Railroads

Texas singer-songwriter Joe Ely has been in love with trains his whole life. In 1977, he recorded one of the great train songs -- "Boxcars," which his longtime pal Butch Hancock wrote -- laying out exactly what had hooked him over the course of countless rides in open freight cars journeying to and from his hometown of Lubbock. If you ever heard the whistle on a fast freight train Beatin' out a beautiful tune If you ever seen the cold blue railroad tracks Shinin' by the light of the moon If you ever felt a locomotive shake the ground I know you don't have to be told Why I'm going down to the railroad tracks And watch them lonesome boxcars roll "My grandfather worked the Rock Island line, and my father worked on the Santa Fe line," Ely, 62, said Sunday night following his performance at Burt's Tiki Lounge, about two blocks from the Albuquerque train station.

Compelled by their hankering for a breakfast of pozole, Ricardo and Rosa Solis casually strolled across the railroad tracks on First Street to a Mexican restaurant. They didn't know that around the corner, MTA and law enforcement officials had just concluded a news conference Monday exhorting people not to do exactly that. Later this summer, light rail trains will return to Boyle Heights and East L.A. for the first time in half a century.

Railroad tickets are a dangerous business in China. Retired military man Wang Hanlin opened a travel agency here a decade ago, but found that the best seats disappeared no matter how early you tried to buy them. When he asked why, Wang recalls, he was told to keep his mouth shut. When he persisted, he got his answer from six thugs who jumped him in broad daylight and beat him with a pipe, smashing his legs.

A proposal by the Schwarzenegger administration to use $170 million in voter-approved bond money for projects benefiting two private railroads is drawing ire from Southern California officials who want the funds for road improvements and other projects.

The chief executive of one of the nation's biggest railroads spent Monday promoting a plan to build a $300-million rail yard close to the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, where cargo containers would be loaded directly onto trains instead of being trucked up the Long Beach Freeway. Matthew K. Rose, chairman, chief executive and president of the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway, touted the project, which would be located four miles from the ports.

The owner of a fluff-and-fold laundry in a small western Oregon town couldn't be happier that tons of mud, rocks, snow and fir trees sloughed off a hillside one day in January. No one was hurt when the landslide took out the Union Pacific Railroad's main track through the Cascades south of Eugene, but it has severed a key rail link between Los Angeles and Seattle. The slide spans 3,000 feet.

Diesel-powered ships and trains must cut soot emissions by as much as 90% by 2030, under regulations signed Friday by U.S. Environmental Protection Agency administrator Stephen Johnson. "Today EPA is fitting another important piece into the clean diesel puzzle by cleaning emissions from our trains and boats," Johnson said by telephone from the Port of Houston, where he made the announcement. "This will help America's economic workhorse become its environmental workhorse as well."

The nation's top hauler of container rail freight, BNSF Railway Co., is parking miles of rail cars in Montana and elsewhere because there isn't enough freight to keep them rolling. Cars that often carry 40-foot containers of goods shipped from Asia stand like an iron fence between the Missouri River and this Montana burg known for world-class fly fishing. They stretch as far as Sandee Cardinal can see when she stands outside her home on the river's west bank between Helena and Great Falls.

The Alaska Railroad slices up the middle of the state like a bolt of blue and yellow lightning, into the belly of a place that is camera-ready and bountiful beyond belief. The rail line begins in the little seaport of Seward, chug-a-lugs up to Anchorage, past Denali National Park and Preserve and finally to Fairbanks, an almost 500-mile jaunt of day trips throughout Alaska's short, short summer. Why the train?

When you shoot photos on the train, the most important step is to turn off your flash, or somehow cover it. Otherwise, the reflection from the train window will frost every shot. The best photo perches are the vestibules, or open spaces, between cars, or the outside platforms in first class. Take a jacket and stake out a place early. The dome cars also provide great vantage points.