I would take Amtrak from GA to Santa Fe, NM, however, the schedule is horrible. From Atlanta, I can go to either Washington DC or New Orleans. There I wait for 8 to 10 hours. From DC I go to Chicago. From NO I go to either Chicago or Los Angeles. There you wait for a further 8 to 10 hours. The final leg is to Lamie (about 20 miles from Santa Fe).

If there were not 20 hours of layover, I would be much more inclined to take the train for the journey.

I was about to suggest that you take it to Phoenix, ride Amtrak's Thruway bus to Flagstaff, and back to Lamy from there (actually, I'd go to Albuquerque and take the New Mexico Rail Runner from there to downtown Santa Fe), but checking the schedules, I was just reminded that the Sunset doesn't go to Phoenix, it goes to Maricopa, and the bus to Flagstaff doesn't go to Maricopa, only to downtown Phoenix and the airport. You could still do it that way, but I don't know what arrangements are available from Maricopa to Phoenix.

P.S. There used to be a through car cut off of the NOL-Chicago train at Carbondale, Ill. that ran to St. Louis and I think to Kansas City. You could have connected to the Southwest Chief to Lamy there (possibly with another long layover, I don't remember), but they cut that several years ago.

P.P.S. If the states of Kansas, Colorado, and New Mexico don't step up with some funding for track maintenance pretty soon, the Chief will be rerouted through Amarillo. All the stops between (I think) Hutchinson, KS and Albuquerque would lose service, including Lamy. (I'm not even sure ABQ would survive; it might be replaced by Belen and you take a Rail Runner from there.) BNSF only runs a local freight on the line in western Kansas and doesn't want to maintain the track for better than 30 MPH (and has already cut passenger speeds from 90 to 60). At the other end, the state owns the track where the Rail Runner runs and was going to buy it the rest of the way to the CO border, but the new governor backed out of that deal and has made it clear she won't put up any money for maintenance either; BNSF only runs a local freight out of ABQ to Lamy, as needed, and the only trains beyond there are one Amtrak each way every day.

P.P.P.S. I don't know if the Rail Runner schedules are convenient for this itinerary, but it wouldn't surprise me if they aren't.

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David
Sitting on my butt while others boldly go,
Waiting for a message from a small furry creature from Alpha Centauri.

I generally don't like the "independent entity owns the track and operators have open access" model that European railroads have adopted, but I must say it's great for steam excursions.

I can see that in the USA it might make more sense for the train companies to own the track but the UK is a lot smaller and to me it is much more sensible that if an engine is main line certified it can then travel the length and breath of the UK.

Right. That's what I was trying to get at.

(That is what at which I was trying to get?)

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David
Sitting on my butt while others boldly go,
Waiting for a message from a small furry creature from Alpha Centauri.

My inner technogeek is going nuts after seeing this.

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David
Sitting on my butt while others boldly go,
Waiting for a message from a small furry creature from Alpha Centauri.

Holiday Magic, Video :)
Thanks David :)

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Here's a page about Absolute Permissive Block signals, one of several types of signal systems in use in North America.

It was brought to my attention by an engineer (and former dispatcher) for one of the Big Six North American railroads, who has a large model railroad in his basement and wants everyone to study this for use at his next operating session.

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David
Sitting on my butt while others boldly go,
Waiting for a message from a small furry creature from Alpha Centauri.

From the BBC Website

"Part of the Victoria London Underground line has been suspended after wet concrete flooded a control room.

Transport for London said the mixture of concrete and water was being used to "fill voids" while upgrade work was being carried out.

Nigel Holness from London Underground said: "We've isolated the cause of it and we're hoping to get the service up and running as quickly as possible."

The line has been suspended between Warren Street and Brixton."

The pictures are here
Wet Concrete

Nasty.

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The question to be asked is: -

Did LU provide the contractors with Maps, Floor plans and Blueprints? If the answer is no, then the contractors cannot be held liable.

London's underground system criss-crosses itself many times as it is divided in two: -

Underground (sub-surface) i.e., Circle, District & Metropolitan Lines
Tubes (Deep level) i.e., Central, Piccadilly & Northern Lines

While working on the Cross London links, contractors had to be extremely careful they did not interfere with existing infrastructure so somebody messed up here big time.

Watch the blame game start next.......

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From the BBC Website

"Part of the Victoria London Underground line has been suspended after wet concrete flooded a control room.

Transport for London said the mixture of concrete and water was being used to "fill voids" while upgrade work was being carried out.

Nigel Holness from London Underground said: "We've isolated the cause of it and we're hoping to get the service up and running as quickly as possible."

The line has been suspended between Warren Street and Brixton."

The pictures are here
Wet Concrete

Nasty.

Ick. That's even messier (and sillier) than the Chicago Flood of 1993.

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David
Sitting on my butt while others boldly go,
Waiting for a message from a small furry creature from Alpha Centauri.

Union Pacific is moving Big Boy 4014 today. They already pulled it out of the Pomona County Fairgrounds onto Metrolink's mainline and down to the Covina station. As I type, it's sitting there on public display while they move the diesels and caboose into the museum to replace it and restore the main track. Later today, it will move to West Colton Yard in Los Angeles for more preparation for the long trip to Cheyenne, WY.

Live video streaming from Trains Magazine. Right now (when they're not doing interviews) the audio has a lot of fast chf-chf sounds. That's grease guns doing their work on all the bearings on 4014.

The complete train consists of UP 4884 (an SD70M), 4014, 10 loaded ballast cars (probably for braking), and UP 1996, their SD70ACe Southern Pacific Heritage unit. It was 1996 that actually went in and coupled onto 4014 (okay, its tender).

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David
Sitting on my butt while others boldly go,
Waiting for a message from a small furry creature from Alpha Centauri.

from Train Magazine Newswire:

British rail freight operator buys new EMDs, second-hand electrics
By Keith Fender
Published: February 12, 2014

LONDON — Britain's third largest rail freight operator, GB Railfreight, has ordered 13 additional locomotives from EMD. The carrier has increased an order it placed in 2013 for eight JT42CWR diesel locomotives, known in Britain as Class 66, and added another 13 units to the order. The locomotives will be built at EMD’s Muncie, Ind., plant beginning in August 2014.

This order was the first from a British operator for the popular design since 2008 and is likely the last as the EMD 710 prime mover will no longer meet European emissions standards beginning in 2015.

GB Railfreight has been owned by Eurotunnel since 2010. The company also owns and operates the Channel Tunnel undersea rail link between England and France. It is part of Eurotunnel's growing European rail freight business known as Europorte, active in several European countries. In mainland Europe, Europorte uses EMD 710-powered, Vossloh-built diesel locomotives rather than the EMD JT42CWR.

Europorte has also decided to sell its fleet of 16 Class 92 electric locomotives to GB Railfreight. They are the only freight units currently in use in the Channel Tunnel and will enable the company to run freight trains through the tunnel from the U.K. to France. Some of the units already carry GB Railfreight colors.

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David
Sitting on my butt while others boldly go,
Waiting for a message from a small furry creature from Alpha Centauri.

How about a Freightliner Class 66??

Here's one I shot earlier:

66598 and 22 empty hoppers forming the 11:14 - 726F Crawely Foster Yomans to Acton.

Here approaching East Croydon station on the up slow



Interestingly it was Foster Yomans who originally purchased the 15 EMD's that became class 59's that started the whole thing off and occasionally a 59 will haul the Foster Yomans trains

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You don't see many EWS locos there days.

EWS no longer exists it was taken over by DB Schenker Rail

So any you do see haven't been repainted yet.

Also they didn't win the Foster Yomans contract Freightliner did. AFAIK

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Train spotting doesn't happen here anymore since they closed this part of the line back in 1988. :-(

Where I lived in Sydney is another story as it's very lively there with just about anything.

Cheers.

Train spotting doesn't happen here anymore since they closed this part of the line back in 1988. :-(

Where I lived in Sydney is another story as it's very lively there with just about anything.

Cheers.

70+ trains per day at the local crossing

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BOINC WIKI

There are still some in sidings just north of Kings Cross in the old livery of mauve & yellow.

Chris
part time anorak :-)

On the Wisconsin Central, where that paint scheme came from, it was maroon and yellow.

EWS was a big deal over here, among the subset of us open minded enough to not say we don't care about that funny-lookin' Euro-crap. American owned railroad in Europe using American made diesels. (Well, mostly Canadian made, but the builder's HQ, R&D facilities and some subassembly manufacturing are still in suburban Chicago. I drive behind it once in a while to see if anything interesting is sitting outside. Now they've run away from the nasty union in Canada to the right-to-work state of Indiana.)

EWS was started by Ed Burkhardt, the man now infamous as the head of Montreal Maine & Atlantic.

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David
Sitting on my butt while others boldly go,
Waiting for a message from a small furry creature from Alpha Centauri.

On the Wisconsin Central, where that paint scheme came from, it was maroon and yellow.

Yes it was here too perhaps he meant GB Railfreight

EWS 66



GBRF 66

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The MED was first brought over to the UK a few years prior to Ed's involvement. The first were the Class 59 heavy haul locos, they needed one heck of a lot of modifications to get them to ride properly at design speed, and the cab at the radiator end tends to be very warm. The Class 66 was brought over as higher line speed, lower haul capacity, loco, and has done very well indeed, but its engine is now showing its age by struggling to meet the current emissions requirements, never mind future ones.
Its going to be interesting to see what they come up with as a replacement, my money is one of the big Cat engines which come from the same group and do meet the emissions requirements.

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Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?

I like looking at trains. I dont care from what country either. If its on tracks I like it.
I had the pleasure in 2002 of taking the Eurostar from Waterloo station in London to the Nord in Paris. And then back again. I didnt think it look funny, I thought it looked Grand. To bad the US cant have rail sevice like that.

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[/quote]

Old James

I like the trains that go from Geelong to Melbourne. Some of the way the rail line runs parallel to the highway and you can see the cars doing 100kph and the train leaving them behind.

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I like looking at trains. I dont care from what country either. If its on tracks I like it.
I had the pleasure in 2002 of taking the Eurostar from Waterloo station in London to the Nord in Paris. And then back again. I didnt think it look funny, I thought it looked Grand. To bad the US cant have rail sevice like that.

Well I quite like the look of the Acela that runs from Washington to Boston via NY.

Last year I visited several towns on the east coast and one of my favourite was New London Connecticut.

Here is a pic I took of the Acela from NY passing through New London.



Of course being in the US you can get right up close unlike the UK.

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