SECOND QUARTER 2025: This issue highlights the 50th anniversary of Amfleet. Still going strong today, these robust Budd stainless-steel cars were Amtrak’s first brand-new locomotive-hauled equipment, and authors David C. Warner and Elbert Simon examine the many changes to the fleet over its half-century of service. Elsewhere in this issue, you’ll find news and features covering rail passenger service in the U.S. and overseas, ranging from Union Pacific’s 1950s City of Las Vegas and the economics that doomed Milwaukee Road’s Olympian Hiawatha, to Editor Kevin J. Holland’s salute to Tokyo’s Yamanote Line, the vital transit artery that keeps the world’s largest metropolis moving. All this, plus insightful columns, the Journal and Rush Hour news digests, great photography, and more in the Second Quarter 2025 issue of Passenger Train Journal.
Amtrak Pulls ‘Horizon’ Cars From Service After Discovering Corrosion
The decision to park the cars will have a major impact on regional services across the country that rely on the equipment.
50 Years of Amfleet
Budd’s stainless-steel stalwarts mark a half-century of successful service on Amtrak trains from coast to coast.
Olympian Hiawatha Memories
Recalling Milwaukee Road’s eclectic Pacific Northwest streamliner, and the struggles it faced against postwar competition.
Union Pacific’s “City of Las Vegas”
The history of the short-lived gamblers’ special operated by Union Pacific linking Las Vegas and Los Angeles.
The Canadian at 70
VIA Rail celebrates 70 years of “The Canadian,” a classic coast-to-coast streamliner that first debuted on Canadian Pacific in 1955.