Tag Archives: Amtrak

Rail Photo of the Month: November 2025

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Surfliner Cab Car 6907

Location: Chatsworth Station, Chatsworth, CA
Operator of Vehicle: Amtrak
Date of Photo: March 10, 2022

After profiling the American League representative in this year’s World Series yesterday, it seemed appropriate to profile the National League in today’s post.  The Los Angeles metropolitan area is often thought of as being extremely car-centric and living there requires a certain amount of auto-dependency.  However, transit use in the second largest city in the United States is actually quite high.  This extends to intercity rail, where the Pacific Surfliner is Amtrak’s busiest service outside of the Northeast Corridor.  The Pacific Surfliner serves 25 stations along a 350 miles (560 kilometer) route running between San Diego and San Luis Obispo via Los Angeles.  As of this writing, there are 12 roundtrips trains each day between San Diego and Los Angeles, with three of those round trips extending north to Goleta and two extending to San Luis Obispo.  The Pacific Surfliner runs within 100 feet of the ocean at various points along its route, making for a very scenic trip.  While Los Angeles Union Station isn’t as close to Dodger Stadium as some might like, the Pacific Surfliner’s Anaheim stop was adjacent to the Angel Stadium parking lot until December 6, 2014.  On that date, service shifted to the newly constructed Anaheim Regional Transportation Intermodal Center (ARTIC), about 1,500 feet to the east and still very much within walking distance of the ballpark.  

For more photos of the Pacific Surfliner, please click here.  

Rail Photo of the Month: September 2025

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Acela Express Power Car 2030

Location: Boston South Station, Boston, MA
Operator of Vehicle: Amtrak
Date of Photo: December 26, 2000

Last week, Amtrak’s “NextGen” Acela entered service on the Northeast Corridor, marking the beginning of the end for the original Acela trainsets that have been in service since late 2000.  I had the opportunity to ride Acela for the first time two weeks after it entered service and have been on it countless times since.  The first generation Acela was definitely an upgrade over the Metroliner service that it replaced, but it is still a far cry from what high speed rail travel is like in places such as Europe (where I’ve been) and Japan (where I have not).  That said, the Acela trainsets did not age well.  Additionally, the experience of riding them was always impacted by the fact that unlike high speed trains in the aforementioned locations, Acela shares tracks with slower conventional trains and the Northeast Corridor has many curves and other speed restrictions, limiting the amount of time on each journey that the train can reach its maximum speed.  

I don’t have any firm plans to ride the NextGen Acelas yet, but I’m sure I’ll have an opportunity in time.  What about you?

For more photos of Amtrak Acela Express, please click here.  

Rail Photo of the Month: May 2024

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Siemens Charger SC-44 4623

Location: Jackson, MI
Operator of Vehicle: Amtrak
Date of Photo: October 17, 2020

Amtrak began operation on May 1, 1971, so it seems fitting for an Amtrak Rail Photo of the Month to mark the occasion.  After many years of associating the GE Genesis engines as the most common head end power on Amtrak services outside of the Northeast Corridor, the Siemens Charger is becoming a more frequent sight across the national rail company’s network.  Siemens Charger locomotives can be found on Amtrak’s long distance services, California state supported services, and on its “Amtrak Midwest” services such as the Wolverine, seen here departing from Jackson, Michigan on its way from Chicago to Pontiac in 2020.

For more photos of Amtrak’s Siemens Charger locomotives, please click here.  

Some Things Are Worth Waiting For…

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New Flyer XE60 19506
Very observant visitors to this site might have noticed two things recently.  First, it has been a very long time (nearly two years in fact) since any announcements of new photos being posted to Oren’s Transit Page have been made.  Second, the January 2023 Bus Photo of the Month came from a city that was not included on Oren’s Transit Page before.  The reasons for this are several fold.  In 2021, travel was slowly resuming and the Oren’s Transit Page Baby (as he was known then) required a level of care that was age-appropriate but one that does not facilitate frequent website updates.  In 2022, travel really took off again, as my travels took me not only up and down the Northeast Corridor but to the Florida panhandle, San Diego, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Israel, and Greece.  As you can imagine, travels that extensive generate lots of photos, which in turn, take time to organize, touch up, caption, and post.  The good news is I’ve made some headway on that front, and I believe any photos I took prior to May 2022 are now online.

The “highlights” from this update in my opinion in “chronological” order are:

The rest of 2022’s photos are still to come, and I’ve already taken one trip within the US in 2023 and I’m sure more are to come, so stay tuned.  The photos from all those travels will be posted.  Eventually.

Here is the full listing of where new photos were added to the site, with new sections highlighted in bold and italics.  

Rail Photo of the Month: November 2022

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ACS-64 649

Location: Halethorpe Station, Halethorpe, MD
Operator of Vehicle: Amtrak
Date of Photo: November 25, 2018

In the United States, Thanksgiving is approaching.  This is considered to be the busiest travel period in the country each year, and Amtrak (among other intercity transit operators) has set ridership records on the days immediately preceding and following the holiday as people travel to spend the holiday with loved ones.  Pre-pandemic, Amtrak often supplemented its regular services on the Northeast Corridor with “Holiday Extra” trains.  Many of these were operated with standard Amfleet equipment, but some were operated by equipment leased from commuter railroads such as MARC, SEPTA, and New Jersey Transit.  As you can imagine, railfans often ventured out to see and photograph the extra trains, and I did this on the Sunday after Thanksgiving at the Halethorpe Station south of Baltimore.

For more photos of Amtrak’s ACS-64 locomotives, please click here.

Rail Photo of the Month: May 2021

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Genesis P42 52Genesis P42 52

Location: Tucson Station, Tucson, AZ
Operator of Vehicle: Amtrak
Date of Photo: January 20, 2020

On May 1, 1971, the National Railroad Passenger Corporation (NRPC), better known as Amtrak, assumed operation of most of the passenger trains within the United States.  Prior to this date, passenger trains were operated by railroads, but due to the increasing affordability of automobile and air travel for larger segments of the population, ridership on the nation’s passenger trains decreased significantly in the 1950s and 1960s.  However, railroads could not abandon unprofitable passenger services without the approval of teither a state public service commission or the federal Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC), and this permission was rarely granted.  With the railroads facing likely financial devastation if they could not shed their passenger services, Congress began to hold hearings about how the national rail network could be preserved in a sustainable manner for both passengers and freight.

The result of this work was the creation of the NRPC. Key provisions at the time of NRPC’s establishment were as follows: 

  • Any railroad operating intercity passenger service could contract with the NRPC, thereby joining the national system, 
  • Participating railroads bought into the NRPC using a formula based on their recent intercity passenger losses. The purchase price could be satisfied either by cash or rolling stock; in exchange, the railroads received NRPC common stock.
  • Any participating railroad was freed of the obligation to operate intercity passenger service after May 1, 1971, except for those services chosen by the Department of Transportation (DOT) as part of a “basic system” of service and paid for by NRPC using its federal funds.
  • Railroads that chose not to join the NRPC system were required to continue operating their existing passenger service until 1975 and thenceforth had to pursue the customary ICC approval process for any discontinuance or alteration to the service.

The thought was that NRPC would continue to operate intercity passenger trains for about three years, and then due to the continue unprofitability of these services, they would cease to exist.  However, it has been 50 years since it began operations and Amtrak continues to operate to this day.

The official celebration of this anniversary took place yesterday in Philadelphia and was attended by a very prominent railfan, President Joe Biden.  Amtrak is also marking the anniversary in other ways, including through the sale of special merchandise and painting special liveries on six locomotives.  

While I haven’t been on Amtrak in over a year due to the Covid-19 pandemic, I am looking forward to returning to the rails soon.  While most of my travels have been in the Northeast Corridor, I have had the opportunity to travel on five of Amtrak’s long distance services and several state supported corridor services as well.  Amtrak may not be the fastest way to get from coast to coast, but taking the train gives you the opportunity to see parts of the American landscape that you cannot see from 30,000 feet above the ground while flying.  There are even some places of the country that are only accessible if one travels by train, such as portions of the Colorado River gorge west of Denver that the California Zephyr travels through (aside from the train, the only other way to see this remarkable scenery is by whitewater raft).  Through the “family style” seating in the dining car on long distance services, every meal is an opportunity to meet and converse with other travelers.  It is a truly unique experience that I would recommend to anyone assuming the circumstances are right.

To mark the occasion, I’m sharing a photo from my last Amtrak trip on the Sunset Limited in January of 2020.  Fittingly, the Sunset Limited is one of the routes that Amtrak has operated since its inception 50 years ago.  

For more photos of Amtrak trains and stations from across the entirety of the United States, please click here.

For further reading about Amtrak’s 50th anniversary, check out any or all of the following:

Enough Teases, Here’s What’s New and Updated for the Start of 2021!

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Ventura County Railway No. 2
Anyone who knows where I’ve traveled or has visited the site with some frequency over the years may have noticed that the Bus Photo of the Month for January 2021 was from a city that had not been included on Oren’s Transit Page before, and that I’ve been highlighting a number of new website sections over the past few weeks. 

The biggest and most noteworthy additions are the brand new sections for Baltimore, Las Vegas, the Grand Canyon, and Austin.  As I noted in a recent post, there was a certain amount of irony to the fact I grew up 40 miles from Baltimore and am an avid Orioles fan, yet the city had not been featured on this site until recently.  Las Vegas, the Grand Canyon, and Austin were destinations that I traveled to in late 2019 and early 2020 before the Covid-19 pandemic, and I am thankful to have had the opportunity to make those trips when I did.  

I also took advantage of some time I had recently to move some photos that had been on the Uncaptioned Photos page for quite awhile and put them in more appropriate places on the website, most notably, the photos of the Pikes Peak Cog Railway now have their own page.  Perhaps you found the new material on your own, but if not, here is the full listing of where new photos were recently added to the site, with new sections highlighted in bold and italics.  

Rail Photo of the Month: November 2020

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Acela Express Power Car 2019Acela Express Power Car 2019

Location: Halethorpe MARC Station, Halethorpe, MD
Operator of Vehicle: Amtrak
Date of Photo: November 25, 2018

Most years, railfans look forward to Thanksgiving weekend because of all the special services Amtrak runs to take people to and from their holiday celebrations.  For example, in 2018, over 846,000 passengers used Amtrak over Thanksgiving week, and over 160,000 trips were made on the Sunday following the holiday, often Amtrak’s busiest day of the year.  Some years, Amtrak has even chartered commuter rail equipment to operate extra trains, resulting in MARC and NJTransit trains being sighted well outside of their typical territory.  And railfans gather at favorite spots along the Northeast Corridor and elsewhere in the country to see the unique and frequent Amtrak service go by.  In 2018, I spent some time on the Sunday after Thanksgiving at the Halethorpe MARC Station, just south of Baltimore, and this is one of the photos that I took while I was there.

We’ll all be able to travel again sooner if we heed the medical advice, stay home, and celebrate the holiday with loved ones over Zoom. There will be Thanksgiving week railfanning in future years instead.

For more photos of Amtrak’s Acela Express, please click here.

Rail Photo of the Month: February 2020

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Genesis P40 824

Genesis P40 824

Location: North Station, Boston, MA
Operator of Vehicle: Amtrak
Date of Photo: August 29, 2002

If you follow this website on Facebook, you may have noticed I took a trip on Amtrak from Los Angeles to Austin last month.  During our service stop in Tucson, AZ, I discovered that one of the two engines pulling our train was Genesis P40 824.  That number seemed familiar to me, as I thought this engine might have been on the lead end of the California Zephyr when I took that train in 2014.  It turns out my trip on the Zephyr was pulled by 823, but I had crossed paths with 824 on at least one other occasion.  In August 2002, I did a daytrip on the Downeaster, which had only started service about 9 months prior.  While I’m not sure if 824 was the engine on my train in either direction (it could have been 810 based on my photos), I did get photos of it back on this rainy August day in 2002.  At this time, 824 was painted in the “Phase IV” scheme and was a few years away from being put in long term storage.  824 is one of about fifteen P40 locomotives that was refurbished using stimulus funds made available by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, at which time it was repainted in the “Phase V” livery that it currently wears.

For more photos of Amtrak Genesis Diesel Locomotives, please click here.

 

New Photos from the Land of Enchantment (& More)

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Albuquerque, NM
In August, I visited New Mexico for the first time (unless you count passing through on Amtrak’s Southwest Chief back in 2014).  Although I was only there for four full days, I did have some opportunities to photograph the transit available in Santa Fe, Albuquerque, and in between.  Both cities have sizable bus networks, though the latter is larger than that of the former.  In addition, the Rail Runner Express operates commuter rail service between those same cities.  Unfortunately, for such a short stay and due to other logistical constraints, I didn’t actually ride any of these systems, though photographing them while trying to capture the local architectural styles in some of my photographs while doing so was fun!

This update also includes photos from around the DC area, including photos of MARC’s newest diesel locomotives, the DC Circulator’s new Proterra electric buses, and more!

Here is the complete list of pages with new photos in this update: