Devastating wildfire impacts rail service around Jasper, Alberta. The post Devastating Alberta Wildfire Closes CN Main, Suspends VIA Passenger Service appeared first on Railfan & Railroad Magazine ..read more

By Railfan & Railroad Staff The Berkshire Scenic Railway Museum will kick off its 40th year this weekend, July 27 and 28, with a celebration at its Lenox, Mass., station, including exclusive tours of the famed Roger Williams experimental high-speed train.  The New York, New Haven & Hartford train has three Budd RDCs with streamlined ends. The train is owned by the non-profit Budd RDC Foundation and it is being leased to the Berkshire Scenic. Last weekend, it made a trip to Canaan, Conn., on the Housatonic Railroad for Canaan Railroad Day. Introduced in 1956, the train used existin ..read more

By Justin Franz   Manitoba’s Prairie Dog Central is raising money to rebuild Canada’s oldest operating steam locomotive.  Prairie Dog Central A2l 4-4-0 3 was built by Dübs & Company of Glasgow, Scotland, in 1882 for Canadian Pacific, and it has led excursions around Winnipeg, Man., since the 1970s. The locomotive is now due for its 15-year overhaul, an endeavor the museum expects to cost approximately $150,000. A GoFundMe page has raised just over $5,000.  “We are currently at a critical point where No. 3 is having to undergo major repairs,” the museum wrote. “We are as ..read more

By Bob Gallegos The Government of Canada has set aside funding to allow VIA Rail to launch the procurement process for the total replacement of its existing long-distance fleet.  The railroad plans to acquire over 40 new locomotives and more than 300 new passenger cars. The new fleet will replace train sets used on long-distance, regional and remote services from coast to coast. The new trains are in addition to the Siemens corridor equipment now entering service on the Windsor-Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal-Quebec corridor. The Request for Qualifications (RFQ) and the Request for Proposals (RFP ..read more

by Rick Kfoury/photos as noted On a frigid day in February 1968, railroader Dwight A. Smith rode a fan-sponsored recreation of one of Boston & Maine’s famed “Snow Trains” from Boston North Station to North Conway, N.H. Little did he know, it would be a life-changing ride. Upon arrival in North Conway, Smith stepped off the train and looked around at the historic rail terminal in the heart of the Mount Washington Valley. While this once-busy branch line had fallen on hard times, Smith could see there was something special about the place. “When I got off the train and looked at that station ..read more

By Justin Franz  New Hampshire’s Conway Scenic Railroad will celebrate 50 years of service on August 3 and 4, with a series of special excursions and a photo freight.  CSRR began operations in August 1974, on the former Boston & Maine’s Conway Branch between Conway and North Conway, N.H. Since then the railroad has grown to be one of the busiest heritage operations in the east, including popular excursions on the former Maine Central Mountain Division to Crawford Notch.  But on the weekend of August 3 and 4, operations will focus primarily on the Conway Branch where the rail ..read more

Tourist railways don’t always get much attention from railway enthusiasts. This seems a paradox, after all, as most tourist railways are designed specifically to be enjoyed; trains whose purpose is the pleasure of their existence. And certainly, tourist railways are popular, for there are scores of them across North America, carrying millions of passengers each year. Yet for some in our hobby, tourist lines are not part of the traditional railway landscape, or are somehow not “real” railroading. Let’s take a step back. No sooner did railways establish themselves in North America than did touri ..read more

by Andrew Cox and Eric Cortinas/photos as noted When you think of Silicon Valley, names such as Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, and countless other tech giants will likely come to mind — but not the railroad. Before moguls of the tech age contributed to creating the world as we know it today, railroads played a key role in building the Valley. The San Francisco Bay Area owes its beginnings to the California Gold Rush, attracting thousands of people from around the world in 1848. Following the Mexican-American War in 1848, a small town 50 miles south of San Francisco would become Califo ..read more

By Railfan & Railroad Staff San Francisco Municipal Railway recently acquired a third “Boat Tram” that once operated in Blackpool, England. The streetcar joins two others already on the MUNI roster, one of which is running every Sunday until October 13, to celebrate the 90th anniversary of its construction.  Blackpool is a seaside resort town and in the 1930s, it acquired 12 open-top, canoe-shaped trams to run on sunny days. Today, eight of the original 12 still exist. Three are in California, including Nos. 226, 228 and 233. Car 226 was the first to ever operate in San Francisco in 1 ..read more

By Justin Franz PLAINS, Mont. — The end is near for a group of searchlight signals that have stood guard over the former Northern Pacific for decades in western Montana. This summer, BNSF Railway is preparing to replace numerous vintage signals along its 4th Subdivision between Missoula and Sandpoint, Idaho.  The signal modification project began under the route’s previous tenant, Montana Rail Link, which ceased operations on December 31, 2023, when BNSF took the line back over after 36 years. For decades, the steam-era signals were one of the many reasons railfans ventured to Montana to ..read more