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Click on the link to view the Beijing to Tianjin High Speed Rail link The Chinese are really up to something.

WASHINGTON, Aug. 19, 2008 – Union Pacific is a company that is proud of its strong ties with the military. Hundreds of thousands of Civil War veterans helped build the first transcontinental railroad in the 1860s, which was considered vital to national defense. During World War I and II, the railroad canteen in North Platte, Neb., was a resting place for many troops on their way overseas. Union Pacific’s partnership with the military continues today and, in some respects, is stronger than ever, said Roy Schroer, assistant vice president of human resources. Of the company’s more than 50,000 employees, more...

Melanie Allen has been "scared to death" this week knowing her son was scheduled to begin a risky escape from the country of Georgia, where Russian troops are poised for further invasion. Lee Allen, 34, and his Georgian wife, Tiko, were to have become part of a caravan fleeing the war-torn country. It may be days before Melanie Allen learns if the couple made it out safely. She was at her Ocean Springs home Tuesday night with friends who are supporting her. -----snip On Monday, four days into the fighting as Russia seized several towns and a military base deep...

"...Bombardier's team was stumped. Europe is a mishmash of disparate rail systems that predate the European Union, back when governments banked on the incongruity "to protect themselves from invading armies and competition from foreign industries," says Oliver Sellnick, director at the International Union of Railways in Paris. While the European Union has managed to unify most of the continent on everything from a common currency to farm policy, combining railroads hasn't been easy. Traveling by train from one country to another has long required coordination with multiple national railways. Drivers and locomotives, for instance, are changed at the borders for...

WASHINGTON — This is not your economy. It's not even your parents' economy. To a surprising degree, this is your great-grandparents' economy. Quietly, while attention has focused on the technology, finance and service sectors, businesses that stood astride 19th century industrial America but then collapsed have been resurrected to meet the needs of a feverishly industrializing world. In the process, much of what Americans think they know about their economy is being upended. Steel makers, railroads, mining concerns and agriculture, long considered part of a fading past, suddenly have bright futures. And segments of the economy long lauded as the...

Want to invest in a green industry that employs the latest technology, reduces U.S. oil consumption and is priced very attractively? Look no further than the railroads. Laggards for decades after the 19th-century boom ended, they're hot again. "There was steady traffic growth until last year, and the trend looks good once the economy gets back up to speed," says Kenneth Kremar, an economist who follows the railroad industry for consulting firm Global Insight. Perhaps that's why railroad stocks have largely escaped the battering that other sectors have taken so far this year. Of course, their business could still be...

Germany has come up with the funds to launch its first magnetic levitation - or maglev - rail service. The state of Bavaria is to build the high-speed railway line from Munich city centre to its airport, making it Europe's first commercial track.

The state faces "a perfect storm" as far as paying for transportation infrastructure is concerned... With that in mind, it only makes sense for the state to divert scarce transportation dollars from the proposed Rail Runner extension to Santa Fe and plow those dollars into road construction and maintenance. [While] Rail Runner's projected total cost is $400 million, those costs are not evenly-distributed. Phase I of the project from Belen to Bernalillo, which is now in service, cost $135 million. The Bernalillo-Belen segment of the proposed RailRunner route is approximately 51 miles long— more than half of the system's proposed...

Eurostar has set a record on its inaugural journey from Paris to London via a new high-speed line in Britain. The train, carrying journalists and VIPs, arrived at St Pancras, instead of Waterloo, for the first time. It took two hours, three minutes, 39 seconds.

Congo train crash kills at least 100: government By Joe Bavier A train crash in a remote part of Democratic Republic of Congo killed at least 100 people and injured more than 200, the central African country's minister of information said on Thursday. "We are still discovering the dead. So right now we are putting the death toll at about 100," Toussaint Tshilombo told Reuters, adding that the cause of the crash was still unknown. "It happened late last night, so we haven't had time to look into how it occurred. But we are sending a team tomorrow, and we...

Switzerland has opened the world's longest rail tunnel on land - the 34-kilometre (21-mile) Loetschberg tunnel under the Alps. It will cut the journey time between Germany and Italy by at least a third.

WASHINGTON - The Capitol Limited, an Amtrak train from Chicago, is scheduled to arrive in Washington every day at 1:30 p.m. But frequent rider Edda Ramos knows better than to make plans for the afternoon or evening. She knows a late arrival — sometimes by an hour or two, sometimes by seven or eight — "is the one thing you can count on." The 764-mile route is among Amtrak's most dismal performers, with just 11 percent of trains arriving within 30 minutes of their scheduled time last year. But the problem exists to one degree or another on the majority...

Phil Maymin, the Libertarian candidate in the Fourth Congressional District, doesn’t want voters to flush away their ballots this November, calling a vote for a Democrat or a Republican a “waste.” “If you’re unhappy with the course the country has been taking for the past 10 years, you have to realize that the Democrats and Republicans have made this mess,” he said at a meeting with reporters and editors from Hersam Acorn Newspapers Thursday, September 7. Mr. Maymin, a Greenwich hedge fund manager, is running against Republican incumbent Rep. Christopher Shays, and Diane Farrell, the Democratic challenger. Just added to...

Transportation pick headed highway administration when it investigated rail company President Bush's nominee to replace Norman Mineta as secretary of Transportation, Mary Peters, presided over the Federal Highway Administration when the agency shut down criminal and civil investigations of CSX Transportation regarding fatal railroad-crossing accidents, according to a former employee of the rail company. Dave Nelson alleged to WND that the CSXT investigation was shut down by the Federal Highway Administration while John Snow, formerly CEO of CSXT, was Treasury secretary. Nelson said both Snow and Peters should be asked, "What did you know and when did you know it?"...

June 24— The Qatari man designated an enemy combatant by the Bush administration was planning another Sept. 11 attack, sources told ABCNEWS. Ali Saleh Kahlah Al-Marri, 37, was deemed an enemy combatant by the Bush administration on Monday after officials said he was positively identified by an al Qaeda detainee as being part of a planned second wave of terror attacks on the United States. Government officials said they believed al Qaeda's top leadership sent Al-Marri to the United States to coordinate a new round of attacks. "Al-Marri was sent to the United States as a facilitator for other al...

Revelations in the Peoria Journal Star earlier this week that the Peoria/Champaign area is one of seven in the United States on a terrorist “circuit” were frightening. “Terrorists enter the United States in San Francisco and Los Angeles, then move to Phoenix, then Denver," reported Phil Luciano of the PJS. "From there some head to Peoria and Champaign. Some terrorists remain in those communities, while others head on to New York City" (emphasis added). Luciano was provided this information by Peoria County Sheriff Mike McCoy, who received it at a recent FBI conference held in Springfield. Names of larger cities...

A $491 million public-financing deal promoted by Florida Gov. Jeb Bush as a boon to commuters actually paves the way for shipping more cheap goods from China to the North American marketplace, charges a whistleblower. Ex-CSX Transportation employee Dave Nelson told WND the deal in Florida amounts to providing CSXT with a public subsidy. Money from the public purse will position the railroad company as a major freight carrier throughout Florida, transporting cargo containers filled with cheap goods coming into the NAFTA marketplace from China. CSXT is positioned to receive millions in the deal. Under the terms of the agreement,...

Can the Port of Humboldt Bay be a participant in the new “Silk Road” as experts predict West Coast shipping trade traffic with China will triple by 2020? It could happen with the help of the Port of Oakland, which is setting the stage for a agreement with its northerly neighbor to begin an formal relationship in the upcoming months with the Humboldt Bay Harbor, Recreation and Conservation District. But actual container shipping between Oakland and Humboldt's deep-water port couldn’t happen any sooner than 2011, according to Port of Oakland Maritime Director Wilson Lacy, who presented an overview of the...

The illegal invaders are threatening our Ports on May 1. Go here to read the transcript: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/12/ldt.01.html CASEY WIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): They've already marched in the streets. Now supporters of unconditional amnesty for illegal aliens are taking their protests to a whole new level, trying to shut down the nation's ports and rail lines. ERNESTO NEVAREZ, L.A. PORT COLLECTIVE: It will come to a grinding halt, transportation, commerce. They are going to put a wall along the border with Mexico. We're going to put a wall between us and the ocean. And those containers ain't going to move....

This morning we learned that Senator Trent Lott was "tired of hearing from" the "so-called porkbusters." What was Lott defending that he was so insistent about? Lott, and other lawmakers from the Mississippi delegation are using a Senate "emergency" supplemental spending bill to fund a massive $700 million new rail line along the gulf coast of their state. Nevermind the fact that this is supposed to be "emergency" funding. And nevermind the fact that $300 million was just spent to repair an already existing line adjacent to where they want to build the new one. The Senate appropriators claim that...