Hoosac Tunnel to Troy

Penney Vanderbilt developed the map of Troy, including the Troy Union Railroad, when she was writing a blog about the Boston & Maine going through the Hoosac Tunnel to serve Troy. It shows important points like Troy Union Station, the Adams Street Freight House and the Green Island Bridge. Other blogs you might like include the

Troy Union Railroad Towers; abandonment of train service to Troy; and last but not least, the Troy Union Railroad.

Find out more about the Boston & Maine Railroad and Troy, New York

https://penneyandkc.wordpress.com/boston-maine-railroad/

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Billerica Name Game: Pan Am Rail

What is “PAR”? My understanding of various names of “Guilford”. Guilford Transportation Industries owned Guilford Rail Services which owned the Boston & Maine, Portland Terminal, and Maine Central railroads. Operations over these properties is conducted by the Springfield Terminal Railway. The B&M, MEC, and possibly the PTM remain in existance primarily as property owners. The name “Guilford” came from the Connecticut town, which was the residence of majority owner Timothy Mellon and David Fink, who became the chief operating officer. The railroad never operated there, as close as the company probably ever came was having some flyovers by their various air line operations. The Perma-Treat railroad tie plant in nearby Durham CT was owned by GTI, and is now AFAIK owned by Pan Am Systems. GTI is now Pan Am Systems, GRS is now Pan Am Railways. The airline operations, Pan Am and Boston-Maine Airways, have met with rather limited success and I believe the Pan Am operation is dormant. I believe that owner Tim Mellon is a licensed pilot and an airline enthusiast, probably is why he acquired the rights to the Pan Am name.

Find out more about the old Boston & Maine Railroad

https://penneyandkc.wordpress.com/boston-maine-railroad/

BART fare cheaters drain up to $25 million a year

The transit agency’s Operations and Safety Committee, chaired by BART board Director Joel Keller, met Tuesday to discuss ways to prevent fare evaders from riding the system for free.
According to BART documents, the transit agency loses an estimated $15 to $25 million in revenue annually. BART estimates its fare evasion is rate is between 4 to 5 percent.
Funny how a few years ago, LA Metro installed gates at most rail transit stations and dumped the Self Service (selbstbedienung in German where it was invented) ticketing that works well all around the world. The plan behind installing the gates was to reduce the number of fare cheaters. In the process LA Metro “saved money” by reducing the number of ticket inspectors who also act as security on the trains. I guess people who want to avoid paying fares have no problems jumping over fare gates.

“Through a three-tiered strategy of enforcement, station hardening, and education, BART aims to raise the stakes for fare evaders, and assure our riders that we value their patronage and investment and foster the expectation that every rider pay their fair share.”

Some of ways fare evaders get into paid areas include following behind a paid BART passenger entering the fare gate, jumping over the glass barriers or fare gates, and entering through emergency exits.

SFBay via California Rail News

“DE-FUNDING AMTRAK’S LONG DISTANCE ROUTES: LOSING THE ‘SHELL GAME’ ON THE POTOMAC”

ntbraymer

By M.E. Singer

The recently proposed FY18 federal budget attack against Amtrak’s 15 long distance routes was inevitable, given Amtrak’s own political gaming, operational, financial, and marketing zombie performance, and executive leadership debacle saddled with questionable political appointees in the years between David Gunn and Wick Moorman. Perhaps as pathetic as Westmoreland’s claim of “a light at the end of the tunnel” in Vietnam (1967) months prior to the NVA Tet offensive (1968) was the ruinous claim of a failed Amtrak CEO espousing his conviction that Amtrak was “on a glide-path towards solvency,” when in reality, it had become a steep slide towards bankruptcy. As well, the past eight years of leadership prior to Mr. Moorman meekly followed a political path to keep heads low and avoid Congress and labor. As the late Jim McClellan commented on an article of mine by personally communicating to me (06/23/15): “Amtrak has largely…

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