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A n oil-laden train not unlike those rolling down American tracks derailed and exploded Saturday in a Canadian town, proving why pipelines are safer and environmentalist opposition to a pipeline from Canada is misguided. At least 13 people were reported dead and 37 missing in the charred Quebec town of Lac-Megantic, 130 miles east of Montreal, after the accident created an inferno of burning crude. Some may never be found, likely vaporized by the sheer intensity of the blaze that burned for 36 hours. Canada's oil boom, due largely to development of the oil sands in its western province of...

A deadly crude oil train disaster in Canada has brought renewed scrutiny to the growing use of rail to carry oil – including hundreds of thousands of barrels in Texas – and prompted worries that the higher volume will mean more accidents. Though rail proponents say moving crude by train is safe, federal regulators and others say that pipelines are safer, a stance that has played a role in the debate over the planned Keystone XL pipeline from Canada to the Texas coast. And regardless of the relative safety of the two transportation modes, the mere fact that more crude...

Elaine Silets is a train lover like no other. Not only did she make a career out of building model train displays but her expansive estate is an homage to the locomotive. And over the weekend, Silets did something she does but once per year: she opened up her gardens to the public and something like 6,000 curious train lovers descended on her home. With10 acres of gardens, waterfalls, lakes, trestles, bridges, and replica towns and pastoral scenes, her Glorée & Tryumfant Garden Railway in North Barrington, Illinois, it’s no wonder they call her the Train Lady. Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2354273/Thousands-flock-tour-Train-Ladys-massive-model-train-filled-estate-garden.html#ixzz2Y0XtGBOq

"Redistributing" the Wealth

Oil is bringing jobs and business opportunities to the Lower Columbia region but it also is raising fears that the river will become a fossil fuel highway, The Daily News of Longview reported in Sunday’s newspaper. Last year, oil cars began leaving the Bakken shale region centered near Williston, N.D., en route 1,200 miles to Columbia County to be unloaded at Port Westward near Clatskanie. Earlier this year, Tesoro proposed to build a $100 million terminal at the Port of Vancouver that would create 80 jobs. And similar proposals are being considered in Tacoma and Grays Harbor County. The oil...

... In short, Mr. Obama is about to hammer the American energy industry, and he's doing it for money. The real elephant in the room is the Keystone XL pipeline project intended to bring Canadian oil to American Gulf Coast refineries and the resulting products onto the international market. In fact, the title of the Bloomberg article cited above includes the words "Keystone foes." Mr. Obama has already delayed Keystone, once and a final decision is coming up. While Keystone has received a lot of press attention, there are two interrelated aspects that have not yet come to the surface....

French Soldier Stabbed In Neck Near Paris Adam TaylorMay 25, 2013, 1:43 PM A soldier patrolling as part of France's Vigipirate anti-terrorist surveillance plan was stabbed in the neck this afternoon, Reuters reports. A police source told the news agency that the soldier would survive the attack. He is 23 years old, according to CNN. Le Parisien is reporting that the attacker was of Northern African appearance, aged around 30 years old and wearing a jilbab, a type of Islamic garment. The man quickly fled the scene and has not been caught. The attack happened in La Défense, to the...

Historian John Diers, author of the new book "St. Paul Union Depot," will be among the train enthusiasts who will welcome visitors to the Union Depot on Saturday, May 11. The newly refurbished Lowertown depot, which is expected to provide Amtrak passenger service by the end of the year, is celebrating Amtrak's "National Train Day" with free family activities from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Diers, who will deliver a presentation, will have copies of his book for sale. The Radio Disney road crew, a vintage bluegrass railroad band led by Cannonball Paul, storeowner Choo Choo Bob and the St....

More than a week before three people were killed and more than 175 people were injured in the Boston Marathon bombings, a Jersey City man was arrested at the train station in Hoboken while carrying two home-made bombs, authorities say. Police also found explosive devices in the Newport Parkway home of Mykyta Panasenko, 27, Jersey City police said today. According to a criminal complaint, Panasenko is charged with having "two destructive devices, specifically improvised explosive devices (IEDs) constructed from a cylinder containing Pyrodex (black powder)" on April 5, the criminal complaint says.

Canada to announce arrests after thwarting "major terrorist attack":CBCR Reuters – 19 mins ago TORONTO (Reuters) - Canadian police and intelligence agencies are to announce multiple arrests on Monday after an operation to thwart a "major terrorist attack," the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation said on Monday, citing unnamed "highly placed" sources.

Some of you may remember the picture above and the post that went with it. The picture was taken at the train station in Bologna, Italy on August 2, 1980. I missed being there by a couple of days. Italy thought it had a deal with the PLO not to carry out terror attacks on its soil. It was wrong. The European Union is about to repeat the mistake. The EU may declare Hezbullah a designated terror organization, but only if they reach the conclusion that Hezbullah was behind the terror attack at a Bulgarian airport a few months ago....

Canadian authorities announced Monday they have broken up an Al Qaeda-linked terror plot to attack a passenger train as it crossed over a bridge in the Toronto area. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police said Monday that two suspects have been arrested on terrorism charges. Chiheb Esseghaier and Raed Jaser, who live in greater Montreal and Toronto -- were conspiring to carry out an Al Qaeda-supported attack against Via Rail, but posed no immediate threat to the public. "It was definitely in the planning stage but not imminent," RCMP chief superintendent Jennifer Strachan told reporters at a news conference. Read more:...

General Electric Co. GE +0.35%plans to cut 950 jobs at its unionized locomotive plant in Pennsylvania and shift one-sixth of the employment to a newer facility in Texas, citing weaker North American locomotive demand due to falling coal prices. The job cuts will begin in October pending a 60-day period of talks with union leaders. GE met with representatives from the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers union Tuesday. The company plans to add 160 jobs in Texas. GE's factory in Fort Worth, Texas—which isn't unionized and began locomotive production in January—is 20% more productive per employee than the more-than-100-year-old...

The Rail Traffic Chart That Should Eliminate Any Of Your Worries About The US Economy Joe WeisenthalMarch 7, 2013 Rail = the real economy. This is good. Highest 12 week moving average in rail traffic since 2011. twitter.com/cullenroche/st… — Cullen Roche (@cullenroche) March 7, 2013

Vickie, Alice, Lisa, Debbie, Barbara, Chris, Clair and Cootz boarded the Los Angeles-bound Sunset Limited in Schriever, La., and immediately took residence in the glass-sheathed Sightseer Lounge car. The eight women squeezed into two booths on either side of the aisle and began to scream with laughter. With a quiet, pneumatic exhalation, the Sunset Limited left the station; it was 90 minutes into its journey, with 45 hours and 5 minutes to go... It climbed steadily for two miles before passing over the dizzyingly narrow span of the Huey P. Long Bridge. From up there, 145 feet above the Mississippi...

Newsmax Sequester Forces Biden to Take Amtrak Friday, March 1, 2013 10:04 AM By: Sandy Fitzgerald Joe Biden’s military flights back home to Delaware will be grounded starting this weekend, as the vice president plans to start taking Amtrak trains to help cut the costs involved in using military transport for the short trip. Biden said he initiated the change in travel plans, Fox News reports, saying the change is the one part of the sequester that works to his benefit. According to published reports, it costs the government tens of thousands of dollars every time Biden takes Air Force...

A cleaning woman stole an empty commuter train in a suburb of Stockholm and crashed it into a house, injuring herself, Swedish officials say. The four-carriage train was driven out of the depot for about a mile until it jumped the tracks, becoming wedged into a three-storey building. Police arrested a woman, who was flown to a Stockholm hospital with serious injuries. Nobody else was hurt. A railway official confirmed the woman in custody was an employee. "We have only heard good things about her," Tomas Hedenius, a spokesman for train operator Arriva, was quoted as saying by AP news...

Energy companies behind the oil boom on the Northern Plains are increasingly turning to an industrial-age workhorse - the locomotive - to move their crude to refineries across the U.S., as plans for new pipelines stall and existing lines can't keep up with demand. ... The environmental fears carry an ironic twist: Oil trains are gaining popularity in part because of a shortage of pipeline capacity - a problem that has been worsened by environmental opposition to such projects as TransCanada's stalled Keystone XL pipeline. That project would carry Bakken and Canadian crude to the Gulf of Mexico. Wayde Schafer,...

there was no grand celebration this month as Silicon Valley marked 25 years of light rail... The near-empty trolleys that often shuttle by at barely faster than jogging speeds serve as a constant reminder that the car is still king in Silicon Valley -- and that the Valley Transportation Authority's trains are among the least successful in the nation by any metric.

Gov. Mark Dayton's own transportation advisory panel called Friday for a higher state gas tax and other fees and taxes to raise at least $50 billion more for roads and transit over the coming two decades. The Transportation Finance Advisory Committee's recommendations aim to improve the state's roads and expand transit, including new light rail lines, as a boost to the state's economy. Dayton created the group in January, saying a deteriorating transportation system was hurting economic growth. Dayton spokesman Katharine Tinucci said the governor has yet to review the recommendations. The report comes as the Democratic governor is preparing...