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...

SANTA FE, N.M. — A New Mexico jury found "Rust" armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed guilty of involuntary manslaughter and not guilty of tampering with evidence on Wednesday after deliberating for about two and a half hours. The 26-year-old faces up to three years in state prison and will be sentenced at a later date. A judge ordered that Gutierrez-Reed be taken into custody and held until her sentencing. The nearly two-week criminal trial centered around the 2021 shooting on the "Rust" film set in which actor Alec Baldwin held a prop gun that fired a live round of ammunition, killing 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.”

Today, California was notified that the Biden-Harris Administration is awarding $6 billion to the state to build high-speed rail, investing in the whole system – San Francisco, Los Angeles and the Central Valley, creating connectivity north, south and with our neighbors to the east. California High-Speed Rail Authority will receive nearly $3.1 billion for construction in the Central Valley, supporting the overall end goal of connecting San Francisco to Los Angeles. Another important rail project, Brightline, will receive $3 billion to connect Los Angeles to Las Vegas with 80% of the project’s construction in California benefiting the state’s economy and...

The city of San Francisco is in the process of constructing a downtown-area railroad extension that is estimated to cost in excess of $4 billion per mile of tunnel, The San Francisco Standard reported. The extension, known as The Portal, is a tunneled rail service that would connect the Salesforce Transit Center in the city’s downtown corridor to Caltrain and future high-speed trains, according to the Standard. The project’s overall cost estimate was recently revised up from $6.5 billion to a total of $8.25 billion, which makes for a per-mile cost of over $4 billion, ... “[Y]ou’re seeing some whopping...

OMAHA, Neb. -- Norfolk Southern became the first major North American freight railroad with deals to provide paid sick time to all of its workers Monday, but the other railroads are making progress, with nearly 65% of all rail workers securing this basic benefit since the start of the year.

In theaters the week of July 4th Claim a free ticket to a theater near you or buy a ticket and pay for a ticket for someone who needs to see this but can’t afford it.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez says the site of the devastating train derailment in Ohio is a “potential crime scene,” blasting House Republicans for not holding a hearing on the incident. “This committee needs to hold a hearing on the derailment in East Palestine,” the New York Democrat said during a House Oversight and Accountability hearing Thursday, as the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee grilled the CEO of Norfolk Southern. “This is not just a disaster site. It is a potential crime scene.” The federal government continues to deal with the fallout of the derailment of a train carrying toxic chemicals...

The Left is enjoying the moment, chuckling as residents near East Palestine, Ohio, are gripped with fear after the toxic train crash. To liberal America, these people deserve to live in fear, and without a doubt—some hope a few die. ‘This is what they voted for’ is the mantra which explains the woefully inadequate response from the Biden administration, which dithered for nearly three weeks before releasing federal resources to the area. It’s no coincidence that Biden authorizing the Federal Emergency Management Agency to deploy to the site came from Donald Trump’s announcement that he’d visit the town. East Palestine...

The heads of a dozen US railroad unions said Wednesday that workers are getting sick at the site of the toxic Ohio train derailment. The meeting comes after labor leaders claimed that workers at the site of the Norfolk Southern derailment have fallen ill with “migraines and nausea.” “I have received reports that [Norfolk Southern] neither offered nor provided these workers with appropriate personal protective equipment, such as respirators that are designed to permit safely working around vinyl chloride, eye protection and protective clothing such as chemical retrain suits,” the American Rail System Federation wrote in a letter to Buttigieg...

A source told The Ohio Star that her husband, a wildlife biologist and consultant for the federal forestry, received hundreds of calls on both Sunday and Monday from colleagues who say forestry workers have found hundreds of dead animals in Ohio’s parks. Several labs across the country have received specimens of whole minks, deer, elk, worms and livers of such animals and they are finding toxicities that are off the charts, she said.

Ohio Governor Mike DeWine said Monday that Norfolk Southern requested and was granted the controlled release of chemicals, including deadly viny chloride, following the train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio. Ohio Governor Mike DeWine provided more insight Monday evening into how the controlled release of chemicals came to be following the train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio. DeWine told the press Monday evening: “We looked at the danger of a controlled release which is what the railroad company felt should be done. We then went ahead with the second option, which was the controlled release.”

Join with fellow FREEPERS across the world to pray for AMERICA: For those in Authority in Government, Family, Military, Business, Agri-Business, Healthcare, Education, Churches, Technology, Religious Freedom and the Media. "I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone: for kings and all those in authority that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness." (1 Timothy 2:1-2) Religion Forum threads labeled [Prayer] are closed to debate of any kind. "Finally, brothers, rejoice. Set things in order. Be encouraged. Agree with one another. Be at peace. And the God...

Officials report the train was carrying "hazardous materials, prompting Union Pacific to monitor air quality at the site of the crash, according to the Splendora Police Department."

Henry Bicker Gibson was cashier of the Ontario Bank, director of multiple financial ventures, president of a canal company, and president of two railroads, the latter of which was merged with others to form the New York Central.

ransomnote: This video describes a grain supply chain issues with the country's main rail freight hub which have now worsened as a result of Union Pacific's railway embargo.ALL Shipments STOPPED -MAIN Artery for USA - Railways SHUT DOWN - Cars PILING UP | Patrick HumphreyGrain shipments had already been backing up (not delivered) since October (see chart).Now as of December 29, Union Pacific has announced an embargo which will deepen the supply chain problem with grain. Excerpt:The following excerpt sounds like "14 days to flatten the curve.... Here's a map of the Union Pacific hub impacted by the embargo; it...

The United States have a lot of railroads — big national lines and short regional lines, freight railways that share their track with commuter lines, lines designed with high clearance for container stacktrains. And while there are still a few tycoons in the world, the days of the railroads being the shining monuments to a single millionaire's fortune are long past; many of our railroads, like most big corporations nowadays, are publicly traded and are therefore owned and controlled by the nameless, faceless fund managers of Wall Street. To have all these railroads, you need a lot of employees. Here,...

Full transparency, we didn’t know enough about the rail worker situation to comment … until now. Truth be told, when this editor saw ‘207 Republicans’ trending on Twitter and saw that it was the number of Republicans who voted against paid sick leave for rail workers it just didn’t make sense. We thought maybe it was not a stand-alone bill or something Democrats were holding hostage to pass other crap (as they often do), but nope. It was its own thing. Sooo … what the Hell? Turns out, as usual with these things, if Democrats are vilifying Republicans there’s a...

The House on Wednesday passed a measure that would avert a national railroad strike by forcing the adoption of a tentative labor agreement. The vote was 290 to 137. House members also voted 221-207 to approve a separate proposal to provide railroad workers with seven days of paid sick leave, with Democrats in favor and nearly all Republicans opposed. Both measures now go to the Senate. A 1926 law gave Congress the power to intervene in railroad disputes that threaten to disrupt the economy. President Joe Biden on Monday called on Congress to step in–despite his usual pro-labor, pro-union stance–saying,...

A looming railroad strike is threatening to shut down much of the nation’s commerce, creating an economic and humanitarian disaster, and Joe Biden is finally making moves to prevent it. What’s his solution? He’s taking the coward’s way out, calling for Congress to put union workers in their place despite the fact that they make up a large percentage of the Democratic Party base. That’s going over about as well as you’d imagine. A fair warning that the language in the following posts is a bit frosty, but it represents the anger being shown. ... Full sellout from the White...