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A head on collision involving two commuter trains in Switzerland has resulted in the injury of 44 people. The collision occurred between the cities of Moudon and Payerne at about 6:50 p.m. local time, reports said. It is unclear at this point what caused the collision to occur. "We don't know why this crash happened," Swiss Federal Railways spokesman Reto Schaerli told CNN. "There is currently no train service between these two cities until midnight tonight at least."

The carriages careened off the tracks at a curve approaching the station at Santiago where the limit is set at 80 km per hour (50mph). But one of the drivers has admitted that the train took the curve at a speed of around 190km per hour, according to local media reports quoting sources close to the investigation. Alberto Nunez Feijoo, president of the region of Galicia, described the scene as "Dante-esque". "I saw a woman who had lost one foot," said Lidia Cannon, a tourist visiting the local fiesta. "But instead of crying or shouting or whatever because of the...

A passenger train derailed in Spain yesterday, killing at least 77 people trapped inside the crushed cars and injuring 143. There were Americans among the dead, according to television reports. The tragic high-speed derailment, along a curving stretch of track in the northwestern part of the country, was Spain’s worst rail accident in decades, officials said. Bodies were covered by blankets along the tracks as rescuers used pickaxes to pry open the cars and free people inside the train cars.

U.S. crude oil increasingly moves by barge, truck and rail The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) recently released its annual data series tracking how crude oil reaches the refinery gate. Not surprisingly, the 2012 data show heightened reliance on crude receipts via barge, truck and rail. There has been much discussion about the rise in U.S. crude oil production and the resulting overhang in inventories at Cushing, Oklahoma and elsewhere in the midcontinent because of pipeline infrastructure that has not kept pace with burgeoning domestic crude oil supply. The supply-pipeline mismatch is encouraging market participants to increasingly rely on alternative...

With U.S. crude oil producing at record amounts and outstripping pipeline capacity, the country is relying heavily on railroads to move new crude oil to refineries and storage centers, reported the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) Wednesday. The total amount of crude oil and refined products being transported by rail is close to 356,000 carloads during the first half of 2013, up 48 percent from the same period last year, according to Association of American Railroads. “U.S. weekly car loadings of crude oil and petroleum products averaged nearly 13,700 rail tankers during the January to June 2013 period. With one...

...The locomotive caught fire, so firefighters shut off the engine to stop the flames from spreading. That slowly disengaged the air brakes, and the driverless train carrying 72 cars of crude oil rolled downhill into the scenic lakeside town of Lac-Megantic, derailing, exploding and leveling the town center. At least 13 people were killed and some 37 are still missing, according to Canadian police... He secured the train at 11:25 p.m. on Friday, setting the air brakes and hand brakes, according to MMA. Burkhardt said the engineer set the brakes on all five locomotives at the front of the train,...

At least one person dead and 1,000 evacuated after freight train carrying crude oil explodes in lakeside town in Quebec.At least 30 buildings are believed to have been damaged in the inferno [Al Jazeera] One person has died and several people are reported to be missing after a train, believed to be carrying crude oil, derailed and sparked several explosion in the middle of a small town in the Canadian province of Quebec.At least 30 buildings are believed to have been destroyed in the blast in Lac-Megantic on Saturday, and up to 1,000 people have been evacuated from the area.The incident occurred...

... In short, Mr. Obama is about to hammer the American energy industry, and he's doing it for money. The real elephant in the room is the Keystone XL pipeline project intended to bring Canadian oil to American Gulf Coast refineries and the resulting products onto the international market. In fact, the title of the Bloomberg article cited above includes the words "Keystone foes." Mr. Obama has already delayed Keystone, once and a final decision is coming up. While Keystone has received a lot of press attention, there are two interrelated aspects that have not yet come to the surface....

<p>WHITE MARSH, Md. (AP) -- A cargo train derailed Tuesday in a Baltimore suburb and an explosion could be heard for miles, collapsing nearby buildings and setting them on fire, officials and witnesses said.</p>

<p>Fire officials say a CSX freight train crashed into a trash truck near Baltimore, causing an explosion that rattled homes at least a half-mile away and collapsed nearby buildings, setting them on fire.</p>

Huge explosion rocks Rosedale, Maryland after a train apparently crashed into a 18 wheeler that was blocking the tracks. View the full post at Massive Explosion rocks Baltimore after a Train Derailment

Authorities in Baltimore County were responding to a report of a train derailment in the White Marsh area that caused a loud explosion and sent a plume of white smoke into the sky that could be seen clearly from downtown Baltimore. Baltimore County police posted to Twitter that a cargo train had derailed in the 7500 block of Lake Drive, near an industrial park. Initial reports were that no one was hurt, but hazardous material teams were responding to the scene. Several industrial buildings were reported to have collapsed, and police were diverting traffic from Pulaski Highway.

The surge in North American oil production has prompted energy companies to invest heavily in a 19th-century technology: rail. Companies including Valero Energy Corp., Tesoro Corp. and NuStar Energy already have purchased or leased rail cars to move crude to their refineries. There aren’t enough pipelines to move crude out of major producing regions, including western Canada and the Bakken Shale of North Dakota, so refiners are turning to rail. Transporting crude by rail costs more than shipping it through a pipeline, but refiners can buy North American crude oil at reduced prices, offsetting the higher cost of rail. That...

Historian John Diers, author of the new book "St. Paul Union Depot," will be among the train enthusiasts who will welcome visitors to the Union Depot on Saturday, May 11. The newly refurbished Lowertown depot, which is expected to provide Amtrak passenger service by the end of the year, is celebrating Amtrak's "National Train Day" with free family activities from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Diers, who will deliver a presentation, will have copies of his book for sale. The Radio Disney road crew, a vintage bluegrass railroad band led by Cannonball Paul, storeowner Choo Choo Bob and the St....

Sen. Diane Feinstein’s husband Richard Blum won a construction contract for California’s high-speed rail project, reports the California Political Review. Author Laer Pearce says Perini-Zachary-Parsons, a construction group partially owned by Blum’s investment firm, Blum Capital, and their investors, bagged the nearly billion dollar contract:

American Rail Traffic Growth Has Nearly Ground To A Halt Cullen Roche, Pragmatic CapitalismApr. 28, 2013, 1:28 PMAfter a big first quarter rail traffic has come out of the gate extremely soft in Q2. The average pace of year over year expansion in intermodal traffic was a very healthy 5.3% in Q1, but has averaged just 0.08% so far in the first 4 weeks of the second quarter. This is a trend that has been developing since early March as the pace of expansion has averaged just 2.11% since the first week of March. Overall, that brings the 12 week...

Canadian authorities announced Monday they have broken up an Al Qaeda-linked terror plot to attack a passenger train as it crossed over a bridge in the Toronto area. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police said Monday that two suspects have been arrested on terrorism charges. Chiheb Esseghaier and Raed Jaser, who live in greater Montreal and Toronto -- were conspiring to carry out an Al Qaeda-supported attack against Via Rail, but posed no immediate threat to the public. "It was definitely in the planning stage but not imminent," RCMP chief superintendent Jennifer Strachan told reporters at a news conference. Read more:...

Metro Transit officials confirm there is a major investigation underway at its light rail Hiawatha maintenance shop. 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS has learned the investigation started in December and is still in progress. Metro Transit says it does involve staff at the maintenance facility, but would not specify which employees were under investigation. Sources tell 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS it does involve managers as well as hourly employees. Those same sources say part of the allegations that lead to the investigation include the exchange of pills and firearms for coveted overtime shifts at the maintenance facility.

the California High-Speed Rail System will saddle taxpayers with losses between $124 million to $373 million a year. Exaggerated ridership estimates and slower-than-promised trip speeds make the California bullet train project a big financial loser for taxpayers... ... The [California High-Speed Rail Authority’s] financing assertions are virtual fantasy

Crews have controlled a crude oil spill after a Canadian Pacific train derailed in Minnesota. Authorities say the 94-car train was headed south Wednesday when it lost air pressure and went into an emergency braking mode and 14 tankers derailed. Three either leaked or spilled oil. Minnesota Pollution Control Agency spokesman Dan Olson says an estimated 76,000 litres, has spilled or leaked. The agency says the spill is under control. Olson says because the ground is frozen, there's no threat to water.