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United serves my local airport (Lehigh Valley International (ABE) which I still call by its old name ABE Airport) via a bus connection to Newark (EWR). Probably goes back to the Continental days. So one can ticket ABE - ORD which is routed ABE - (bus) - EWR - ORD.

Might be more useful once there are Inland Route or Boston - Springfield trips added which are planned for the future. The eastbound trip timing is of course subject to delays that can happen between Chicago and Worcester. Although apparently the timekeeping has been better lately, it is not the...

That Charles Smalley DVD looks interesting by the way. I have the 3 volume DVD put out by Pentrex on the Milwaukee Electrification which does a good job of covering the line.

The "Little Joes" were built for the 3 KV DC electrification used by the Soviet Union at that time, which meant they fit right into the Milwaukee Road system that was also 3 KV. There were some Joes that went to the South Shore which used 1500V DC, I assume the locos could be easily modified to...

Good choice. Considered one of the most scenic train rides East of the Mississippi. One I wanted to do myself but life intervened.

Also the current naming is inconsistent - some lines named after the current rail operator (BNSF, UP), some after an operator from long ago that only die hard railfans would recognize (Rock Island, Milwaukee) , some after the mode of propulsion (METRA Electric District) and some after the...

I suspect the cartoon is from WW2 especially with the comment "is this travel essential?".

The other day I was watching this video by Steve Marsh about a Flixbus run from Rovaniemi Finland near the Arctic Circle to Krakow Poland, a 2000 km trip that takes about 40 hours. Technically they do get off one bus at Helsinki, ride the Ferry to Tallin Estonia then board a different bus to...

I was curious if there was any relation between Stena Immaculate and the Stena Line which provides ferries such as the Holyhead to Dublin ferry across the Irish Sea. Turns out that the ship is owned by Stena Bulk a division of the Swedish Stena Company which also owns the Stena Line ferry...

Thom of Trains Are Awesome has a video on this: I tend to like the idea of color coding according to terminal. But renaming according to destination, as other systems do such as MBTA, is a possibility.

SEPTA's Silverliner Vs are theoretically capable of running on 25 KV 60 HZ as they do on Denver's RTD system, but I don't know if that is a simple switch or if the equipment would need to be modified to do this. I would expect the S4's would be replaced by the time Amtrak upgraded anything to 60...

Belgium has 3000V DC for most lines but 25 KV 50 HZ AC for the high speed lines. Of course here in the US we have 4 different systems on the NEC - 25 KV 60 HZ, 12.5 KV 60 HZ, 12 KV 25 HZ, plus 600V DC (3rd rail) for LIRR (and soon to be used by Metro North).

Thanks for the report. For our trip later this March, we are planning to take 114 from Philly to connect with 49. It should arrive at 1:36 PM giving us 2 hours before our 49 departure, but we have a roomette so we would be able to spend some time checking out the legendary Metropolitan Lounge at...

Interesting. Where I live in Pen Argyl PA there was a railroad the Lehigh and New England, built to carry coal and cement from Eastern PA to areas North and East, running across New Jersey to Maybrook NY where it interchanged with several other railroads. Pen Argyl was the location of a yard...

You especially see this in Europe where over the years each country evolved their own electrical standard so a longer distance train might encounter 3 or 4 voltage / frequency /AC-DC changes over its trip. In the old days this would require changing locomotives at each border. Today's...

I'm not sure the reopening of lines wouldn't have happened anyway, as a result of increased road congestion, population growth, and more concern about the environment. The political climate in the 1980s was very anti-rail. That has relaxed somewhat although I would hardly call the present...

MARC ends in Perryville MD. SEPTA runs to Newark Delaware. So that is the gap.

Besides what PVD said above, it is also a different type of AC in terms of voltage and frequency etc. and I suspect it is harder to convert one type of AC directly to another, easier to go through the step of converting to DC then inverting back to AC.

For Amtrak National Timetables this has already been done: Museum of Railway Timetables

Hmmm. Our train service stinks compared to China. But China is a totally nationalized system run by the government lock stock and barrel. So we should privatize Amtrak. Not sure if I see the logic here. As the articles say, Congress would have to take this action and I don't think there would...