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One dead, two critical and 82 hurt as DC Metro fills with smoke from huge electrical fault: Terrified passengers lie in the dark for an HOUR before help arrives - as announcers tell them to 'stay calm' *Passengers described being stuck inside a pitch-black train for 40 minutes with some lying down to avoid the smoke *One female passenger was reportedly taken to hospital after paramedics found her unresponsive. She later died *Two other passengers are said to be in a critical condition at George Washington Hospital *A firefighter was also hurt during the evacuation and was transported to hospital....

Police confirm to CBS News multiple people have been stabbed Friday evening on an Amtrak train in Niles. dispatchers say the call came in around 7:00 p.m. for reports of multiple people stabbed at the station near N 6th Street and Pokagon Street in Niles. Police confirm to CBS News one person has been arrested. The conditions of those injured are unknown.

**SNIP** “But what competitive Senate races is the president campaigning in?” Heilemman asked. “Is there one?” “There are races that the president is campaigning in around the country, and he’s also governing,” Wasserman Schultz said. “He’s doing his job and he’s also spent time recording robo calls, and doing radio spots, and making sure that our GOTV focus is aggressive as possible.”

Observers have long known that only a few options were available for the route of the privately funded high-speed train line between Houston and Dallas. Now a firmer picture of where the trains might run is emerging. (Photo courtesy of JR Central) (Photo courtesy of JR Central) As part of the federally required process to evaluate the line, the Federal Railroad Administration and Texas Department of Transportation released maps of the nine routes they are considering and the two chosen for deeper evaluation. The lines that didn’t make the final cut seem to be a bit longer, or else have...

Most members of the Metropolitan Council rarely use the public transportation system they are in charge of overseeing, based on transit pass usage and a Star Tribune survey of the 17-member body. Met Council members receive a free transit pass as part of their appointments to the board. Information obtained through an open records request shows that 10 of those passes were never used in the past year. Five council members swiped their cards between 10 and 21 times, while just two registered more than 70 rides. By comparison, a full year of two-way weekday commutes would rack up closer...

The Obama administration has spent almost $11 billion to build a high-speed rail system that doesn’t seem to be going anywhere. Since 2009, the president has been pushing for the United States to have a bullet-train-like system similar to those found in Europe and Asia, but a combination of setbacks and dwindling support from states and Congress has slowed the project to a halt, The New York Times first reported. Just last month, Congress rejected the administration’s request for an additional $10 billion for high-speed rail and last year, three governors canceled their federal funding for the projects—deeming them too...

Scores of travelers were stranded after the Acela Express 2253 took off from one platform about 3 p.m. — while they were waiting at another and unaware the train was leaving them behind. An Amtrak train bound for Washington pulled away from Penn Station on Saturday without some pretty important cargo: its passengers. ... They literally sent us to the wrong platform, and the conductor took off without any passengers,” said Damien Miano, 60, of Chelsea. “The right hand didn’t know what the left hand was doing. It was just so bizarre.” Miano said he and the other abandoned travelers...

On 21July2014 Amtrak Wolverine was due to arrive in New Buffalo Michigan at 8:10pm from Chicago. But it was over 2 hours late. When my wife FINALLY talked with a REAL person she was told that AMTRAK's own dispatch center could NOTcontact the train and to call back in 10 min for update!!!!!!!!

(Reuters) - A cargo train used by Mexicans and Central Americans to travel toward the U.S. border derailed in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca on Wednesday, stranding about 1,300 migrants, emergency services said. Many of the migrants aboard were young people and nobody was injured when the train nicknamed "the Beast" came off the tracks, a spokesman for local emergency services said.

There's a network of freight trains that runs the length of Mexico, from its southernmost border with Guatemala north to the United States. In addition to grain, corn or scrap metal, these trains are carrying an increasing number of undocumented immigrants whose aim is to cross into the U.S.... People call the train La Bestia, or The Beast.... It's estimated that up to a half-million migrants now ride The Beast each year, sitting back-to-back along the spine of the train cars, trying not to get knocked off their rooftop perch. "They're just packed," says photojournalist Keith Dannemiller, "There's not much...

Officials at all levels of government are banking that Metro Transit's $957 million investment will do more than simply shuttle existing bus riders in fancier vehicles between the downtowns of St. Paul and Minneapolis when it debuts June 14. They are counting on light rail to be a catalyst -- an economic game-changer for downtown St. Paul and much of University Avenue. Both areas have lost industry since the 1970s. The city as a whole lost 13.4 percent of its employment from 2000 to 2011, a period during which the U.S. shed 2.2 percent of its jobs, according to Wilder...

To the Honorable Mr. Indyk Sir: Several days ago, you appeared on the Israeli media and blamed all the current ills, including the breakup of talks between our negotiators and the Arabs among us, on the "settlement" movement and the resumption of Jewish life in Judea and Samaria. We would have you know, that from the first days of the "Return to Zion" movement", over 130 years ago, and followed by the forming of Theodore Herzl's Zionist movement, there was always – and still is – disagreement ... Some felt that it was necessary to convince the world, and perhaps...

China is planning to build a train line that would, in theory, connect Beijing to the United States. According to a report in the Beijing Times, citing an expert at the Chinese Academy of Engineering, Chinese officials are considering a route that would start in the country's northeast, thread through eastern Siberia and cross the Bering Strait via a 125-mile long underwater tunnel into Alaska. "Right now we're already in discussions. Russia has already been thinking about this for many years," says Wang Mengshu, the engineer cited in the article. The proposed "China-Russia-Canada-America" line would be some 8,000 miles long, 1,800...

WORCESTER, Mass., May 5 (UPI) -- A Massachusetts man who was drinking during a Saturday afternoon pub crawl in Boston was allegedly found “surfing” on top of an MBTA commuter train while wearing a sombrero and poncho that night. The train's engineer stopped the train between Southborough and Ashland after being told someone was on top of the train while it was traveling 40 mph.

A dangerous scorpion shocked passengers as it nipped into a Tube station and tried to pinch a ride on a man’s bag.The man screamed when he saw it clinging to his bag at Victoria Underground station in central London. London Underground staff were quickly on hand after hearing the commotion, British Transport Police (BTP) said. They managed to capture the scorpion and placed it in a plastic lunchbox, which they pierced with air holes, while they called the police. Specialist wildlife crime officers from BTP went to the station to remove the creature, which had been put on a shelf...

A train derailment in Lynchburg, Virginia dumped as much as 50,000 gallons of oil, the latest such rail disaster in a recent series. Thus far, the spill doesn’t pose a safety issue for local water use, as the river into which the rail cars tumbled is only used as a drought resource. CBS News raises the point that the safety of oil transport by rail has become a serious problem, and that the federal government has thus far acted slowly to respond to it: Concern about the safety of oil trains was heightened last July when runaway oil train derailed...

When California first put the issue of building a high-speed bullet train between Los Angeles and San Francisco before voters, Gov. Jerry Brown made all sorts of nifty-sounding promises about how efficient, convenient, and fiscally sound a choice the rail line would be for Californians. All of those promises have more or less turned out to be a sham by now, as the train’s costs have exploded and its deadlines pushed way back, and now it appears that that less-than-three-hour ride Californians were originally promised… well, probably isn’t. ... who really considers a mounting “wall of debt” and a slew...

CHICAGO—An emergency track-side braking system activated but failed to stop a Chicago commuter train from jumping the tracks and barreling to the top of an escalator at O'Hare International Airport, a federal investigator said Tuesday. The events that led to Monday's accident, which occurred around 3 a.m. and injured more than 30 passengers, might have begun with the train operator dozing off toward the end of her shift, according the union representing transit workers. But Tuesday's announcement that a piece of emergency safety equipment might have failed was the first indication the accident could have been caused by human error...

A 21-year-old from southern Spain died on Saturday after being electrocuted when he climbed on to a train to take a photo of himself with friends. The young man from the Andalusian town of Andújar suffered the fatal blow when he touched a high-voltage wire on a train he and his friends had assumed was not electrified. They'd clambered on top of the parked wagon at Andújar train station to take a picture of themselves when they suffered the severe electric shock. Spanish online daily Ideal reported that a 3,5000-volt discharge killed the young man as he went to take...

Joe Biden is visiting Philadelphia’s 30th Street Station today, and Delaware’s favorite son showed up to sit in Amtrak’s new locomotive. Veep Joe Biden sits in the front of Amtrak's new locomotive at 30th Street Station in Philly. Story upcoming. pic.twitter.com/Vb9xviCleH — Kathy Matheson (@kmatheson) February 6, 2014   Biden is in town to celebrate Amtrak’s Cities Sprinter electric locomotive, which will power trains along the Northeast corridor and from Harrisburg to Philadelphia.