Free Republic

The Biden administration could allow California to implement a rule designed to push green locomotives, but a growing list of stakeholders are warning that the regulation would severely impact the state’s economy and the national rail industry. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) could soon determine whether it will allow the California Air Resources Board (CARB) to move forward with a state regulation that would ban the use of locomotives that are more than 23 years past their manufacturing date unless they run using zero-emissions technology, according to Progressive Railroading. The rule could disrupt supply chains and saddle the state’s railway...

Mayor John Whitmire proposing a 5% cut across the board, except for fire and police departments.. Tax hikes and increased fees for parking and city services are likely .. The Mayor of Houston says the city is 'broke' after overspending for decades. Experts say the problem has existed for years, but COVID handouts from the federal government helped mask them. ... A tax hike through a bond is expected in November. ... The city has been struggling to make firefighters whole, from meeting its contractual obligation to their pension, to paying backpay and wage hikes that have been promised years...

The California High-Speed Rail Authority will need an additional $100 billion — above the nearly $30 billion it already has — to complete its original route from San Francisco to Los Angeles, CEO Brian Kelly told state legislators this week. As Breitbart News noted in 2023, the project was set to cost $100 billion more than the $33 billion voters originally approved in 2008. And as Breitbart News was first to report in 2014, the journey from San Francisco to Los Angeles would not take less than three hours, as originally promised to the California electorate when they approved the...

Retired Boeing quality control manager and whistleblower John Barnett found dead... Iraqi militia groups aligned with Iran claim a drone attack on Israel's Ben Gurion Airport... Meanwhile the Israeli military says it struck deep into Lebanon today... In the UK Tommy Robinson released from jail after being arrested Saturday... Military maneuvers set for the Gulf Of Oman involving Chinese, Iranian and Russian warships... In Jamaica an emergency meeting including US Secretary of State Antony Blinken discussing the turmoil in Haiti... Around 50 people hurt when a Sydney, Australia to Auckland, New Zealand airline flight experienced a "technical problem" causing a...

A Norfolk Southern train derailed along the Lehigh River in Lower Saucon Township on Saturday morning, sending part of two engines into the water. The derailment happened in the area of Riverside Drive, across the river from Nagy’s Landing in Bethlehem Township, around 7:15 a.m. Two other trains were involved in the incident that led to the derailment, though only one derailed, officials said at an 11 a.m. news conference. Photos from the scene showed the front edge of at least two engines sticking into the water, with multiple other cars off the track. Norfolk Southern is investigating, and the...

On Friday’s “PBS NewsHour,” Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg stated that the Department of Transportation has “taken so many steps on rail safety policy” since the East Palestine derailment and is “doing everything we can with the authorities that we already have,” but accidents have gone up despite this because Congress needs to act. Buttigieg said, “For our department, the process mainly has to do with making sure things like this can’t happen again, which is why we’ve taken so many steps on rail safety policy and are pressing Congress to do more with the power that it has.”

While Phoenix's pantless light-rail run dates back to 2009, the 2019 ride was canceled and the event took a three year hiatus thanks to the pandemic in 2020. Now four years later, it's making a comeback, but things are a little different. [CONTENT WARNING: THIS IS NOT SUITABLE FOR KIDS BUT BECAUSE KIDS WERE ACTUALLY PRESENT WITH MEN'S FETISH GEAR IN THEIR FACES WE ARE GONNA TALK ABOUT IT AS A SOCIETY.]

The White House issued new guidance requiring federal government employees to prioritize using electric vehicles (EV), trains and public transportation options when conducting official business. The actions, which the White House said fulfilled President Biden's promise to "lead by example" on tackling climate change, seek to take advantage of the federal government's annual business travel purchasing power of $2.8 billion and status as the nation's largest employer. Overall, government employees on official business took more than 2.8 million flights, made 2.3 million vehicle rentals and took 33,000 rail trips last year. "These operational changes will accelerate the clean transportation transformation,...

The Department of Transportation announced more than $6 billion in grant funding for high-speed rail projects this week. The money comes amid ongoing support for a technology that has also encountered concerns about its costs. Brightline West, an affiliate of Florida’s Brightline intercity rail service, was awarded $3 billion in federal funds for its proposed line between Las Vegas and Los Angeles, which would zoom passengers between the cities in two hours. The California High-Speed-Rail Authority was awarded $3.1 billion to continue work on its system, which will ultimately connect Los Angeles and San Francisco in less than three hours....

Joe Biden botched his big announcement about rail investment on Friday, declaring that the federal government would spend 'over a billion, three hundred million, trillion, three hundred million dollars'. The president was in Las Vegas, unveiling $8.2 billion in new federal funding for 10 major passenger rail projects across the country. Among them is a new line from the Nevada city to Los Angeles, which when completed - potentially as soon as 2028 - can carry over 11 million passengers a year, powered entirely by renewable energy. Biden mocked his predecessor for repeatedly promising Infrastructure Week, but failing to deliver....

When California voters passed a referendum in 2008 to construct a high-speed rail connecting Los Angeles to San Francisco, there was no shortage of skeptics. Forty-seven percent of the state voted against the plan, and a group of think tanks issued a nearly 200-page report that year arguing costs would skyrocket, ridership would not match projections, and the environmental benefits were overstated. The skeptics, of course, have been vindicated. But few thought it would be as bad as it has since turned out to be. Fifteen years, and countless setbacks later, not a single mile of track has been laid,...

In 2008, California voted yes on a $9 billion bond authorization to build the nation’s first high-speed railway. The plan is to build an electric train that will connect Los Angeles with the Central Valley and then San Francisco in two hours and forty minutes. But 15 years later, there is not a single mile of track laid, and executives involved say there isn’t enough money to finish the project. The latest estimates from the California High-Speed Rail Authority suggest it will cost between $88 billion and $128 billion to complete the entire system from LA to San Francisco. Inflation...

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), a ranking member of the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee, will not support Sen. J.D. Vance’s (R-OH) bipartisan railway safety bill in the wake of a disastrous train derailment that has rocked the small community of East Palestine, Ohio. Last month, a Norfolk Southern train derailed in East Palestine, with a population of less than 5,000, leaving chemicals spewing into the community’s environment. The Ohio Department of Natural Resources estimates that more than 43,000 fish and other aquatic animals were killed as a result of the toxic chemical spill, while residents have reported feeling sick,...

Here in south-central Indiana we are watching the rail tracks removed throughout our region of the state. There is, . . . no, was a rail line 500 feet from the Indiana house I bought in 1997. At that time we enjoyed watching and hearing two fairly long freight trains pass us each day. We went to the Philippines for a missionary tour, and when we returned (2004), there was no more rail traffic. But after several months, one day, to our surprise, we heard the rail-crossing bells, then a train horn, then we saw a lengthy automobile carrier train...

California is taking action to curb locomotive emissions operating within its borders as part of the state's sweeping climate agenda. On Thursday, the California Air Resource Board (CARB), a state agency tasked with protecting air quality and reducing harmful pollution, announced that it would pursue aggressive regulations to limit freight train emissions. The so-called In-Use Locomotive Regulation makes California the first state to tackle freight train emissions which represent just 0.5% of total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, according to federal data.

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administrator Michael Regan said on Friday that he expects the cleanup in East Palestine, Ohio, to take three months. “We are absolutely laser focused on ensuring that Norfolk Southern cleans up this mess as quickly as possible. We are optimistic that the cleanup will be complete in three months,” Regan said during a conference call on Friday. “We will continue to be transparent. We will continue to ensure that the people of East Palestine get the protection that they deserve and that Norfolk Southern will be held accountable,” the EPA administrator added.

ROBIN WEINEREarlier this month we learned that California’s ruinously expensive bullet train system had gone up in price once again. The full system is now expected to cost $128 billion and that’s if it’s completed sometime in 2040. The other bad news about the bullet train was just as worrisome. A new estimate of anticipated ridership for the finished system showed a drop of about 25%.Declining ridership isn’t just a problem for the rail system of the distant future. It’s also a huge problem for systems that already exist and none has been hit quite as bad as BART, the...

Commuter trains are how most Americans commute in the really big cities. The top three commuter train systems in the United States are in the New York City Metro area. 1. Long Island Railroad (118 million annual riders) 2. New Jersey Transit Rail (88 million annual riders) 3. Metro North Railroad (86 million annual riders) Next closest is the Chicago Metra System (67 million annual riders) It drops precipitously from there. So basically, New York City dominates, and I mean dominates, commuter rail in the USA. It is not even close. I mean, you have 400 plus individual stations to...

Three of the five top shareholders in Norfolk Southern — the freight rail carrier under the spotlight for its saftey and environmental record following last month's toxic train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio — have been aligned with the eco-conscious, socially aware ESG (environmental, social, governance) investing framework embraced by many leading financial firms in recent years. Asset management firms BlackRock Fund Advisors, JPMorgan Investment Management, and The Vanguard Group were all part of the Net Zero Asset Managers initiative, a coalition of ESG-minded money mangers committed to channeling investment capital to firms working toward the goal of net-zero greenhouse...

" News / Exclusive: U.S. Officials Address 'Asymmetric Warfare' In Recent Train Derailments Many of the accidents are happening along a key DoD railway corridor known as 'STRACNET' Published: March 08, 2023 | By Adrian Norman The United States has recently experienced numerous high-profile incidents involving the destruction of critical infrastructure, including fires at warehouses and food processing plants, and other events impacting the nation’s food, water and energy assets. A primary concern for many are train derailments across the U.S., some of which have resulted in ecological damage to surrounding areas, killing animals and contaminating the water supply. Such...