Sam Hewitt

THE City of New Orleans owns a short but strategically important railway system – the New Orleans Public Belt (NOPB) which has operated since 1908, giving all rail operators access to the port of New Orleans. The Public Belt Railroad Commission also manages the Huey P Long Bridge, which opened in 1935 and is used…

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NATIONAL US passenger operator Amtrak ordered 130 new sleeper, baggage and restaurant cars from CAF in 2010, in a contract worth $298.1 million. The order, funded by the US Government as part of economic stimulus following the financial crisis, will allow Amtrak to withdraw a variety of much older vehicles it inherited in 1971 from…

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COMMUTER rail services from Northern Virginia into Washington (DC) celebrated their 25th anniversary in July. Services operated by Virginia Railway Express (VRE) started between Washington and Manassas on June 22, 1992 with services to Fredericksburg starting on July 20 that year. Over the 25 years of operation the system has developed with extensions to both…

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CANADIAN Pacific has overhauled and completely rebuilt GM ‘F unit’ diesel loco No. 1401 and is using it as the lead loco on the ‘Canada 150’ train that has operated across Canada as part of the country’s 150th anniversary celebrations. No. 1401 was built in 1958 as No. 6541 for Canadian National. The overhaul by…

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SERBIAN Railways (ŽS) has four EMD JT22CW-2 Class 666 diesel locos built by EMD in the USA in 1978 and mechanically very similar to the Irish 071 Class (also model JT22CW-2 but with different body styling). The ŽS Class 666s were bought by Yugoslav Railways to operate the presidential train for former Yugoslav leader Marshall…

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GERMAN Railways (DB) once had 647 Class 143 electric locos, built in the former East Germany at LEW Hennigsdorf between 1984 and 1990 for East German Railways (Deutsche Reichsbahn), and originally numbered as ‘243s’. By early 2016, fewer than 100 remained in passenger use with DB Regio, replaced all over Germany by modern EMUs, although…

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SOUTH AFRICAN national freight operator Transnet is introducing more than 1,000 new electric and diesel 1,067mm gauge locomotives to modernise its fleet. As reported in the December 2015 issue, the first of the 100 strong Class 21E BoBo 3,000kW 100kph dual voltage (3kV DC/25kV AC) electric locos being built by Chinese manufacturer CRCC at the…

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HN RAIL Class 31 No. 31459 worked its first passenger services on the Wensleydale Railway (WR) on July 2. This followed mechanical attention to the loco after it arrived at the WR. No. 31459 hauled the 11.00 Leeming Bar-Redmire (with Class 20 No. 20166 as insurance), returning from Redmire at 12.15 with the Class 20 on the rear.…

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