A controlled burn near Albuquerque got out of control; during live TV coverage of the fire (in fact, just as they were cutting away), a New Mexico Rail Runner commuter train appeared to go right past the flames. And there was much consternation, though apparently no real risk. Via Techyum.
Rail stocks soared yesterday when it was revealed that Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway is now the largest single shareholder in BNSF. Apparently, people think he knows something. But rail stocks have been hot for a while. Former VIA Rail chairman Jean Pelletier won another court case last month, this one a wrongful-dismissal case against the […]
A study proposes a commuter rail service for the rural areas east of Ottawa. Unfortunately for me, I live west of Ottawa. But while this may go some ways to addressing freeway congestion, and the tracks are owned by VIA Rail so there won’t be the capacity or track speed limit issues you’d find on […]
Metroland is a web site about the London Underground’s Metropolitan Line, in particular its service to Amersham, a station (and town) northwest of London which also has mainline commuter rail service. The site is a source of all kinds of material and minutiae about Amersham and the line, including old photos, timetables and material about […]
Steve Cox changes his mind, reintegrates his N-scale model railroad and railfanning blogs back into a single blog (previously). Marcel Marchon found some more rail and transit blogs a couple of weeks back. Highlights include transit blogs Transit Sleuth and Live from the Third Rail, both of which covers rail transit issues from light rail […]
A contrarian view of the environmental, traffic urban-sprawl benefits of commuter rail was published in the Boston Globe‘s magazine section at the end of last year. Key graf: One would think, for instance, that new commuter-rail stations might encourage development nearby. It turns out they don’t. Areas around train stations are only modestly more developed […]
A CN engineer who used to drive GO trains explains the problem behind GO Transit’s move to single-engineer operations (see previous entry). According to him and to a union representative, fatigue — and therefore safety — is the concern, with shifts as long as 12 hours and with no one in the cab to trade […]
Train fares have gone up in Britain: regulated fares by 4.3 per cent, some unregulated fares by even more. Either way, it’s more than the annual rate of inflation, and that’s the fourth year that has been the case. Critics are charging that the fare increases are in response to increased traffic (instead of adding […]
In the wake of a federal labour arbitrator’s decision allowing GO Transit, which operates commuter trains and buses in the Toronto area, to save costs by cutting 34 engineer positions, yesterday’s operations were substantially disrupted and delayed by what CBC and The Globe and Mail referred to as “teething problems,” but which the Toronto Star […]
Marcel has the best blogroll, where I discover the following blogs about trains, most with a fairly specific focus: Alta Velocidad Ferroviaria is a Spanish-language blog about high-speed rail. Amtrak Tracking for My Commute Between New York City and Philadelphia‘s title is self-explanatory — it started as a way of tracking Amtrak’s on-time performance — […]
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