Prototype News

A non-profit with the mission of getting young people involved with railroading and rail preservation is launching a new online speaker series. Next Generation Railroaders was founded in 2023 and is led by a board of directors ranging in age from 18 to 45. 

“Both the railroad industry and the railroad preservation field face a recruitment crisis, particularly among young adults,” the group’s mission statement reads. “While many railroads, museums, and nonprofits have some type of program to attract new employees or volunteers, most do not directly target millennials and Gen Z, which together comprise the vital demographic of ages 18 to 45. There exists a stark disconnect between the industry’s traditional messaging and the ways that younger generations access and absorb information, especially with regard to technology. As a result, railroads are often viewed as outdated, and the interest in railroading as a career or hobby that was present in the mid-20th century has not been perpetuated by today’s young adults. This disconnect and the resulting perception of ageism have turned railroading into an industry that will eventually become unsustainable from a personnel standpoint as current participants are not replaced with new recruits.”

On March 4, Next Generation Railroaders will launch its first Virtual Mentor Deep Dive with a presentation by Ed Lecuyer, a volunteer with the Wiscasset, Waterville & Farmington Railway Museum in Alna, Maine. The event starts at 7 p.m. EST. The group plans on doing monthly “Mentor Deep Dives.” 

For more information, visit nextgenrr.org. —Justin Franz 

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Delaware’s Wilmington & Western Railroad announced Wednesday that it was suspending operations for the 2025 season to repair its aging historic equipment. 

“As our historic trains continue to age, the time has come for us to take a proactive step in ensuring their long-term viability,” railroad officials said in a post on social media. “We’ve made the decision to pause our operations for the 2025 season to conduct important maintenance and repairs to our beloved equipment. While our historic trains have stood the test of time, it’s crucial that we focus on restoring and maintaining them for the future.”

Sources close to the railroad told Railfan & Railroad that one major issue is the reliability of its locomotives. Last year, some holiday excursions had to be canceled because no motive power was available. The railroad’s two steam locomotives, 0-6-0 58 and 4-4-0 98, are both out of service at this time.

The railroad said it did not know when regular service would continue. 

The W&W was established in 1966 to operate excursions on 10 miles of former Baltimore & Ohio trackage between Greenbank and Hockessin, Del. In the past, it also provided freight service. —Justin Franz

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The Washington, Idaho & Montana Railway LLC operated its first train to Potlatch, Idaho, on February 21, bringing rail service to the north central Idaho community in nearly eight years. The upstart WI&M plans to establish regular freight service in the coming months using a leased GP9 that previously operated on Central Montana Rail. 

WI&M is actually the second railroad company to use the Washington, Idaho & Montana name. The Potlatch Lumber Company built the original between 1905 and 1907 to connect eastern Washington with one of the finest stands of white pine anywhere in the Pacific Northwest. The WI&M ran 50 miles from a connection with the Northern Pacific in Palouse, Wash., to Bovill, Idaho, where it met the Milwaukee Road. In 1962, the WI&M became a subsidiary of the Milwaukee Road. After Milwaukee abandoned its lines west of Miles City, Mont., in 1980, the line became part of Burlington Northern before being spun off as a short line in the 1990s. The previous operator, the Washington & Idaho, last ran on the route in 2018. 

The first Washington, Idaho & Montana train heads east toward Potlatch, Idaho, on February 21. Photo Courtesy of WI&M. 

By the time W&I ended operations, there was only one customer on the line, the Bennett Lumber Products in Potlatch. In an instance of history repeating itself, in 2023, the lumber company purchased the surviving 18 miles of the WI&M from the Idaho border east to Harvard, Idaho (the remaining 30 or so miles of the railroad were abandoned after a flood in 1996). Bennett then leased the line to the newly formed WI&M, led by John K. Howell, Jason J. Hill, and Maddie D. Farnsworth. Since 2023, WI&M has been working to rehabilitate the line between Palouse (where it connects with short line Spokane, Spangle & Palouse) and Harvard. Hill, who is one of the co-owners and serves as general manager, tells Railfan & Railroad that over the last few years, the company has installed 10,000 new ties and redecked nine bridges, along with numerous other projects. That work led to the February 21 run from Palouse to Potlatch with GP9 1838. Hill said he is hopeful that the railroad will be able to attract new business to the line, including transload services and car storage. —Justin Franz 

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Minnesota’s Northstar commuter rail operation could be nearing the end of the line. On February 24, the Minnesota Department of Transportation and Metropolitan Council (the regional planning agency for the Twin Cities) announced that it was studying replacing Northstar service between Big Lake, Minn., and downtown Minneapolis with buses. 

Prior to the pandemic, about 2,000 to 3,000 people rode the trains daily, but according to MPR News, that number has dropped to only a few hundred. In 2023, the line collected about $323,589 in fares but cost about $11.6 million to operate. 

Northstar was established in 2009 and runs on BNSF Railway trackage, which also operates it through its commuter rail department (Besides Northstar, BNSF operates passenger trains for Metra in Illinois, Sounder in Washington, and Metrolink in California). Originally, the line was supposed to connect the Twin Cities with St. Cloud, but an extension beyond Big Lake never occurred. Some have said that’s why the service has never thrived. Ridership on Northstar also lags behind commuter operations of similar size. 

On the same day the Department of Transportation announced it was looking at replacing the service with buses, a Republican state representative introduced legislation to terminate the service completely. 

“Northstar has been an over $320 million failed experiment in commuter transit,” Rep. Jon Koznick stated in a news release. “Taxpayers have been forced to subsidize a rail line that continues to underperform year after year, and it’s time to stop wasting $11 million annually on a project that simply doesn’t work to reduce congestion or move people.”

For its part, Department of Transportation officials stated they were committed to providing high-quality transportation to those who rely on Northstar presently but that it will likely look different in the future. —Justin Franz 

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Metra has donated one of the last surviving F40C locomotives to the Illinois Railway Museum. The locomotive, which has been stored in Chicago for over a decade, was expected to be moved to the museum at Union, Ill., in the coming days. 

Metra 614 was built in May 1974 as Milwaukee Road 54. The F40C design was unique to the North Suburban and North West Suburban Mass Transit Districts, which supported commuter service over the Milwaukee Road lines north and west of Chicago to Fox Lake and Elgin. The F40C is a six-axle, six-motor locomotive with a “cowl” design intended purely for passenger service. The locomotive sides were sheathed largely in stainless steel to match the Milwaukee Road’s bi-level commuter coaches. They were also equipped with head-end power (HEP) as built. Only 15 F40C locomotives were built, all in 1974 by the Electro-Motive Division of General Motors at the EMD plant in McCook, Illinois.

Metra 614 was used in daily service on the Milwaukee Road North and West lines until 2004, when it was removed from active service. It and identical F40C 611 were returned to service in 2009. In 2012, Metra permanently retired both units and put them into storage at Western Avenue. In December 2024, Metra contacted IRM and offered 614 to the museum for historic preservation. The locomotive needs various missing components replaced, notably turbocharger, aftercoolers and ducts, radiators, diode banks, and some other small items. The museum plans to use the locomotive on its demonstration railroad. It is unclear what will happen to Metra 611, which is still stored in Chicago. —Railfan & Railroad Staff

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by Railfan & Railroad staff

MTA Metro-North Railroad unveiled their sixth heritage unit this morning at the maintenance shop in North White Plains, New York. Metro-North P32AC-DM 222 wears the classic green and yellow worn by New York, New Haven & Hartford diesel and electric locomotives up until the mid-1950s. A significant portion of the former New Haven main line is operated by Metro-North on behalf of Connecticut Department of Transportation, including the New Canaan, Danbury, and Waterbury branches. The work was performed as part of scheduled maintenance, which was going to include a new coat of paint once body work was complete.

The New York, New Haven & Hartford can trace its roots back to 1848, building a main line between its namesake cities. The railroad continued to grow through the late 19th and early 20th centuries, backed by powerful banking interests of J.P. Morgan and the leadership of Charles Mellen, consolidating almost every other railroad in southern Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island. Facing considerable postwar competition from trucking and new highways, and saddled with tremendous debt and a costly passenger operation, New Haven entered its final bankruptcy in 1961. It was absorbed into Penn Central in 1969 as a condition of the merger between Pennsylvania Railroad and New York Central. Connecticut Department of Transportation began subsidizing commuter rail services operated by PC (and later, Conrail), and in 1983, those services were contracted to Metro-North.

This latest heritage tribute from Metro-North is the sixth in a series celebrating the commuter railroad’s 40th anniversary in 2023. The first tribute unit (MN 208) was released in May 2023, celebrating Metro-North’s red, blue, and silver image of the 1980s and 1990s. This was followed up by a tribute to the Conrail era of operation from 1976 to 1983 released in November 2023. The third unit featured the distinctive “lightning stripe” design paying tribute to predecessor New York Central, original owner of the Hudson and Harlem lines until 1968. The fourth unit debuted in March 2024, and paid tribute to the MTA/Penn Central partnership of 1970, paving the way for improved commuter rail services. An Employee Tribute unit (MN 214) was released in July 2024.

A subsidiary of the MTA, Metro-North Railroad was created in 1983 to take over operation of the Harlem and Hudson lines in New York, contract operation of the New Haven Line for Connecticut DOT, and a portion of the Port Jervis and Pascack Valley lines shared with NJ Transit operating out of Hoboken, N.J.

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