Recent content by Mark

I've been passing through CUS several times a week lately and I noticed the other day that there were two if not three leased GATX units, (GP38s,40s something like that), doing the switching around the yard. Is Amtrak short of switching power? They had a few small units out there, (SW1500s or...

Do both! BOS one way and NYP the other and fill the gap with an Acela trip between the two!

Thank you... Here we go- it was gone by the time I passed through this AM. Both the picture and the vid are taken from a Metra Commuter car vestibule.

I've got a so/so photo but I can't remember how to post it in here... help!

Team- I just spotted the one and only out in the yard looking nice and new. I don't know the status but it didn't look like she was going anywhere yet. I'll be passing through tomorrow, I'll try to get a pic.

I'm on it right now. It has been just one problem after another. From what the crew has reported the original unit out of SAS was a bad order. So a UP unit was added after a few hours. That unit had a problem so it was swapped at FTW for another P42. By the time it picked me and my family up...

One could Triple-Track the Main between LAX and SAS and UP still wouldn't run the SSL on-time.

I'm sure this has been discussed before but could a pure sleeping car train come close to breaking even? I realize some assumptions have to be made, (one being there are enough Superliner sleepers in the inventory), but let's randomly select a train, say the Southwest Chief. It has solid OTP...

Well- I'm sure everyone has seen my posts on union issues. That being said I think it should be made as easy as possible to unionize and the ballots should be kept secret. The only requirement to unionize would be 50% signatures of the workforce in question. If those employees wishing to...

821 was on display at Chicago for NTD. They had the side access door open everything was either sparkling new or freshly painted. He looked great! I played it full rookie and asked a few questions about the unit to the employee who was there. He was a young electrician and seemed pretty...

The seats are/were nicer on the Acela and I would say on most standard Amtrak trains as well, (regionals, superliners, etc). The Acela seems more roomy but the Eurostar is faster both in top and average speeds. For me a trip from Boston to NYC is not as exciting as a trip from London to Paris...

Ha! Almost the exact same thing happened to me on the Empire Builder last fall. I boarded at Tomah WI, headed home to Chicago. I had booked a roomette and the EB was about an hour and a half late putting it in to Tomah at appx 1pm. You wouldn't think that would be too late for lunch but by...

Ahhhh no. I'm not advocating a return to five person crews but if you've never walked from the head end of a freight train with an 80 or so lb knuckle hoping that that is in fact the problem when the train went into emergency, well then you just haven't lived life to its fullest in railroading...

I believe the FRA allows for 3 MPH over the speed limit for speedometer calibration. I was on the EB last summer and my seatmate had a Garmin as well. He clocked us doing 81 in a 79mph stretch. The wayside detector caught it, we both heard it and gave an enthusiastic 'thumbs up/yea!' We...

I certainly don't mean to offend in anyway anybody who participates in this forum. I am so very glad I found this site, the information to be found here is simply priceless. I am also, as many of us are, a huge Amtrak fan and have logged many, many miles but the title to the thread is Union...