Sad, but true.

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Grant
Darwin NT

Britain:


Send them down south

That Aussie train is 1 of this state's interurban and outer suburban fleet.

There's also the old suburban fleet.

Both use the older rolling stock for either standby or to meet peak hour demand.

And then there's the light rail system as well as the new Metro system.

Plus there's still the new rail link to be decided for the new international airport as yet.

Cheers.

At 78, Robert — 'Bob' — is the last Donovan on the railway. His family originally from Culcairn, NSW, has been working with Australian Rail Services for generations.
Following in his dad's footsteps, Bob has been driving steam trains for 60 years. He started at 17 and believes he is the last man to come up through the NSW Government Railway System.
All his former colleagues have long since retired and Bob reckons it's been luck and good genes that have kept him going.
"The brain tells my body, 'Yeah, you can do it,' but then the body says, 'No, no hang on!' So, it knocks me around a little bit," Bob said.

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Grant
Darwin NT

Rod Stewart's City

That's an incredible layout.
He did well to only take 23 years to finish it, the detail is beyond words brilliant.

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Grant
Darwin NT

Bishop Treacy's National Railway Museum photos show 'power of steam'



Several more black and white images of the end of steam in the North of England, from Bishop Treacy in the link.

That's a beautiful shot.

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Grant
Darwin NT

That's a beautiful shot.

There's more in the link.
And if you ever head this way then York is a must go to destination.

And if you ever head this way then York is a must go to destination.

On my "If i win the Lotto" list.

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Grant
Darwin NT

It looks like that our new interurban fleet here will provide some problems with tunnels needing to be widened and guards not happy about watching a bank of monitors instead of sticking their heads out of the door.

A $2.3bn batch of new trains has been slammed as “danger on wheels” due to major “design flaws”. The Government has hit back, saying the opposite is the case.

Cheers.

An "off the cuff" statement, or did they really mean to say it?

Instead, they recommended a “sub-medium electric standard” which will essentially see the current regulations watered down so the wider trains can operate.

Apparently, featherbedding is alive and well !

The Indian Pacific turns 50

Before the Indian Pacific's arrival in 1970, travellers would have to change trains up to five times to complete the same journey from Sydney to Perth. The new standard gauge railway line took 19 hours off the previous trip from Sydney to Perth, cutting it down to 62 hours.

Col Gilbertson, from the Australian Railway Historical Society, was working on the railway when the Indian Pacific left Sydney for the first time in 1970.
The retired air force officer has written books as a rail historian and his expertise earned him an invitation on board for the train's 50th anniversary celebrations.
He said the Indian Pacific deserves to be rated among the world's great train journeys.
"It's significant because it bridges the continent of Australia from east to west, 4,352 kilometres or 2,461 miles in imperial," he said.

The train, which takes its name from the Indian Ocean on the west coast and the Pacific Ocean on the east coast, averages 85 kilometres per hour and reaches a maximum speed of up to 115 kph.
It means the journey from Sydney to Perth takes about 65 hours, with even slight delays causing logistical nightmares as the train shares the track with locomotives hauling freight.
From September, the number of carriages on the Indian Pacific will be increased from 29 to 36 as part of a $12 million refurbishment.
The additional carriages will extend the length of the train from 750 metres to around 880 metres, boosting the capacity to 260 passengers and crew.

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Grant
Darwin NT

TGV derails.

It was the first derailment in nearly 40 years of commercial operation of France's TGV intercity high-speed service.

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Grant
Darwin NT

Have not heard any trains going by my location last 36 hours here in Fort Worth TX metro area. I live about 1 mile from a major North / South Union Pacific freight line that's also used by AMTRAK.
The Fort Worth U.P. freight storage / switching yard is about 10 miles to the North.

Usually there is one train running in either direction every hour. The silence is deafining.

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Have not heard any trains going by my location last 36 hours here in Fort Worth TX metro area. I live about 1 mile from a major North / South Union Pacific freight line that's also used by AMTRAK.
The Fort Worth U.P. freight storage / switching yard is about 10 miles to the North.

Usually there is one train running in either direction every hour. The silence is deafining.

Well Amtrak is still running most services. The Texas Eagle 21 is currently leaving Fort Worth on time for Celburn. With the 22 heading north for the same destination, only 39 mins late.

The Heartland Flyer 821 is 1 hour 39 min late due Fort Worth 2.10pm CT.

Not sure why the freight railroads in Texas might have cut back.

PS Just watched a 64 car BNSF Auto Rack train leaving Fort Worth



So there is freight out there

Amtrak discloses data breach, potential leak of customer account data

The National Railroad Passenger Corporation (Amtrak) has disclosed a data breach that may have resulted in the compromise of customer personally identifiable information (PII).

The data breach was discovered on April 16, 2020. In a letter to the Attorney General's Office of Vermont, made public on April 29, the rail service said that an unknown third party managed to fraudulently access Amtrak Guest Rewards accounts.

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