Commentary

Chicago Regional Rail Leaders Plan for Post-COVID Future

For the past three years, Railway Age has been reporting the progress of our railroads, including regional/commuter, as the emergency caused by the COVID-19 virus worsened and, more recently, has begun to subside. While ridership on the nation’s regional/commuter railroads still lags far behind pre-COVID numbers, including during traditional peak commuting hours, it is now picking up, and managers are thinking about what the future will be like as we enter a new era.

Part 10: Another Landowner Takes Texas Central to Court

Last year, we reported extensively on a landowner’s efforts in court to stop the Texas Central project, a proposed point-to-point high-speed rail line between Dallas and a place in the sprawl near

Los Angeles Gold Line Breda LRVs arrive at the Mission (Meriden Ave) station in Pasadena. (Joseph M. Calisi Photography©, All Rights Reserved)

So-Cal Rail Renaissance

PASSENGER RAIL FOCUS, RAILWAY AGE FEBRUARY 2023 ISSUE: Whoever thought that Southern California, which decades ago ripped up much of its extensive passenger rail network, would become a rail transit mecca? Agencies like Los Angeles Metro Rail, NCTD, Metrolink and Amtrak are returning the region to its glory days.

Grand Central Madison Open for Business

Originally planned for completion in 2009, the Long Island Rail Road’s East Side Access Project is finally finished and in service. On Jan. 25, revenue trains ran from the LIRR’s Jamaica station to a new terminal facility 14 stories beneath Madison Avenue in Midtown Manhattan. The new terminal is slightly northwest of Metro North’s historic Grand Central Terminal. The New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) has named the new facility “Grand Central Madison.”

Amtrak photo

Passenger Rail Outlook: Amtrak at the Crossroads

RAILWAY AGE, JANUARY 2023 ISSUE: It was the best of times; it was the worst of times.” So goes the opening of A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens’s 1859 saga of the French Revolution. Amtrak and its riders have experienced the best of times in some respects, along with the worst of times in others, during the half-century since “America’s Railroad” was founded in 1971, but Amtrak’s prospects stand in stark contrast today.

Amtrak Posts Gulf Coast Grant Application for Public Viewing

The musical headline What a Difference a Day Makes could apply to this story. On Thursday, Dec. 22, we reported that our efforts to learn about the specific provisions of the grant

Commentary

Mystery-Shrouded Peace Treaty for The Second Battle of Mobile (UPDATED Dec. 23)

I called it the “Second Battle of Mobile.” Railway Age covered it extensively. It was the slugfest at the Surface Transportation Board (STB) between Amtrak on one side and CSX, NS and

Commentary

Biden ‘Railroaded’ Workers, and Maybe Himself

The nationwide railroad strike that was threatened for Dec. 9 did not take place. In effect, the Biden Administration and Congress ordered workers to accept the terms of a tentative agreement their

Commentary

Three New Starts and a Bus Bridge

The number of new rail transit starts in the United States has slowed in recent years, probably due at least in part to the COVID-19 pandemic. Three years ago, I held the

LRT Growth Continues, But at Restricted Speed (UPDATED With Commentary)

RAILWAY AGE, NOVEMBER 2022 ISSUE: Light rail was a transit phenomenon like none other since the advent of the streetcar itself. A transit mode that burst onto the scene four decades ago, it brought rail transit to dozens of locations in the U.S. and Canada that had lost it during the mid-20th century. It deserves credit for revitalizing urban neighborhoods and central business districts, re-establishing rail transit as an important component of mobility and economic development. It accomplished all that despite having a title that virtually none of its riders understood, and without an agreed-upon definition or taxonomy.

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