Opinion

Commentary

Crew Resource Management: Cure for Amtrak’s safety woes?

Amtrak has a new Executive Vice President and Chief Safety Officer, and he is a former chief safety officer at both Northwest Airlines and Delta Air Lines. The Jan. 9 appointment of Ken Hylander clearly signals that Amtrak CEO Richard Anderson—also a Northwest and Delta alumnus—has decided the passenger railroad’s safety programs need a wholesale overhaul.

Commentary

Staggers what? Time for a name change

Have others noticed that aside from those few souls conscripted to promote the interests of railroads on Capitol Hill, the term “Staggers Rail Act” has lost its intended meaning?

Commentary

Accidents that didn’t have to happen

On Dec. 18, 2017, Amtrak 501, the first Cascades passenger train operating over the Point Defiance Bypass in Washington State, careened off the rails as it entered a 30-mph speed-restricted curve at 80 mph. The investigations into the accident’s cause may take a year, even two.

Commentary
  • News

The New York Times Magazine: The Case for the Subway

Jonathan Mahler, a staff writer for The New York Times Magazine, has written what I believe to be the definitive story of New York City’s subway system, to date. Mahler’s piece, available here in its entirety, is provocative, thought-provoking, and even a bit disturbing. In my opinion, anyone involved with rail transit—operators, suppliers, consultants, engineers, legislators, planners—should read this.

Commentary
  • News

Trump to Schumer: “Drop dead”

“Non-existent”: This is the exact term the United States Department of Transportation used to describe any commitment the federal government has toward funding the ambitious, multi-billion-dollar Gateway Program, which would vastly improve passenger rail access to New York City, the nation’s busiest transportation hub.

Commentary

A Trojan Horse of a different color

Way back in the day … I’m talking way back like 2013, the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) was about to award some eager, bright, inquiring minds some money to do a study of the challenges and problems of PTC implementation on commuter railroads. The purpose of the study was to identify these challenges, and develop some iteration of “best practices” that might be of help to other properties facing the challenge of PTC implementation.

Commentary

Can Amtrak avoid creative destruction?

Watching Washington, December 2017: Ignore Professor Plum in the library with a candlestick as being responsible for Amtrak inefficiency. Refocus on reform—and clues leading to Amtrak’s new President Richard Anderson, who ideally possesses the determination, means, motive and opportunity to correct decades of fuzzy accounting, impose financial transparency and purge waste.

Commentary

Remember that?

Anybody else here old enough to remember all the way back to June 2, 2015?

Commentary

E. Hunter Harrison, 1944-2017

E. Hunter Harrison is gone. Railway Age’s twice-honored Railroader of the Year (2002 and 2015) died on Saturday, Dec. 16, in Wellington, Fla., from what CSX, the railroad that ultimately became the last stop in a long and distinguished career, attributed to “unexpectedly severe complications from a recent illness.” He was only 73.

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