This is probably a controversial opinion, and I want to preface this with the obligatory “4014 is a marvel of engineering and its pretty neat to see one of its class running on rails,” but uh…

I am over hearing about it at this point. Also, thank you to the people who are posting content that has nothing to
do with 4014 on here.

is this just me?

I'm coming in to KC to see Big Boy at Union Station on 7/22/26. Is there anyone here who saw it on 7/21 that can recommend the best way to see it? Do you queue up inside the station to get down to the tracks? Is it on the main tracks or do they pull it onto a siding? Please save a railfan some time if you know!

I'm an idiot.

A tornado hit my town in New Jersey today so I was watching the local news a lot. The weatherman kept saying that the tornado was first reported by a trainspotter. There is a set of tracks running through town and I've gone down there myself to watch the trains a lot so it made perfect sense to me. It wasn't until 30 minutes later that I realized they were saying "trained spotter," meaning a professional weather person who knew how to properly identify tornado formations.

Would have been cool to look for a train and see a tornado instead. (No serious damage, no injuries reported.)

It's one of those things where I cant tell if theres 4 in the cab or 15 throught the whole train?

I know there are a few battery-powered trains (and no, I'm not talking about the ones powered by a third rail or overhead power lines), but are there any battery-powered mainline locomotives (cargo or passenger)? I don't really see them that much, or at least they're not as popular compared to diesel, steam, or other forms of train power.

I feel like we live in times where we should absolutely do everything to nudge people into taking more trains than more polluting alternative like cars and flights, to avoid climate change to turn europe into a desert and render many countries in the south unlivable by humans.

However still if you want to travel from Brussels to Eurostar kind of spontaneously you often see absurd prices like over 300€ one way. In contrast in Japan people seem to take the shinkansen as you would take the metro: you just arrive at the station by a fixed-rate ticket and hop in the next train leaving from your station.

Eurostar but also SNCF and Deutsche Bahn still seem to be applying dynamic pricing to a large extent, and ticketing policies are pretty unflexible (annoying cancellation fees, weird conditions for getting discounts). I feel like this still discourages a lot of train travels and creates modal shift to cars and flights just because of the uncertainty of the total cost of the trips. Actually this research paper (not mine, but found it pretty interesting) studies the extra co2 emission that might be induced by dynamic pricing https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/18/6/2802 .

This leads to my question: is it true that eventually HSR companies should aim for flat-rates and much more flexible train tickets? Or are dynamic pricing and rigid ticketing policies etc fundamentally necessary to keep prices affordable? Can Eurostar, ICE or TGV do better to make spontaneous travel by high speed rail trivially easier than flying or driving?

I just feel like that's kind of a low-tech, low-hanging fruit solution to decarbonize transport.

Here it is as it pulls into KC (compressed video tho because of course there's a 1GB limit and the original is 1.4GB)

They attach to the bottom of the track but I have no idea what they do.

On Christmas Day 2024, West Japan Railway Company (JR West) Series 221 set 67 enters Tōfukuji Station as a northbound Nara Line train for Kyoto Station.

Tōfukuji sits east of the Kamo River between Gion and Fushimi-Inari, and is named for the nearby 800-year-old Zen Buddhist temple, so the station and trains had a lot of tourists including myself. 

PS: the train on the southbound track to Nara is an ex-JNR Series 205 train.

Big steam power that fly under the radar. My picks:
- Milwaukee Road #261
- Spokane, Portland & Seattle #700
- Texas & Pacific #610
- Grand Trunk Western #6325

Here are some of my line art coloring pages that I made with the Canva line tool while I was bored. The first one is my favorite, as I have put many hours into it, as well as many hours into the real thing in Como, Colorado! 100% AI-free, I aint Richard Crabtree! (long story) If you want to see some colored versions, I'll comment them. Feel free to use these as much as you like but try to credit me if possible. Also check out my new-ish sub at r/Narrow_Gauge_Railroad

From Australia to see the Big Boy and caught this going past

We had streamlined duplex locos plus its not like were using compound steam when we have simple steam expansion and besides the Union Pacific Big Boys could average a top speed of 80 mph so why is it we didn't get an articulated streamliner during the steam era in any form and on any country's railway network.