The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, doing business as Amtrak, is a passenger railroad service that provides medium and long-distance inter-city rail service in the contiguous United States and to nine cities in Canada. Amtrak is a portmanteau of the words America and trak, the latter itself a sensational spelling of track.
Rail terminology is a form of technical terminology. The difference between the American term railroad and the international term railway is the most significant difference in rail terminology. There are also others, due to the parallel development of rail transport systems in different parts of the world.
In railway signalling, an interlocking is an arrangement of signal apparatus that prevents conflicting movements through an arrangement of tracks such as junctions or crossings. The signalling appliances and tracks are sometimes collectively referred to as an interlocking plant. An interlocking is designed so that it is impossible to display a signal to proceed unless the route to be used is proven safe.
The Illinois Central Railroad, sometimes called the Main Line of Mid-America, was a railroad in the central United States, with its primary routes connecting Chicago, Illinois, with New Orleans, Louisiana, and Mobile, Alabama. A line also connected Chicago with Sioux City, Iowa (1870). There was a significant branch to Omaha, Nebraska (1899), west of Fort Dodge, Iowa, and another branch reaching Sioux Falls, South Dakota (1877), starting from Cherokee, Iowa. The Sioux Falls branch has been abandoned in its entirety.
Progress Rail Locomotives, doing business as Electro-Motive Diesel (EMD), is an American manufacturer of diesel-electric locomotives, locomotive products and diesel engines for the rail industry. The company is owned by Caterpillar through its subsidiary Progress Rail.
Vossloh AG is a rail technology company based in Werdohl in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. The SDAX-listed group has achieved sales of around €930 million in 2016 with more than 4,000 employees.
Safetran Systems Corporation was an American company that manufactured switch machines, railroad wayside signal systems, rail transit signaling and rail-highway level crossing active warning systems.
GE Capital Rail Services, also known as GE Railcar, or GE Railcar Services Corporation was a business unit of GE Capital, a division of General Electric. It was a distinct business unit from General Electric's railway locomotive manufacturer.
A derail or derailer is a device used to prevent fouling of a rail track by unauthorized movements of trains or unattended rolling stock. The device works by derailing the equipment as it rolls over or through it.
A ballast cleaner is a machine that specialises in cleaning the railway track ballast of impurities.
The American Railway Engineering and Maintenance-of-Way Association (AREMA) is a North American railway industry group. It publishes recommended practices for the design, construction and maintenance of railway infrastructure, which are used in the United States and Canada.
CSR Corporation Limited (CSR), formerly known as China South Locomotive & Rolling Stock Corp was a Chinese manufacturer of locomotive and rolling stock.
R. J. Corman Railroad Group, LLC is a privately owned railroad services and short line operating company headquartered in Nicholasville, KY, with field locations in 22 states. It was owned by Richard J. Corman, who established the company in 1973, and ran it until his death on August 23, 2013. The company owns seventeen short-line railroads spanning Indiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and West Virginia. The company serves all seven Class I railroads, many regional and short line railroads as well as various rail-served industries. These operations encompass an array of services, including: railroad construction, short line railroad operations, dispatch, industrial switching services, emergency response, track material logistics, distribution centers, signal design and construction, building eco-friendly locomotives, railroad worker training and an excursion dinner train.
Progress Rail Services Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Caterpillar since 2006, is a supplier of railroad and transit system products and services headquartered in Albertville, Alabama. Founded as a recycling company in 1982, Progress Rail has increased the number of its product and service offerings over time to become one of the largest integrated and diversified suppliers of railroad and transit system products and services in North America. Progress Rail markets products and services worldwide and maintains 110 facilities in the United States, 34 in Mexico, four in Canada, two in Brazil, five in UK, one in Italy, and one in Germany. Progress Rail is organized into two divisions: Infrastructure and Rolling Stock.
Loram Maintenance of Way, Inc. is a railroad maintenance equipment and services provider. Loram provides track maintenance services to freight, passenger, and transit railroads worldwide, as well as sells and leases equipment which performs these functions.
The National Railroad Construction and Maintenance Association, Inc. (NRC) is a trade association in the railroad and rail transit construction industry. The NRC is a non-profit trade association, governed by a Board of Directors and administered by the Washington, DC government relations firm, TGA AMS. NRC members include rail construction and maintenance contractors such as Balfour Beatty Rail, Inc., Colo Railroad Builders, Delta Railroad Construction, Inc., Herzog Contracting Corp., Kiewit Western Co., Loram Maintenance of Way, Inc., RailWorks Corporation, and Stacy and Witbeck, Inc.; in addition to supplier companies such as A&K Railroad Materials, Inc., Harsco Rail, L. B. Foster Company, Progress Rail Services, Inc., and Western-Cullen-Hayes, Inc..
John Saxby was an English engineer from Brighton, noted for his work in railway signalling and the invention of the interlocking system of points and signals. He was later a partner in the firm Saxby and Farmer. He is regarded as "the father of modern signalling".
Railway Track & Structures (RT&S) is an American trade journal for the rail transport industry, focusing on the fields of railroad engineering, communication and maintenance. It was founded in 1905 as Railway Engineering & Maintenance and is published monthly by Simmons-Boardman Publishing Corporation.
