There is a proposal in the Federal Department of Transportation right now to possibly break up Amtrak into 3 companies under a single holding company.
Why? There are not many details at the moment, but I take a few guesses in this video:
youtu.be/g53xTWjESyE
I'm usually humble, but that pic is better than anything the Amtrak marketing department has put out haha
Also depending on the camera just having some slow shutter speeds helps (like 1/30 or 1/15) but obviously you need some steady hands or a tripod
Having such a wide open lens really helps. But also these trains have very good overhead lighting inside too
A Minolta 7000 with both the 50mm f1.7 and the 28mm f2.8
A camera that's a great mix for press and pro shoots when I don't want to worry too much about manual settings
Alan standing next to the Cascades loco
Cascades locomotive next to a MARC HHP-8
It was a fun dynamic to have such a "foreign" train parked in DC Union next to MARC, VRE and Amtrak Corridor services
Business Class seats
Destination board
Locomotive Cab with Union station reflections
Airo or Charger locomotive in Cascades Colors
Amtrak's Newest Train on film
Their "Airo" trainset in Cascades livery looks fantastic on Fuji 200
The Train that will define Amtrak for the next few decades has just arrived. Did they miss the mark or nail it on the first try?
Lets talk about it in this video:
youtu.be/8JxG6ttSOmA
It's a mixture of continuing the Superliner compatibility, and generally double levels have better views. Plus you can make the train shorter by a car or two, saving weight and wear.
But in practice an all single level fleet would be better
Amtrak's Fleet is split by an east/west divide, with the Western Long Distance routes being dominated by Superliners.
The Superliners will need a replacement, but there's a massive issue that we need to talk about in this new Armchair Urbanist Episode
Justifying a $700k salary while your business is in the red and your employees are striking is some serious out of touch grifting
This paint job radiates such incredible boomer energy that I'd expect the horn to just be a very loud "I just wanna grill for God's sake" yell
Hell yeah
Btw tonight I'll be hosting a casual Chicago meetup at the Emporium Arcade bar in Logan Square at 7pm
There will be plenty of urbanist and transit dorks here to hangout with
alan holding a vinyl record of railroad sounds
searching for the perfect record with @alanthefisher.bsky.social
Yes but I'm now on 49 atm
Hmm, I wonder where I am headed today
Moynihan train hall in NYC
Something something no seats
Memphis has basically built a modern system but with heritage cars. Portland and Seattle are great but they have routine transit funding
There should be more push back on projects that fail to expand or deliver, and other cities should get the benefits when one city miss-uses or in this case failed to build out their system.
The streetcars could go to:
- St Louis
- Memphis
- NOLA
Federal Dollars went into the creation of the DC Streetcar. If it shuts down the Rolling stock should be a transfered to a city that actually needs it, like Memphis
Memphis already runs a pantograph compatible system, but have had issues with their old museum fleet
Huh, marked for the next time I visit
Lol where is this?
Nope! This is actually rolling stock related 🚄
The new Acela is a much needed upgrade to the old and aging fleet, and the increased capacity of the new fleet can also hopefully alleviate some of the insane demand of the northeast corridor. The new trains are great, but...
Amtrak's next gen Acela brings increased Capacity, Higher Speeds, and Updated Interiors; but there's one trend that is haunting the North American Rail industry and unless it's reversed we're all in for a worse ride. I talk about it in today's video:
youtu.be/jktlZ8706Bc
The Philly Inquirer has stayed surprising on point through the last few years
The Norfolk Southern Café
Really loving the right-wingers that spew violent rhetoric 24/7 suddenly saying that it's bad, or that making fun of Kirk (who also did these things), is bad.
Don't be an incredibly shitty person and people won't celebrate your death. It's that easy.
Wow, are you saying that immediately folding and giving up doesn't work? I'm hearing this for the first time
