Norfolk Southern Office Car Special
Last week, I watched the NS OCS pass through Linden on it’s return trip to Altoona, PA from the Augusta Master’s Tournament.
See Also: NS OCS Video
The Circus Train
Last week, Ringley Brother’s & Barnum & Bailey Circus wrapped up their Patriot Center shows in Fairfax, Virginia. They previously performed in Baltimore, MD and Washington, DC. Their show moves by train. The performers actually live on the train and the elephants are walked from nearby railroad tracks to the circus tents. Here’s a nice youtube video shot by 1jackdk of the mile-long train stopping by a stream to care for the animals:
Economic Stimulus
Kelly Hannon of Fredericksburg.com reports that Virginia Railway Express commuter service will use stimulus money to purchase locomotives:
Virginia Railway Express is using money from the federal stimulus package to buy new locomotives.
VRE has a $33.1 million order for nine new locomotives from Motive Power Inc. in Boise, Idaho.
While the purchase of diesel-electrics is good news for VRE riders, I would have preferred that they used a portion of the money to buy a steam locomotive and offer weekend steam excursions. The NS tracks between Manassas and Alexandria are very underutilized on the weekends. Perhaps VRE can look into leasing one of Jack Showalter’s Pacifics, which are currently stored in operable condition. With the success of VRE’s diesel-powered Santa trains, a steam powered excursion program would surely be a big hit. I believe VRE has the space to construct an engine shed at their Manassas Airport facility.
In other news, Ray Reed of Lynchburg’s NewsAdvance.com reports that Governor Kaine is on board with a plan to add an additional train to DC from Lynchburg and another from Richmond, VA. Norfolk Southern ran a special one-car train to Richmond for the event.
General Assembly members from Charlottesville, Roanoke and Lynchburg, plus most of Lynchburg’s City Council, and Amtrak executives were among approximately 90 people who gathered on a rainy afternoon for a glimpse of what a new train to Washington will look like.
A shiny brown NS executive coach sat on the tracks where a new daily Amtrak train is to depart each morning starting in October.
The Obama administration revealed a high-level plan for high speed rail earlier this week. The plan mentions that fundin can be used for conventional passenger service (speeds up to 79 mph). In terms of exactly how the high-speed rail money in the economic stimulus package will be spent, we should know more in the coming months.
The President’s Train
The Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen have a nice article up about Carlyle Smith, the engineer that pulled President-elect Obama to his inauguration:
While driving to the barbershop 10 days before Christmas, Carlyle Smith, an Amtrak locomotive engineer, heard on the radio that President-elect Barack Obama and Vice President-elect Joe Biden were planning to take a special train from Philadelphia to Washington for their inauguration.
“I thought, that’s kind of neat. Then I thought, ‘Hey, that’s my route,’” said Smith, 39, an Upper Marlboro resident who has been an engineer for the last 11 years, and has logged more than 750,000 trouble-free miles during his railroad career.
See Also: Obama and Biden Ride the Rails into Washington, D.C.