Railroads

Wayne M. Hoffman, the retired chairman of Tiger International, the Century City-based parent company of the Flying Tiger Line, which was once the world's largest air cargo carrier, has died. He was 89. Hoffman died Saturday of natural causes at his home in Indian Wells, said Nissen Davis, a family friend. A former railroad attorney who rose to become executive vice president of the New York Central Railroad, Hoffman was recruited to become chairman of the Flying Tiger Line in 1967.

Archaeologist Deanna Jones couldn't believe her eyes as she hunched over a shallow pit dug next to railroad tracks in front of the San Gabriel Mission. She was inside the recently excavated foundation of a long-gone adobe building that once stood in the mission's 40-acre Bishop's Garden, first cultivated in the early 1780s. As Jones scooped a trowel full of dirt from what had been the adobe floor, a silvery glint caught her attention. "It looked like a piece of scrap metal at first," said Jones, a 29-year-old Van Nuys resident who has worked four years as a professional archaeologist.

In a positive sign for the U.S. economy, the nation's major railroads will invest a record $13 billion in various infrastructure upgrades this year, including a vital freight corridor that links Southern California's  seaports to Texas and the Southwest. That's according to an industry group that represents Amtrak and the nation's biggest rail freight lines. The Assn. of American Railroads also said that the railroads would hire 15,000 workers, replacing retired employees and adding new positions across the U.S. “Unlike trucks, barges or airlines, America's freight railroads operate on infrastructure they own," said Edward R. Hamberger, AAR president and chief executive.

Negotiators for 30 of the nation's railroads and labor representatives backed away from a strike that might have crippled the fragile U.S. economic recovery. Two more tentative agreements were reached, and the only remaining union without a deal agreed to keep talking at least through Feb. 8. The National Carriers' Conference Committee, which represents the railroads, and 13 unions representing 132,000 workers have been trying to hammer out differences over wages, benefits and job protection since talks began in January 2010.

The historic Irvine Regional Park's festive holiday train will depart from the brightly lighted train station and drop off passengers at the North Pole for the Irvine Park Railroad's 16th Annual Christmas Train. Kids will have an opportunity to share their wish lists with St. Nick and pose for photos. Irvine Park Railroad, 1 Irvine Park Road, Orange. 5-8 p.m. Fri.-Sun. Through Dec. 23. Train tickets $10, children 2 and younger free. Activity tickets $4 each. Book of 15 activity tickets $50. (714)

On the morning after the killings, Salt Lake City awoke to sensational headlines. "Father and Son Slain by Masked Murderers," the Herald-Republican bannered across its front page. The father, a 47-year-old grocer named John G. Morrison, and his son Arling, 17, had been shot to death on the night of Jan. 10, 1914. Within hours, the police had detained a prime suspect for the father's death: Frank Z. Wilson, an alias of one Magnus Olson, an ex-convict who had done time in the Utah state penitentiary.

"Hell on Wheels" is the latest original series from AMC, the cable network also currently committed to shows about zombies, ad men, a meth-making former high school teacher and the yet-unsolved murder of a Washington teenager. What they all share is a certain gritted-teeth tension and an air of incipient violence, except for when violence is actually occurring. There will be blood, literally or figuratively. The new series, which premieres Sunday, is set not long after the end of the Civil War in a tent city called Hell on Wheels at the advancing, westward edge of the Union Pacific railroad.

A coalition of environmental groups is suing three companies that operate 17 rail yards throughout California, looking to eliminate the toxic diesel particulate emissions spewed by locomotives and trucks over surrounding communities. In a complaint filed this week in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, the coalition demanded that Union Pacific Corp., Burlington Northern Santa Fe LLC and BNSF Railway Co. replace older, more polluting locomotives and trucks with newer, cleaner models; prohibit idling near residences; and adopt technologies designed to reduce diesel soot.

Pacific Harbor Line Inc. is one of the shortest railroads in the nation, operating only 18 route miles entirely inside the neighboring ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. But the tiny railway is out to smoke its bigger competition when it comes to environmental friendliness. Already lauded as one of the least polluting U.S. railroads, Pacific Harbor Line on Wednesday unveiled its latest effort at clean living: a glossy, black 2,000-horsepower locomotive that appeared to have undergone few changes except for a new bulge on its roof and a sound, at idle, that one executive said was more like a "giant sewing machine" than a train engine.