While signaling and communications is most often associated with safety (and rightly so), its role goes far deeper. “Wayside signals have been a familiar feature of railroads ever since the industry’s beginnings,” according to the Encyclopedia of North American Railroads. “In essence, signals are communication devices designed to inform locomotive engineers of track conditions ahead of the train and tell them to react to these conditions.
Reading & Northern: Ready and able
For Texas short line, “Customer is king”. In 12 years, an upstart short line powerhouse has increased freight traffic 20-fold.
In Texas, “think big” is a maxim, even for the smaller things such as short line railroads. Blacklands Railroad, Railway Age’s 2011 Short Line Railroad of the Year, certainly qualifies.
Short line operators proposing new moves or trying to renegotiate rate divisions on old moves can be at a competitive disadvantage with their Class I counterparts.
Streetcars are returning, possibly to a neighborhood near(er) you, though in both the U.S. and Canada political headwinds may slow their arrival.
It gives me great pleasure and satisfaction to turn this month’s column over to Norfolk Southern Chief Executive Wick Moorman, Railway Age’s 2011 Railroader of the Year.
The Railway Supply Institute has set April 1 as its deadline for applications for its 2011/2012 School Year RSI Scholarship which provides four or more $3,000 scholarships to students from universities and
What would E. H. Talbott, Railway Age’s first editor, think of social media? I’m sure that at the very least, he’d be skeptical at first. Social media like Facebook and Twitter, like the title of the final Star Trek movie with the full original cast (William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, etc.), is still regarded by many as “the undiscovered country,” though the railroads are beginning to sit up and take notice.
A railroad’s infrastructure may not always be thought of as a profit center, but how productively it’s built and maintained goes directly to the bottom line.
Growth, planning goes on through budget crises
