Free Republic

Al Qaeda is about to take on a new target — America’s trains — in an upcoming edition of its terror magazine Inspire. Issue No. 17 is headlined “Train Derail Operations,” and will spell out ways to create rail disasters in a transportation system that lacks the stiff security procedures of airline travel. Its competing Sunni extremists group, the Islamic State, for more than a year has advocated using vehicles to mow down innocents. Its murderous followers have weaponized vehicles in Nice, Berlin and London, creating hundred of deaths and injuries. […] The U.S. maintains over 100,000 miles of rail....

ROCKY MOUNT — An intermodal CSX rail hub proposed for Rocky Mount will bring 1,500 jobs to North Carolina. The facility, called the Carolina Connector Hub, is expected to be operational by December 2019. “Good transportation is essential to economic growth. You can take it to the bank,” said Rep. G.K. Butterfield, D-Wilson, sponsor of the “Jobs First: Building for Our Future” forum held Friday. More than 100 people attended the event at the historic Helen Gay Train Station in Rocky Mount. Built in 1903, the station was acquired by the city of Rocky Mount in 1995 and restored in...

The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) has published a final rule for a new pilot program that would seek competitive bids from "eligible petitioners" to replace Amtrak as the operator of up to three long-distance routes. The rules fall under a provision of the Fixing America's Surface Transportation (FAST) Act that requires the FRA to implement the pilot program. Published in the Federal Register last month, the final rule takes effect Sept. 5 and establishes a petition, notification and bid process by which the FRA will evaluate and select bids to provide passenger-rail service over particular long-distance routes. The rule also...

Coal has been the driving force behind the U.S. rail system for more than a century. The stories of locomotives chugging along as workers fed shovels full of coal into the burners may be a thing of the past, but that chunky byproduct has still been largely responsible for keeping the American rail system afloat. According to the American Association of Railroads, coal amounted to almost a third of gross tonnage carried by U.S. rail in 2016. It also amounted to more than 13 percent of rail revenue. And while that may not sound like a large percentage, 70 percent...

New York City's suburban commuters are bracing for the start next week of what has been called the 'summer of hell' as the United States' busiest train hub partly shuts down for extensive track repairs. The work at Pennsylvania Station is due to begin Monday and run through Sept. 1, leaving the roughly 600,000 commuters who arrive there each morning from New Jersey and Long Island scrambling for alternate ways into the city.

A 13-year-old girl walking on the bridge at Bull Run between Clifton and Manassas was struck and killed by a VRE train Wednesday afternoon. (Courtesy Chopper4/NBC Washington) WASHINGTON — Fairfax County police say a 13-year-old girl has died after she was hit by a Virginia Railway Express train on its Manassas Line Wednesday afternoon. The teen, whose name has not yet been released, was hit by a VRE train between mile marker 28 and 29 near Clifton, Virginia, around 3 p.m. Police said the girl had been hiking with two family members: a 13-year-old boy and a 22-year-old man. The...

Amtrak has named Richard Anderson, the former chief executive of Delta and Northwest airlines, as its new president and CEO. The announcement comes less than a year into the tenure Charles W. “Wick” Moorman, who took over as the passenger railroad’s chief executive in September 2016. Anderson, 62, does not have railroad experience, but does have decades of experience in the airline industry. He served most recently as executive chairman of the Delta Air Lines board of directors after serving as the airline’s CEO from 2007 to 2016. He also was executive vice president at United Healthcare from 2004 to...

WASHINGTON (AP) - Repairing the nation's crumbling roads and bridges was supposed to be an area ripe for bipartisan compromise between congressional Democrats and President Donald Trump. Instead, Democrats are panning Trump's proposed $1 trillion overhaul and even Republicans are balking at some aspects of the emerging plan. The White House's self-proclaimed "Infrastructure Week" began with Trump appearing Monday with aviation officials and some prominent GOP lawmakers to announce plans to privatize the nation's air traffic control system and separate operations from the Federal Aviation Administration.

DENVER - The future of RTD commuter rail lines may be in question after its private business partner claims there is no solution to a lingering problem. In a letter to RTD, Denver Transit Partners said the crossing gate timing issue won’t be fixed by the deadline. Denver Transit Partners is made up of the group of contractors who built and maintain the A Line, B Line and the future G Line. At issue, the crossing gates that must be manned 24 hours a day, seven days a week, because of a computer glitch. ... The crossing gate technology does...

Westminster-based Knorr Brake Co., which makes brakes, doors and HVAC systems for mass-transit rail lines, will add 200 new jobs over the next six years, the Maryland Department of Commerce announced Thursday. The company will add 30,000 square feet of space to its facility at the Westminster Technology Park, investing $2.2 million. The company built its facility there in 2013. The Maryland Department of Commerce will provide a $700,000 conditional loan through the Maryland Economic Development Assistance Authority and Fund to help the company expand. Knorr Brake currently has 280 full-time employees....

In a letter to Trump dated May 21, Cuomo requested “the federal government treat this as an emergency situation” and asked Trump to provide funding for construction and transportation alternatives, as well as for a long-term solution.

California’s $64 billion high-speed rail project said Friday that he’s stepping down after five years pushing forward a vision of 220-mph trains that still faces stiff resistance from lawmakers and the public. Jeff Morales, 57, told The Chronicle that uncertainty over the project’s future had nothing to do with his resignation, only a genuine desire to move aside after breaking ground on the nation’s largest infrastructure project. “We’ve made a tremendous amount of progress, from being at a standstill to having $3 billion-plus of construction under way,” he said. “Frankly, I didn’t think I’d be here for five years. I...

Mayor de Blasio's developer-backed Brooklyn-Queens streetcar project may not pay for itself as he has promised it will, according to a draft memo prepared for Deputy Mayor Alicia Glen and obtained by reporters. The 16-mile BQX streetcar line from Sunset Park to Astoria is premised on the idea that building the streetcar line will boost property values, prompt more construction, and create jobs along the line, which will in turn generate enough tax revenue to cover $2.5 billion in bonds used to build the thing. However, since de Blasio announced the project in 2016, development and tax experts have pointed...

The Los Angeles Times reported early Sunday morning that Gov. Jerry Brown and Democratic leaders in the state legislature made $1 billion in side deals to ensure the passage of a 12-cent hike in the state gasoline tax last week. ... One of the more prominent deals was the one that secured the vote of State Sen. Anthony Canella (R-Ceres), who was the only Republican in either chamber to support the measure, which includes raised fees at the Department of Motor Vehicles. That side deal turns out to have been the costliest of all, amounting to $400 million in pork...

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) - A judge is rejecting opponents’ latest attempt to stall California’s $64 billion high-speed rail project. But Sacramento County Superior Court Judge Raymond Cadei said Wednesday that he will consider their arguments before the state issues voter-approved bonds next month. He set a hearing for next month to consider their motion for a preliminary injunction.

State Waste: The Golden State's vaunted bullet train project, planned to connect San Francisco to Los Angeles, may be in its financial death throes. If so, it's probably the best fiscal news for the Golden State in years. To say that Gov. Jerry Brown's pet project, the so-called high-speed train, is troubled would be an understatement. From the very beginning, it has been a testament to political hubris, fiscal irresponsibility, outright lies and abysmal planning. The bullet train idea was floated on a blustery gust of political promises in 2008, when proponents put the high-speed rail to the state's voters...

In 2008, Californians approved a high-speed rail project that has become one of the largest infrastructure projects in the nation. The dream of taking a train from Southern California to San Francisco in about three hours is chugging along, but facing new barriers. The original plan voters opted for in 2008 was titled the Safe, Reliable High-Speed Passenger Train Bond Act for the 21st Century. When voters approved the measure, the estimated cost of the project was $40 billion. The 2016 business plan reviewed by the Legislative Analysts Office estimated a cost of $64 billion. WHAT IT WOULD TAKE TO...

MERCER ISLAND, Wash. - The city of Mercer Island plans to sue Sound Transit and the State Department of Transportation over I-90 access, which could freeze the East Light construction project set to begin in June. The City Council unanimously approved the legal action Monday during a packed council meeting. They plan to sue both agencies and seek a moratorium on the construction as they search for short-term solutions to their traffic concerns. In response to the authorized legal action, Sound Transit CEO Peter Rogoff released a statement calling the decision “highly regrettable.” “While Sound Transit remains ready to reach...

The idea of a high-speed train connecting Vancouver, Seattle and Portland was floated by a private organization last year. Now, Washington Governor Jay Inslee has set aside $1 million in his new state budget to study whether such an idea has legs (or, more accurately, rails). According to Mark Hallenbeck, director of the Washington State Transportation Center, the region has the right geography for a high-speed line, CBC News reports. "They’re the right distance where it's small enough that the train would compete very well with an airplane," he told the news site. "If you get too much longer, then...

Could Donald Trump be the president who brings high-speed rail to America? The Obama administration spent nearly $10 billion to improve passenger rail service across the country. While it accomplished that goal to some degree, it did not build the faster trains passengers can ride in Europe, Japan and China. Trains in other countries can travel 200 mph or more, but no train in the United States as yet travels faster than 150 mph. Most go much more slowly than that. Trump has proposed a $1 trillion investment in U.S. infrastructure, and he has expressed interest in improving roads, bridges,...