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With just weeks remaining before federal funding for road and bridge repair dries up, President Obama will take new executive actions this week to spur infrastructure investment from the private sector, the White House announced Monday. The president will make the announcement — the details of which are not yet clear — during a speech Thursday in Delaware. “This is a key part of the president’s year of action,” White House press secretary Josh Earnest said Monday.

New York Central's 20th Century Limited  (photo: Wikipedia) More at Reaganite Republican...

I’m not an expert on the Chinese calendar, so it could be that April 1 comes in May in China, and everyone in Beijing is having a good chuckle at those gullible Canadians, who believe everything they read in the Chinese press. How else to explain reports, which have been circulating for some time, that China is discussing construction of a super-undersea railway-tunnel that would have high-speed trains barreling from China to the U.S., by way of Russia and Canada, faster than you can say “Mao’s your uncle”? As reported by Postmedia, where we believe everything we’re told, “the line...

France’s SNCF rail network has ordered 2,000 trains for an expanded regional network that are too wide for hundreds of station platforms, entailing costly repairs, the national operator announced on Tuesday. A spokesman for the RFF national rail operator confirmed the error, first reported by satirical weekly, Le Canard Enchaîné, in its Wednesday edition. “We discovered the problem a bit late, we recognise that and we accept responsibility on that score,” Christophe Piednoel told France Info radio station, adding that the new trains would “meet the demands of the public” and that only 1,300 of 8,700 platforms needed work. Construction...

France's national railway operator SNCF has ordered 2,000 new trains that are too large for many of the stations they are due to serve. The train operator has admitted failing to verify measurements it was given by the rail operator before ordering its new rolling stock. The costly mistake has sparked an urgent €50m operation to modify 1,300 platforms on the regional network. SNCF has admitted that one in six regional train stations is affected. In the worst cases it has discovered two trains can no longer pass each other on adjacent lines.The French minister of transport described the situation...

France's national rail company SNCF said on Tuesday it had ordered 2,000 trains for an expanded regional network that are too wide for many station platforms, entailing costly repairs. A spokesman for the RFF national rail operator confirmed the error, first reported by satirical weekly Canard Enchaine in its Wednesday edition. "We discovered the problem a bit late, we recognise that and we accept responsibility on that score," Christophe Piednoel told France Info radio.

As state lawmakers consider another bailout of Detroit, it is worth suggesting that the city and state might be better off if Detroit bailed itself out. The current restructuring plan calls for $350 million from the state over 20 years — or $17.5 million per year. With better reforms, Detroit can find additional dollars and many more besides. A bailout of Detroit by the state is not going to provide the long-term fix desperately needed for Detroit’s problems. Detroit should be turned into a contract city by selling assets and shedding extraneous services, and then competitively contracting for the services...

Passenger trains are again rolling into St. Paul's historic Union Depot. Ramsey County leaders joined their peers from St. Paul and the state Wednesday to welcome Amtrak to their meticulously restored depot. The first train, the westbound Empire Builder from Chicago, arrived at 11:13 p.m. -- 70 minutes late -- en route to Seattle and Portland, Ore. "Our beautifully restored building is achieving our vision as a multimodal transit facility and a unique gathering place for people," said Ramsey County Commissioner Rafael Ortega, chair of the Ramsey County Regional Railroad Authority, said during ceremonies earlier in the day. But don't...

MILFORD, Conn. (WTNH) – Was it something I said?U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal might have been thinking just that after a near brush with death during a press conference Friday at the Milford Metro-North station.Just as Milford Mayor Ben Blake started to say, “safety, as you know, is paramount,” a train came whooshing by the platform, inches from the senator who had his back turned and was partly standing on the yellow line.The press conference was called after Blumenthal slammed Metro-North Railroad for collecting $552,000 in fines over the past decade for safety violations and defects.

During the last twenty years, roads and bridges have taken a back seat to commuter and light rail projects. This was never clearer than in a 2010 report by the Metropolitan Council titled, “Regional 2030 Transportation Policy Plan,” which virtually gives up on constructing any new vehicle lanes in the seven-county metropolitan area. Instead, the plan places heavy emphasis on rail projects. The population of the metropolitan area is about 3.3 million. Minneapolis and Saint Paul are only about 20 percent of that. In other words, most people live and work outside of the two cities. So why is there...

Are we seeing a renaissance in public transit use by Americans? The answer is yes, if you believe a new report from the American Public Transportation Association (APTA), the transit industry's lobby group. In fact, APTA's report is a textbook example of how deceiving statistics can be. The report states that in 2013, the number of transit trips was nearly 10.7 billion nationally--the highest since 1956, according to APTA. Michael Melaniphy, APTA's CEO, hailed what he called "a fundamental shift" in how Americans choose to get around. But even strong supporters of public transit like Michael Manville, David King and...

History, Mystery, and Tunnels (& Trains). Reading The Cosgrove Report sent this guy on a hunt for a missing tunnel possibly used by John Wilkes Booth. After finding the tunnel, and running tours in the tunnel for 30+ years the city all the sudden revoked his business license and a part of history goes back undercover.

Metro Transit crews work to get a light rail train back on track after it derailed Wednesday while traveling north on the Green Line at Cedar Street and 12th Street in downtown St. Paul. (Pioneer Press: John Autey) A Central Corridor light-rail test train rolled off the tracks on Cedar Street in downtown St. Paul on Wednesday afternoon. The minor derailment occurred as the northbound train, which was not carrying passengers, attempted to navigate a turn at 12th Street just before rush hour. It was leaving downtown headed toward Minneapolis. Crews working on the derailment hooked up another train to...

Jonathan Kealing was on his way to the dog groomer Sunday morning when his car hit a line of potholes on eastbound Minnesota 62 in Minneapolis. "We hit some normal potholes, then it got so intense. We slammed into this chasm in the Earth," Kealing said. It wasn't until a stop later in the morning that he saw just how intense: The rim was no longer round, but flat, and the tire couldn't hold air. After getting a $500 repair bill from the auto shop, Kealing took to Twitter to alert the Minnesota Department of Transportation to the situation. "Dear...

CNSNews.com) -- Not building the 875-mile Keystone XL Pipeline could result in the release of up to 42 percent more greenhouse gases than would be released by building it, according to the State Department. Not building the pipeline “is unlikely to significantly impact the rate of extraction in the [Canadian] oil sands or the continued demand for heavy crude oil at refineries in the United States,” the department noted in a long-awaited environmental report released January 31st. But the “No Build” option is likely to result in an increased number of oil spills, six more deaths annually, and up to...

The diesel-burning locomotive, the workhorse of American railroads since World War II, will soon begin burning natural gas — a potentially historic shift that could cut fuel costs, reduce pollution and strengthen the advantage railroads hold over trucks in long-haul shipping. Rail companies want to take advantage of booming natural gas production that has cut the price of the fuel by as much as 50 percent. So they are preparing to experiment with redesigned engines capable of burning both diesel and liquefied natural gas. Natural gas "may revolutionize the industry much like the transition from steam to diesel," said Jessica...

Where crude oil is concerned, Canada waits for no country. It doesn’t matter how wealthy or how friendly that country is -- or whether that country is the United States. With the Canada-to-Texas Keystone XL pipeline stuck in limbo on the U.S. side, Canada’s Energy Board recently gave a thumbs up to a $6.5 billion pipeline designed to carry 525,000 barrels of oil per day from the oil sands of Alberta to ships on the British Columbia coast. The final destination is most likely Asia. The development has the U.S. oil industry attacking the Obama administration over its drawn-out process....

BREAKING NEWS: A train is derailed west of Casselton, North Dakota. It happened at 35th Street and 154th Avenue Southeast just before 2:20 p.m. Monday. Several area emergency teams are on scene and are setting up an incident command center. A viewer who is about a half mile from the derailment tells Valley News Live she can see large flames. Several train cars are on fire and huge plumes of black smoke can be seen for miles. Emergency crews are urging people to stay inside and a code red alert has been sent out to residents in a two mile...

Train 42, 'The Pelican', headed by N&W 4-8-4 Class J 603 arrives at Rural Retreat, VA eastbound from New Orleans to Washington shortly before 10pm Dec. 27th, 1957, and thunders off into the night. The Norfolk & Western Railway's own Class J was perhaps the finest of all express steam engines, and 603 is heard here in its last days of main line service with a consist of 17 cars. The photograph is of Train 17 'The Birmingham Special' westbound arriving later that same night at 11:37pm, being waved through by Agent J.L. Akers. The photograph and sound recording were...

Muni passengers were taken for a wild ride this morning after their train car departed the station without the driver aboard. According to the Chron, at about 10:15 a.m. the KT-Ingleside/Third Street train was about to leave the Castro Street station when the operator spotted a problem with one of the train doors. The operator hopped out to fix the issue, and that's when the real problems began. Perhaps the operator forgot to employ the emergency brake, but for unknown reasons the train loaded with passengers took off -- leaving the operator behind. As the train rolled away -- headed...