wants Republicans and Democrats in the state to speak out. Assemblyman Patterson says, “One of the very first things Governor...

Over the last couple of months, major container lines and alliance carriers have been blanking several of their headhauls from Asia to Europe, citing weak peak season demand. Since July 2019, seasonal rates have been consistently lower year-on-year with container prices in China to North Europe lanes moving lower; there was a 21% decline this month compared to October 2018. Container lines blank their headhauls because it helps them marginally stabilize the declining container spot rates. However, this would come at the expense of North America, as every vessel withdrawn from the European market will mean a lost backhaul voyage...

Blended route” for the way to San Jose—and beyond. California’s ongoing bullet train project is late, over-budget, and politically assailed everywhere from Sacramento to the White House, but the nearly $80 billion venture still (pardon the term) chugs along, as the High Speed Rail Authority board voted Tuesday for routes that will eventually connect trains to the Bay Area. Out of four route proposals, board members favored a Merced-to-San Jose connection designated Alternative Four, one that “blended configuration between San Jose and Gilroy in the existing Caltrain and Union Pacific Railroad corridors before continuing to a dedicated high-speed rail alignment...