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AFP - Al-Qaeda is plotting attacks on Europe's high-speed rail network, German mass circulation daily Bild reported on Monday, citing intelligence sources. The extremist group could plant explosives on trains and tunnels or sabotage tracks and electrical cabling, said Bild, Europe's most widely read daily. Bild said the information came from the National Security Agency (NSA) in the United States, which had listened in to a conference call involving top Al-Qaeda operatives. The attacks on Europe's rail network was a "central topic" of this call, Bild said.

there's no reason to believe the Honolulu's rail project will do anything to improve traffic congestion. In fact, it's likely to divert resources from more-affordable solutions. "The one thing about these projects [is that] they are very inviting politically," says former Hawaii Gov. Ben Cayetano. Along with Cliff Slater of Honolulutraffic.com and University of Hawaii's Roth, Cayetano has filed a federal lawsuit against the rail project that's held up construction. They claim the city misled the public about the total cost of the project and didn't deliver fully on a required review of alternative solutions to a rail line. Panos...

SINGAPORE, Aug 3 — Malaysia has finalised its full report on the proposed high-speed rail link between Kuala Lumpur and Singapore. Local television Channel NewsAsia reported Mohd Nur Ismal Mohamed Kamal, chief executive officer of the Malaysia Land Public Transport Commission, as saying that the two sides will meet after the Aidil Fitri celebrations at the end of the month. He said: “The base line alignment and all that is done. But of course, minor changes can still happen. We are just starting the process of engagement and discussion with the Singapore side, with the joint ministerial committee meeting up...

Existing conventional modes of transportation of people consists of four unique types: rail, road, water, and air. These modes of transport tend to be either relatively slow (i.e., road and water), expensive (i.e., air), or a combination of relatively slow and expensive (i.e., rail). Hyperloop is a new mode of transport that seeks to change this paradigm by being both fast and inexpensive for people and goods. Hyperloop is also unique in that it is an open design concept, similar to Linux. Feedback is desired from the community that can help advance the Hyperloop design and bring it from concept...

A rail company whose runaway oil train caused a fire and explosion that killed 47 people in a small town in Canada filed for bankruptcy protection in the U.S. and Canada on Wednesday, and an attorney said he expects company executives to explore putting it up for sale within weeks. In its filings, Montreal, Maine & Atlantic Railway Ltd. and its Canadian counterpart, Montreal, Maine & Atlantic Canada Co., cited debts to more than 200 creditors following the disaster in Lac-Megantic, Quebec. Attorney Peter Flowers, who represents 30 of the victims’ families, accused company Chairman Ed Burkhardt of trying to...

Rail traffic may begin running through Lac-Mégantic again this week, but the Montreal, Maine and Atlantic railway has decided it will stop hauling oil after one of its trains derailed and exploded here last month. “It’s proven to be more trouble than it’s worth, and I guess that’s putting this mildly,” company chairman Ed Burkhardt said on Monday, a month after a runaway MMA train exploded downtown, killing 47 people and levelling much of the town. “We don’t plan to continue with oil transportation. That traffic is going to go other ways, not over our lines,” he said. The train...

A train carrying highly flammable and corrosive materials derailed in north Louisiana on Sunday. Over 100 homes have been evacuated as a precaution, Gov. Bobby Jindal said, adding there were no fatalities or injuries and air monitors have not picked up anything to cause concern. According to a press release from Jindal's office, three cars were leaking as of late Sunday. One is leaking lubricant oil while a second is leaking Dodecanol, a tasteless, colorless alcohol that can cause mild skin irritation. The third, however, is carrying a highly corrosive substance called caustic soda, or lye. Two other cars containing...

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...