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According to early reports, an express train crashed into a collapsed bridge at around 87 mph, sending the locomotive and three passenger carriages careering off the tracks. A Czech Railways spokesman said the EuroCity train derailed after the crash, which took place at Studenka, around 215 miles from the capital, Prague, close to the border with Poland.

Really chuffed: First full-size British steam locomotive for 50 years fires up Last updated at 22:25pm on 01.08.08  First came the sweet toot of the whistle, then a steady hiss. Finally, sporting her battleship-grey undercoat, Britain's first new steam locomotive in almost half a century emerged in all her majesty. It was a sight that took those old enough to remember back to a golden age of rail travel. Even though Tornado only had 120 yards of track to cover as she chugged into action in a Darlington rail yard, the moment was, with good reason, marked with a...

FOB SHANK, Afghanistan (July 10, 2008) — Czech soldiers mentored and trained Logar Police Academy cadets at an Afghan national police compound, here, recently. The Czech soldiers have an ongoing mission of training 36 cadets, who will become Afghan national police officers upon graduation from the academy, July 17. Coalition soldiers actively support the Afghan national security forces by training the ANP. The police academy, led by a U.S. Police Mentoring Training team, cooperates daily with Czech Provincial Reconstruction Team Logar soldiers at FOB Shank, Logar province. These efforts focus on training the Afghanistan national auxiliary police to become members...

MUSLIM SUBWAY ADS LINKED TO TERROR PLOTS - New York Post Jul 21, 2008 ... An Islamic group plans to blitz 1000 subway cars with advertisements this September in a campaign being promoted by a Brooklyn imam whom ...

The Hunt for American al Qaeda The United States is turning up the heat in the hunt for the California boy turned al Qaeda operative, Adam Gadahn, who has been charged with treason and is believed to be hiding in Afghanistan. If caught and convicted, Gadahn could face the death penalty. The State Department along with the Department of Diplomatic Security announced the beginning of a publicity campaign in Afghanistan urging locals to provide any information on Gadahn's whereabouts, with a reward if the information leads to his capture. Radio advertisements with information concerning the $1 million reward have...

A Via Rail train, carrying more than 260 passengers to Toronto, has been quarantined in Foleyet, Ont. after one person died and several people fell ill. "Currently there are a few people who are seriously ill on the train and one person is being airlifted right now," OPP Sgt. Laura Nichols told CTV.ca from the North Bay Communications Centre. The train was quarantined at the train depot in Foleyet, a community near Sudbury, Ont., after officials notified police that someone was feeling ill. More than 260 people were aboard the train when it stopped in Foleyet. Police believe there are...

BEIJING (Reuters) — Dozens were injured or killed Monday in a collision of two passenger trains in eastern China, the official Xinhua News Agency cited a medical worker at the scene as saying. Witnesses and a government spokesman also said there were heavy casualties in the crash in Shandong Province, which made 10 cars of the train topple into a ditch, Xinhua reported. “More than 80 people are injured, both seriously and not as seriously,” a hospital official in Zhoucun district told Reuters.

Scientists 'train' fish to catch themselves By Katie Franklin and agencies Last Updated: 1:01pm GMT 26/03/2008 Fish will one day be able to catch themselves if an experiment by US scientists proves successful. Researchers at the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) at Wood's Hole, Massachusetts, are testing a plan to train fish to catch themselves by using a sound broadcast to attract them into a net. Here fishy, fishy: American scientists are using sound to influence the behaviour of fish They hope to release fish into the open ocean, where they would grow to market size, before enticing them into an...

Train Blocks Chili Avenue by Rich Turner Published Mar 24, 2008 A disabled train has Chili Avenue blocked at the 3300 block, near Old Chili-Scottsville Road. The train hit a boulder on the tracks, causing

SOFIA - A fire on a Bulgarian train that killed nine people last week was a terrorist attack, an expert said Friday, heightening speculation over the deaths. ‘The train was intentionally torched and not just by one, but by several terrorists,’ Christo Smolenov, who was in charge of training defence ministry special forces in the 1990s, told the Trud daily in an interview published Friday. ‘If it was a terrorist act, it would represent a signal that must be recognised. If we close our eyes, the terrorists will be tempted to do it again,’ he also told national television. Smolenov...

Petraeus: Al Qaida Trying to 'Come Back In' U.S. military officials said there will be no significant reduction in coalition troops in the Baghdad area as part of an effort to stop the Al Qaida offensive in northern Iraq. They said Al Qaida was trying to reenter Baghdad and reverse its losses in 2007. "Al Qaida is trying to come back in," U.S. military commander Gen. David Petraeus said. "We can feel it and see it, and what we're trying to do is rip out any roots before they can get deeply into the ground." Read More Militants Assert...

[Snip]  Government warns of terror threat to trains In a bulletin released Friday to U.S. law enforcement officials, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is warning of “continued strong terrorist interest” in targeting mass transit systems in the U.S. The 10-page threat assessment, obtained by NBC News, cautions that the “U.S. mass transit and passenger rail systems are vulnerable to terrorist attacks because they are accessible to large numbers of the public and are notoriously difficult to secure.”……[Snip] 

n a bulletin released Friday to U.S. law enforcement officials, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is warning of “continued strong terrorist interest” in targeting mass transit systems in the U.S. The 10-page threat assessment, labeled “Unclassified/For Official Use Only” and obtained by NBC News, cautions that the “U.S. mass transit and passenger rail systems are vulnerable to terrorist attacks because they are accessible to large numbers of the public and are notoriously difficult to secure.” Previous rail attacks in Madrid, London and Mumbai “could inspire terrorists to conduct similar attacks in the United States,” the report adds. However, the authors...

AHMADABAD, India — A newborn baby girl fell through the toilet in a moving train and onto the tracks moments after her mother prematurely gave birth, surviving nearly two hours before being found, relatives said Thursday.

I missed the train today...again. The nitwit in front of our car let out her husband at the stop sign instead of making her way through the three-way stop and across the tracks. By the time they finished their goodbye, the brief window of opportunity to pass through the intersection had passed and the gates were down. This happens for a combination of reasons. One reason this happens is because the train I ride is so long that the crossing gates are triggered well before it arrives. The second reason is that another train, heading in the opposite direction, always...

Two U.S. Border Patrol agents parked near the tracks at Union Station on a recent morning. Amtrak passengers filed out onto the platform, ready to board. The train screeched to a stop on the southbound tracks. The agents set to work. They checked passengers boarding the train. Then the agents got on the train. They walked down the aisles of two coach cars, asking some of the 150 riders -- many half-asleep in their seats -- for identification. The conductor stood outside on the platform. This is part of his routine -- the daily visit from federal agents whom some...

LOS ANGELES -- A plan to accelerate transportation in the region with a $26 billion high-speed train system has received initial approval from the Los Angeles City Council as it created a joint-powers agreement with neighboring cities. The move Wednesday marked the first step in negotiations to solidify an Atlanta-based firm's proposal to construct a magnetic-levitation train system that would start at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, run through downtown and eventually reach Ontario Airport, the Daily News reported. Los Angeles City Councilman Greig Smith said American Maglev Technology would foot the bill for the system and...

Is the U.S. Failing in Afghanistan? It was malice in wonderland at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Thursday as Bush Administration envoys insisted things are getting better in Afghanistan, while angry lawmakers from both parties cited facts and figures showing just the opposite. Even the senior Republican on the panel, Senator Richard Lugar, found the Administration's claims wanting. "I'm not sure that we have a plan for Afghanistan," he said. Long seen as the "forgotten war" eclipsed by Iraq in U.S. priorities, Afghanistan is in the Washington spotlight this week with the release of three independent reports concluding...

An Illinois man on Monday was pulled from his van minutes before two trains smacked into it, crushing it into pieces. The 75-year-old mistakenly turned onto the tracks, and while police were trying to remove the car a nearby man noticed what was happening and got him off the tracks just in time, MyFoxChicago reported.

Kyrgyzstan: Authorities Seize Radioactive Material Bound For Iran January 10, 2008 If the world needed reminding of the ongoing threat posed by nuclear materials left unsecured and scattered across the former Soviet Union, it's got it now. On January 9, Kyrgyz officials announced that they had taken possession of a small load of a radioactive substance discovered aboard a train bound for Iran. The material has been placed in a special area in Kyrgyzstan, but questions are being raised about the nature and quantity of the substance, who was behind its transport, and how the train carrying it crossed three...

MADRID (Reuters) - A Moroccan suspected of direct involvement in the 2004 Madrid train bombings which killed 191 people was arrested on Sunday in Rabat, a judicial source in Spain familiar with the case said on Monday. Abdelilah Hriz, 29, will be tried in his home country for his suspected part in Europe's deadliest Islamist attack, the first time Morocco has agreed to try one of its citizens for crimes allegedly committed abroad, said the source. Spanish Judge Juan Del Olmo recently traveled to Morocco to question Hriz and take DNA samples, the Moroccan state news agency MAP said last...

A Polish teenager allegedly turned the tram system in the city of Lodz into his own personal train set, triggering chaos and derailing four vehicles in the process. Twelve people were injured in one of the incidents. The 14-year-old modified a TV remote control so that it could be used to change track points, The Telegraph reports. Local police said the youngster trespassed in tram depots to gather information needed to build the device. The teenager told police that he modified track setting for a prank. "He studied the trams and the tracks for a long time and then built...

QAIM, Iraq, Jan. 7, 2008 – Iraqi soldiers are learning to fight and win on the battlefield thanks to the efforts of U.S. Marines here. Soldiers from 1st Battalion, 3rd Brigade, 7th Iraqi Army Division, observe members of the Military Transition Team partnered with Marines from Weapons Company, Task Force 3rd Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment, Regimental Combat Team 2, during a training evolution at Combat Outpost North, Qaim, Iraq. Photo by Cpl. Billy Hall, USMC   (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. Soldiers from 1st Battalion, 3rd Brigade, 7th Iraqi Army Division, not only are engaged in a constant...

BAGHDAD — When one thinks of a police force, he may think of a two-man team, patrolling through a neighborhood in their white-Chevy Monte Carlo, with blue and red lights, and the word “police” written on the side. They move throughout talking with local citizens at the diner, coffee shop, or on the streets corners. No matter what community, country or religious sect, policemen are there to “protect and serve.” Take away the type of vehicle, re-write it in Arabic, from right to left, and an average policemen in Iraq is no different. One of the biggest areas of focus...

12/26/2007 - MAXWELL AIR FORCE BASE, Ala. (AFPN) -- Four Officer Training School instructors returned here recently after spending the past several months in Iraq building the country's air force officer training program from the ground up. Maj. Scott Bergren and Capt. Michael Powell worked at Taji Air Base, Iraq, to establish a stand-alone officer training program modeled after Air University's OTS, and Capt. John Blackman carved an air force course into the curriculum at the Iraq military academy in Rustamiyah, Iraq. American Airmen are currently working to establish an "accession pipeline" in Iraq to help that country establish a...

A crowded passenger train has derailed in southern Pakistan killing at least 50 people and injuring up to 100.About 12 carriages of a train travelling between Karachi and Lahore came off the rails near the city of Mehrabpur in Sindh province. Some carriages plunged into water. The express train was packed with passengers returning home for the Islamic festival of Eid al-Adha. Hundreds of people have died in recent years in crashes on Pakistani railways. Hours after the accident, rescuers were still trying to cut into at least one of the carriages and trapped passengers were heard calling for help....

FORWARD OPERATING BASE KALSU, Iraq, Nov. 26, 2007 – In a dramatic transformation, a courtyard that a year ago was home to insurgent weapons caches designed to inflict destruction and chaos in the Arab Jabour region has become a training ground for a group of potential Iraqi policemen who want to help rebuild and bring order to their community. Army Spc. Rawmean Davis, 153rd Military Police Company, Delaware National Guard, corrects the hand position of a potential police recruit in Arab Jabour, Iraq. The Guardsmen, most of whom are policemen in their communities back home, instructed Iraqi citizens in...

CNN reporting that there has been a train derailment in Washington, DC. 5 cars of a CSX freight train have fallen into the Anacostia River. No reported injuries at the moment.

MINEOLA, N.Y — An off-duty police officer and her husband, a volunteer fire chief, rescued a disabled woman from her stalled car seconds before a train smashed into it, police said. The 63-year-old driver apparently mistook the Long Island Rail Road tracks for a road, authorities said. Her car, which had a licensed plate that denotes a disabled driver, got stuck on the rails Thursday evening with a train fast approaching. She screamed that she couldn't get out of the car and needed help, said witness Jennifer Freiermuth, 28. Randi LoCicero, off duty from her job at the New York...

A train derailed near the Lubrizol Corp. plant in Painesville after striking a gas line shortly after noon today, according to authorities. Several of the cars that derailed are on fire, with flames shooting 20 to 30 feet in the air. Three of the cars that derailed were not burning. Several area fire departments and the local hazardous-materials management team have responded to the blaze and can be seen fighting the fire, which is pouring thick, black smoke into the air toward the southeast. Smoke is visible several miles away. Flames have been reported to be visible at least a...

Baltimore County police say a 45-year-old Baltimore man was hit by a train and killed as he sat on a lawnchair on the tracks. It happened around 8 p.m. Saturday near Martin Boulevard in Rosedale. Police say the man was visiting his brother, who is homeless and hangs out at a camping spot near the train tracks. They say the conductor spotted the man sitting on a lawnchair on the tracks and said he did not appear to realize a train was coming. Police are calling the incident an accident.

FBI Investigating Suspected 'Sabotage' of Commuter Train Tracks in Chicago CHICAGO (AP) -- The FBI is investigating whether a section of commuter train tracks was sabotaged after Metra workers discovered a dozen railroad spikes missing in an area on Chicago's South Side. The spikes hold down metal plates that bind the rails to wooden ties underneath. "If a sufficient number of spikes are removed in a contained location, there's the potential for the rail to shift, which would lead to disastrous results and train derailment," said Federal Railroad Administration spokesman Steve Kulm. Metra discovered the missing spikes on Monday and...

Sep 12, 2007 Chicago, Ill. A Metra train and car collided on the South Side has now resulted in the death of the car’s driver. And it was all caught on surveillance video. It happened on the South Side at 75th and Exchange, just blocks from Lake Michigan. The video tape shows that both gates did go down ahead of the train crossing. Seconds later, a car is traveling southbound and hen makes a left turn, trying to head east but driving right into the path of the northbound Metra train. After the devastating collision the car is show in...

An Indiana mom attempted to outrun a freight train at an intersection but didn't see a train approaching from the other direction and crashed, killing two of her children, police said. Authorities released a video showing Edie Bolanos attempting to outrun an eastbound train in her minivan by cutting through a parking lot and making a quick turn. "It seemed that she [Edie Bolanos] was so intent on beating the eastbound train, she never even saw the westbound train that hit her," Hammond Police Sgt. Michael Jorden said. Two of Bolanos' children, Crystal, 11, and Anahi, 8, were ejected from...

NEAR KARMAH, Iraq, Sept. 5, 2007 — Beginning at patrol bases within the 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit’s area of operations, Marines from Battalion Landing Team, 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, are integrating forces with the Iraqi army and looking ahead to future joint tactical commitment. "Not only has the battalion integrated Iraqis on patrols, they’ve worked them into mission briefings, planning, intel, it shows a level of trust. The ultimate level is going to be putting Juundis (junior Iraqi personnel) on guard and letting the Marines sleep." Lt. Col. Woody Hesser Military Transition Team commander The integration comes as the...

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.

Five people believed to be illegal immigrants stowing away on a train traveling through Merkel from California were taken into custody Wednesday, with more believed to be still at large. Railroad officials "suspected there were some illegal aliens riding in some containers on the train," said Merkel Police Chief Bob Jones. "I was tied up at the time, but they got some other authorities in there, and they got five illegal aliens caught and expect there to be some more."

HOUSTON – A 15-year-old boy who slammed a stolen car into a freight train parked at a railroad crossing has been charged with murder in the deaths of four passengers. Bobby Davis of Baytown was booked into a juvenile detention center Thursday and is scheduled for a Friday detention hearing. His family's attorney, Richard "Racehorse" Haynes, couldn't be reached for comment Thursday, but previously pointed to the train as the problem.

The beautiful Kjosfoss waterfall is one of the many stops on the Flåm Railway, which has been a major tourist attraction since 1940. The distance from the Flåm station, where the cruise liners dock, up to the Myrdal station is about 20 km (about 12 miles). The train winds its way along the narrow valley, climbing 864.8 metres (about 2800 feet) through 21 tunnels. Link to a larger image of Kjosfossen

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...

SAN ONOFRE -- Southern California Edison has changed its security procedures for inspecting train cars that enter the San Onofre nuclear power plant after a sleeping illegal immigrant was accidentally carried onto the property, company officials said Wednesday. Edison officials said that a man was found on the San Onofre property -- but not inside its "protected area" where its nuclear reactors and fuel reside -- just after three freight rail cars arrived inside the plant around 12:30 a.m. July 25. The rail cars, on a spur of Southern California's main north-south rail line, carry freight inside the San Onofre...

BAGHDAD — Italian Army Maj. Gen. Alessandro Pompegnani, Deputy Commander of NATO Training Mission-Iraq spoke about his country’s efforts to help train the Iraqi National Police at a press conference at the Combined Press Information Center Thursday. Since 1814 the Arma dei Carabinieri (Force of Carabinieri) has ensured the rights of the Italian people, both at home and abroad. The Carabinieri are Italian military police whose mission is to control the crime and to serve the community through respect for the Law. Now the Carabinieri will share their training techniques with the Iraqi National Police as part of the efforts...

FORT WORTH -- A man’s legs were severed Thursday afternoon when he attempted to jump off a moving train west of downtown and fell under its wheels.The man was taken to John Peter Smith Hospital and is expected to survive his injuries, said Lt. Dean Sullivan, police spokesman.The accident happened shortly after noon on railroad tracks northeast of the intersection of Forest Park Boulevard and Rosedale Street, just north of Jerome Street.“He was trying to get off the train, got caught up in the couplings and, as a result, fell on the track below,” Sullivan said. “In the process, both...

A commuter who put his feet on a seat during his train journey home has been prosecuted in a clampdown on antisocial behaviour. Babiker Fadol was spotted by a security patrol after stretching out his legs and dozing off. He was ordered to attend court under a 120-year-old bye-law which makes it a criminal offence "to interfere with the comfort or convenience" of fellow passengers. He pleaded guilty and was given a one-year conditional discharge and ordered to pay £50 costs. This means he now has a criminal record. Yesterday, the 45-year-old declared that his prosecution was a waste of...

SAN DIEGO – A man being pursued after he illegally crossed into the United States from Mexico was run over by a freight train late Thursday morning as he tried to escape a Customs agent near the San Ysidro crossing, federal authorities reported. The man lost several fingertips on his right hand and had his left foot severed. He was taken to a San Diego hospital. There was no word on his condition. The incident took place in an area known to Border Patrol agents as “the loading docks,” a spot just east of the San Ysidro port of entry...

GE publicly unveiled a prototype hybrid road locomotive at its Ecomagination event in Los Angeles last week. (Earlier post.) The 4,000 hp locomotive uses a set sodium nickel chloride (Na-NiCl2) batteries to capture and store energy dissipated during dynamic braking as well as an on-board fuel optimizer system. GE’s work on the hybrid is one of the projects in the Department of Energy’s Heavy Vehicle Systems Optimization efforts, and is one component of a larger GE effort on heavy-duty hybrids that includes buses and very heavy-duty off-highway vehicles such as mine trucks. The energy stored in the locomotive batteries will...

Beer and asphalt spilled out of rail cars near downtown Denver early today after a string of 34 freight cars crashed into parked locomotives, derailing four of the cars and damaging others.

Los Angeles - A man trying to kill himself and his girlfriend by stopping a car on railroad tracks died on Monday when a commuter train crashed into the vehicle, police said. The girlfriend survived. The man drove the car in front of a group of other vehicles stopped at a railroad crossing in the San Fernando Valley neighbourhood of Sunland, said officer Mike Lopez. The driver, who was seen arguing with his girlfriend, parked the car on the tracks moments before a northbound Metrolink train crossed the road, Lopez said.

Excerpt - Four more people have been arrested by anti-terror police investigating the July 7 attacks. Fifty-two people were killed by four bombers in the 2005 attack on the London transport system. Mohammad Sidique Khan, 30, Shehzad Tanweer, 22, and Germaine Lindsay, 19, detonated bombs on three Tube trains and Hasib Hussain, 18, attacked a bus. The four people arrested today are two men aged 30 and 34 and a woman, 29, from West Yorkshire and a 22-year-old man from Birmingham. ~ snip ~

The engineer of an Amtrak Capitol Corridor train was seriously injured Monday night in West Sacramento after a group of people forced the train to stop, dragged the engineer from the train and assaulted him with rocks and bottles, according to Capitol Corridor officials. The attack occurred as the train from the Bay Area neared the I Street Bridge to Sacramento's rail station and slowed for a signal, said Eugene Skoropowski, managing director of the Capitol Corridor, said. A group of people stood on the tracks to block the train, which stopped. When the engineer went downstairs and opened the...