trains

About 85,000 people will ride the Essex Steam Train and Riverboat’s Christmas trips this holiday season.

“We are going back to 1910, 1915, when our great-grandparents rode the rails. It’s a little simpler, a little easier,” railroad president Kevin Dodd said before climbing aboard a coal-fired locomotive for a fantastical trip to the North Pole.

The state of Connecticut and Amtrak do not have a shared agreement that makes tickets bought through the rail giant and ones purchased by local students and CTrail passengers equal.

Connecticut passengers without certain train tickets continue to experience second-class treatment on Amtrak trains servicing the Hartford Line.

Non-Amtrak riders continue to be shut out because of capacity issues, despite having valid tickets, on Hartford Line trains serviced in Connecticut by Amtrak.

A seat on the 4:32 p.m. train out of Hartford’s union station is emerging as the most coveted seat on the CTrail’s new Hartford Line that was launched in June.

The Walk Bridge is a century-old “swing bridge” in Norwalk that carries hundreds of trains each day along Connecticut’s southern coast.

This hour: the origin of the Connecticut Valley Railroad. Author and historian Max R. Miller takes “along the valley line” -- sharing stories from the railroad’s past.

But first: on the heels of last month’s devastating Amtrak derailment in Washington state -- a look at what lies ahead for the nation’s aging transportation infrastructure. 

Parts of the rail lines across the Northeast still don’t have Positive Train Control, also known as PTC. Officials said that the system could have prevented an Amtrak train derailment in Washington state that killed at least three people Monday.

Every day nearly a million commuters travel on the Northeast Corridor -- the vast rail network between Washington, D.C. and Boston.

The Commissioner of Connecticut’s Department of Transportation says in the wake of the controversy over a proposed new rail bypass, he’s focusing on repairing the existing system to improve service. 

State officials announced on Monday the operator of a new commuter rail line between New Haven and Springfield, and said the launch of that service will be delayed into mid-2018.

Residents in Connecticut and Rhode Island’s coastal communities are cheering the Federal Railroad Administration's decision to back away from a controversial rail plan that would have re-routed a section of the Northeast Corridor through historic towns and important ecosystems along New England’s southern coast.