Railroads

Somewhere outside the train window, Mt. McKinley stood tall on the horizon, North America's highest mountain and the second-biggest tourist attraction in Alaska. It's what we were hoping to see on this two-day rail tour, and we were sorely disappointed by cloud cover far below the 20,320-foot summit. Imagine our disappointment if we'd made this 233-mile trip as most people do--by car on a highway where the speed limit is whatever the bumper-to-bumper RV traffic will allow.

Railroad ties carried on a flatbed rail car caught fire Monday afternoon, disrupting service on at least one Lancaster-bound commuter train, authorities said. No one was injured, authorities said. The fire began about 4:30 p.m. on a Union Pacific Railroad train, the Los Angeles County Fire Department reported. The train was stopped at Sierra Highway near Avenue P while firefighters worked to put out the flames. Northbound Metrolink commuters on the 3:45 p.m.

Union Pacific Corp. takes "full responsibility" for a series of accidents that claimed 11 lives on the carrier's 36,000-mile system last year, Jerry Davis, the railroad's president, said Wednesday. Davis told a hearing of the National Transportation Safety Board that the company is committed "to making sure nothing like that ever happens again on our railroad."

One of the biggest issues facing the city in the next year--and decade--is how to plan for increased rail traffic and resulting delays for motorists. County transportation and railroad officials say about $200 million worth of work, including overpasses and underpasses, is needed along North County crossings. But city officials say the proposal would mean the loss of private property, including a condominium complex, a mobile-home park and small businesses.

Members of the Railroad Museum in Lomita have launched their first major expansion project in decades by trying to raise $40,000 to build a 35-foot water tower. It is the first in a series of plans underway at the specialized museum to add three buildings and more exhibits at a cost of $5 million. "We are going to have quite an accomplishment when it is all done," said Alice Abbott , the museum's manager.

Except for about 250 miles from Houston to New Orleans, service on Union Pacific's 36,000 miles of track is almost back to normal, the chairman of the Dallas-based company said. At the height of the railroad's congestion, westbound trains were lined up from Los Angeles to Phoenix waiting to get into Southern California. But Union Pacific Chairman Richard Davidson said the congestion has been resolved and trains are moving smoothly through the West.

In a sign of Orange County's continuing emergence as a regional job hub, Metrolink officials hope by next month to offer daily train service for Los Angeles commuters traveling into Anaheim, Santa Ana and Irvine and beyond. For six years, commuter rail service has followed the historical routine of many Southern Californians, traveling into Los Angeles in the morning and returning to the suburbs at the end of the work day.

Union Pacific Corp. reported some improvement in its rail system over the last two weeks, particularly in Southern California, even as the number of rail cars on its crowded lines rose. The Dallas-based railroad, plagued by congestion on its 36,000-mile system over the last year, said in a report to the federal Surface Transportation Board that the number of delayed trains fell 9% to 219. Rail car inventory rose 0.5% to 339,979 between Aug. 28 and Friday.

Amtrak said it reached separate agreements with CSX Corp. and Norfolk Southern Corp. that will allow the passenger railroad and the two freight railroads to operate over one another's tracks once the freight railroads complete finish dividing Conrail Inc. The agreements will allow Norfolk Southern and CSX to operate over the Washington-New York segment of Amtrak's Northeast Corridor. The pacts also allow Amtrak to operate on CSX and Norfolk Southern lines outside the Northeast Corridor.