Free Republic

**SNIP** Perhaps the biggest blow to the high-speed rail project came in 2010, when Republicans won control of the U.S. House of Representatives. They proceeded to block any further federal funding for high-speed rail, undermining the California project’s financial plan. Ironically, Gov. Newsom’s decision to pause high-speed rail comes just as Democrats have retaken the majority in the House, making possible a Green New Deal and billions in high-speed rail funding. California ought to show the country how to overcome these obstacles. If we believe climate change is real, then we are obligated to do something about it, and not...

The Trump administration announced Tuesday that it was canceling a federal grant to California worth nearly $1 billion after Gov. Gavin Newsom announced the cancelation of the state’s high-speed rail project last week.

President Barack Obama secured $8 billion in his 2009 economic stimulus package to start building toward the dream of true high-speed trains whisking passengers between major American cities. It was a paltry amount compared to the hundreds of billions it would actually take to fulfill that dream, but it was considered a serious down payment. At the time, Obama’s transportation secretary, Ray LaHood, said, “I’m not a historian, but I know this: One of the legacies for this administration, for the president and the vice president, will be high-speed rail. That will be their transportation legacy.” A decade later, little...

Talk show host Doc Thompson was killed by a train, of all things. I cannot explain this logic. Why would anyone jog along a railroad track of an active rail line? This is a tragedy, and he leaves behind a family at his home in Arkansas. RIP, Doc.

PITTSBURGH -- For nearly a quarter of a century, Amtrak's Capitol Limited route has taken me from my beloved hometown to Washington, D.C. Sometimes for fun, almost always for work, the experience is never the same. And if you are a rail lover, it is always about the experience. There is only one train that leaves the Pittsburgh station every day, and that is at 5:20 a.m. (which means your alarm goes off at 3:30 a.m.). Thanks to sharing the line with freight, that almost always means a 20- to 90-minute departure delay. Then there's the nearly eight-hour trip, twice...

a report from the Auditor of the State of California on the High Speed Rail Project ... To understand just how damning the HSR audit was, just consider the subtitle: “Flawed Decision Making and Poor Contract Management Have Contributed to Billions in Cost Overruns and Delays in the System’s Construction.” But like many government documents, the audit is couched in bureaucratic language that ordinary citizens may not understand. For that reason, below are the summary points as provided by the state auditor with accompanying translations. Auditor: “Although the Authority has secured and identified funding of over $28 billion that it...

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan vowed to identify those responsible after a high-speed train rammed into a locomotive near Ankara, Turkey’s capital, before sunrise Thursday, leaving nine people dead and dozens injured. Mr. Erdogan said prosecutors had opened an investigation into the crash and that three people had been detained. “All aspects of the accident will be investigated, and those responsible will be identified,” the president said in a televised speech. Turkish television broadcast footage from the scene showing rescue workers racing to help passengers caught in an entanglement of wrecked carriages covered by light snow. The high-speed train with...

WASHINGTON — Track workers blamed for what Metro had called faked inspection reports are getting their jobs back, after an arbitrator found the reports were done as Metro had instructed. A court filing this week suggested Metro and five track workers who had filed a federal lawsuit over their firings reached a settlement in the case, and Metro and Amalgamated Transit Union Local 689 confirmed Wednesday that an agreement covers most of the at least 16 front-line workers and five supervisors who were publicly disciplined about two years ago. Three of the workers who challenged their firings are not covered...

A man hit and killed by an Amtrak train Monday morning in Moorpark had been placing flowers on the tracks for another man fatally struck on Saturday by an Amtrak train, authorities said. Monday's fatality occurred around 11:33 a.m., when a northbound passenger train from Los Angeles was traveling through the city at about 70 mph, according to the Ventura County Sheriff's Office, which provides police services in the city. The man, described as a 47-year-old Moorpark resident, was hit near Avenida Colonia and Nogales Avenue and was pronounced dead at the scene. Tracks in the area pass underneath Highway...

WINCHESTER — The Frederick County Transportation Committee on Monday expressed concerns that the county may not get the Interstate 81 improvements it needs to reduce traffic congestion and accidents. The Office of Intermodal Planning and Investment, the Virginia Department of Transportation and the Department of Rail and Public Transportation are studying the entire length of the I-81 corridor in the Virginia, as directed by the General Assembly, to identify changes that will reduce traffic backups and crashes as well as find the funding to make those changes. The I-81 study team identified 105 projects — valued at $4.25 billion —...

More than 300 bridges in Connecticut — carrying 4.3 million vehicles daily — are considered structurally deficient. Highways in the Bridgeport-Stamford area are so congested motorists waste 49 hours a year in bumper-to-bumper traffic. And 62 percent of Connecticut’s major roads are in such poor condition they cost motorists $681 annually in vehicle repairs, according to TRIP, a national transportation think tank. Given those challenges, the three men seeking to replace Gov. Dannel P. Malloy could be making transportation the centerpiece of their campaigns. But instead, these candidates for governor are offering mostly modest plans to fix the state’s infrastructure...

Jerry Brown did not invent the idea of a high-speed rail system to connect Northern and Southern California. It was voted on by the state Legislature and ratified by voters years before he returned to the governor’s office in 2011. But for the last eight years, as cost estimates have skyrocketed and federal and private sector funding for the project has evaporated, Brown has become high-speed rail’s most persistent defender. Only weeks away from the election to replace him, neither candidate for governor appears to share the depth of Brown’s commitment to a statewide rail system. Fellow Democrat Gavin Newsom...

Railway Age editor William C. Vantuono wondered recently what exactly Amtrak CEO Richard Anderson is trying to accomplish by truncating long-distance routes, replacing fresh dining-car meals with MREs, and replacing station agents with nobody. Is Anderson trying to drive passengers off the long-distance system so he can close it? (Ben Biaggini tried that at Southern Pacific in the 1960s, and it worked.) Is Anderson just trying to please Congress by reducing “money-losing” operations so he can look like the kind of fiscal tough guy currently in fashion in Washington? Or maybe Anderson is being tactical rather than strategic, plotting to...

RTD is cutting the number of cars on the light rail R Line that runs through Aurora because of a lack of ridership. RTD says ridership on the R Line is about half of projected numbers. The one-car trains look more like a trolly going up and down the tracks. RTD believes cutting the two-car trains to just one is enough to serve the needs of the R Line passengers and the low numbers for now.

With its funding plans clearer, South Florida passenger start-up Brightline is looking west for its next venture into private high speed rail.Brightline on Tuesday said it had acquired XpressWest, a high-speed passenger rail project with rights to develop a federally approved corridor connecting Southern California and Las Vegas. he project would be only the second privately funded intercity passenger rail in the United States after Brightline. No terms were disclosed. “Brightline is changing transportation in our country by connecting heavily trafficked corridors that are too long to drive and too short to fly,” said Wes Edens, co-founder and co-chief executive...

The California High Speed Rail Authority (CHSRA) surprised local communities on Wednesday by proposing a controversial Burbank-to-Palmdale route featuring above-ground tracks. The Los Angeles Times reported that the proposed 38-mile track alignment will cross the San Gabriel Mountains via a series of at grade sections and five separate tunnels. The bullet train’s original route, offered in support of the SB 1856 bond measure passed by the California Legislature in 2000, proposed to follow the Interstate 5 Freeway and tunnel under the 4,144 ft-Tejon Pass to link Los Angeles and Bakersfield.

Crude-by-Rail (CBR) has been a savior for North American producers seeking higher returns for heavily discounted crudes caused by a lack of pipeline take-away capacity. And CBR, once again, is on the rise. North American shipments of petroleum and petroleum products are up over 10% year-to-date compared to 2017. In May 2018, nearly 200,000 barrels per day were shipped by rail from Canada to the U.S., nearly five times that of June 2016. But, the story of CBR is really about how price differentials became so large in certain regions.

... New Mexico is finally free of a back-room highway bond deal that kept then-Gov. Bill Richardson out of then-President-elect Barack Obama’s Cabinet once it was exposed. Back in 2004 and 2006, very few people understood what had been done to get $1.6 billion in state highway bonds used to start a bunch of highway projects and the Rail Runner commuter train. And even fewer knew why a company known as CDR Financial Products Inc. of Beverly Hills, was involved. The Richardson administration wanted the $1.6 billion in bonds to make a big splash on the state’s economy... But the...

On August 9, Denver experienced its first triple homicide since the summer of 2016, when a drug deal went bad in Park Hill. On Thursday, three bodies were discovered near the RTD light-rail station on South Broadway near the I-25 overpass. And according to the Denver Police Department, there's an added dimension to these latest murders: The three victims were all homeless. The DPD has yet to announce the names of the three victims, their causes of death or any suspects in the crime. But the gravity of the murders and the fact that the victims were homeless has many...

FULL TITLE: Train-loving toddler, 3, killed by freight train after he and his two-year-old sister sneaked away from home and went to the railroad tracks An Indiana family has been left devastated after their three-year-old son and his two-year-old sister were hit by a freight train after sneaking out of their home. Caleb Wilson was killed on impact when he was struck by the train around 9.30am on Tuesday. His sister Ellie was hospitalized in critical condition. The children's parents have been identified as Kelsey Benson and Jacob Wilson. Family members said Caleb adored trains and that Ellie adored her...