I've made a long-overdue update to the roster page for GrandLuxe Rail Journeys, to reflect the disposition of a number of the cars from GLR to Xanterra's new American Railway Explorer. Also, I am preparing to move the site to a new URL, http://www.ultradomes.info. Look for that move to happen in the next week or so.

Tri-Rail's final DMU, TRCX 704, has been shipped from Colorado toward Florida. The car is presently in Birmingham, AL making the handoff to CSX for the final leg to Miami. I've added a couple of photos of the car to its roster page.

The following message from Colorado Railcar's official website says it all: "ATTENTION: Effective December 23, 2008 Colorado Railcar Manufacturing ceased it's business operations. Colorado Railcar Manufacturing has a major liquidity problem, and it's lenders have a secured position in the assets of the company. The company is in the process of liquidation. The company has no employees effective December 31st, 2008. - Larry E. Salci - President & CEO"

Your webmaster lost his job with CRM two weeks before Christmas. Most of the rest of the plant lasted another week. Though these are bleak times right now for Colorado Railcar and its employees, I feel firmly that the ideas and products of the company will re-emerge in the future. There is a lingering hope that this is all a temporary situation. Either way, the business entity and hopefully the increasingly infamous name are a part of history.

At this time, there is no way to know what the future holds. But this website will continue to monitor the situation in hopes that there will soon be cars to add to the roster again.

I've added several additional photos of Alaska Railroad 655 and 656 from their recent delivery, along with some updates to the content of the dome roster page.

Alaska Railroad 655 and 656 will ship from Fort Lupton to Seattle tomorrow morning for furtherance to Alaska. In celebration, I've added interior photos to the units' roster pages.

I've added roster pages for nearly complete Goldstar dome cars for the Alaska Railroad, ARR 655 and 656.

Colorado Railcar's ultradomes, and specifically Alaska Railroad's Goldstar domes, have been featured on Eric's Railroad Car History. There's a great writeup on the cars in PDF format complete with plenty of photos. Click on the Eric's Car of the Month link on top and select the October 2008 link to download the file.

With the delivery of the final two cars, I have added the roster pages for TriMet 1002 and 1003, along with several photos of them on the road to Oregon. Looks like we'll have some photos coming soon of Alaska RR 655 and 656, which should be out of the shop late next month. Enjoy!

I've added the new TriMet DMUs and trailer to the DMU roster page, and created individual pages for TriMet 1001 and 2001, the first two vehicles delivered for TriMet's WES (Westside Express Service) between Beaverton and Wilsonville, OR. Pages for DMUs 1002 and 1003 will follow shortly.

TriMet's cars made a media splash when they landed in Wilsonville. Check out the coverage on KATU channel 2 in Portland, complete with a few quips from yours truly. There's also an article in the Oregonian, and another video from KGW channel 8.

Thanks to an alert reader for noticing that my last update to the page for Rocky Mountaineer 9506 included a photo of RMV 9521 instead. OOOPS! So I've fixed that with an older photo of 9506 for now.

The Links Page has been updated with several new links, some updated old ones, and the updated format. Of note is the removal of Rocky Mountaineer's Winter Railtours page. It would seem that, sadly, they have discontinued this service. I guess I got lucky with my ride in 2004.

Also in the news items, I am pleased to report that DOTX 220 was present at the AAR Test Center in Pueblo last month for an open house. The 2007-built track geometry car was seen working through Kansas on BNSF yesterday.

I've corrected the page for DOTX 220, the track geometry car built last year. As is obvious, I used the new page for the Aurora as a starting point for this page, and obviously forgot to change the notes around. So, for all the folks out there who thought this thing started life as an ex-SOO Line car as well, I apologize for misleading you.

In anticipation of some planned changes to all of my sites, I have added an invisible hit counter to the front page to allow me to track stats and traffic onto this and my other sites. You probably won't notice too much, but if you are tracking cookies, you may notice that the site suddenly asks for one where is hasn't before. Don't be alarmed. Nothing malicious here. Just keeping track of the traffic the site sees, which I haven't ever done before.

I corrected some formatting errors in the GrandLuxe Roster page, and reloaded some photos to the Alaska Railroad directory, since they weren't showing up on the pages for the 557, 653 and 654. Enjoy.

There have been some realignments on the DMU Roster and Dome Roster pages to organize them by owner rather than by build date. Despite being out of sequence chronologically, I think this is a little bit more intuitive way to list them. I've also updated the roster pages for RMV 9531, ARR 653, ARR 654 and ARR 557 with new photos and a shift to the new page style.

The GrandLuxe Roster page has been fully updated with car histories for each of the cars in the fleet, along with interior and exterior photos.

On the CRM news front, VIA Rail is again running its Snow Train to Jasper with the three CRM Panorama series domes. The offering is similar to last year, with an evening departure from Edmonton, Alberta on Friday and a return from Jasper on Sunday. Click here for VIA's page on the train.

I've also neglected to update the news pages with the deliveries of new Alaska Railroad Goldstar domes 653 and 654 in August, Florida DOT DMU TRCX 706 in September, and Alaska Railroad single level dome 557 in October.

First, the news.... OK, I've overhauled the News and Updates page (this page) in a new format, and am in the process of combining the archives into annual updates, which I will slowly add down below. I've also finished updating the DMU pages by finishing off the page for CRMX 2002, and finally, I've updated the roster page for brand new Rocky Mountaineer 9531, which went into service this week after being delivered last month.

Other updates include an overhaul of the Photos and Features page, and an update to the refurbishing page for ARR business car Denali, and I've also added a comprehensive history of the car.

I've updated the pages for TRCX 703, 704, 705, 706, 7001 and 7002 with lots of new photos, and the new image of the website. Progress is being made. Stay tuned for more. The DMU prototype and the news page are next on my list...

I've updated some of the DMU pages to introduce the new look. You can check it out by looking at the pages for TRCX 705 and 7002. In a few days the entire DMU pages will be overhauled, and I will be moving on to the dome car pages. Stay tuned!

I've released an updated version of the CRM Domecar Roster, and the CRM Commuter Car Roster, in the new look. Enjoy.

DOTX 220, a track inspection vehicle owned by the FRA, was released from the factory in February, and tested in Pueblo, CO before traveling east to Virginia. At the beginning of the month, new DMU and trailer set TRCX 705 and 7002 moved to Florida.

It's also worth noting that this site will be seeing several major changes in the coming weeks, as I am finally starting the format overhaul that I have been hinting at for a while. Stay tuned.

Looking for earlier news items? Here's our archives by year.

— 2006

— 2005

— 2004

— 2003