Free Republic

Hold onto your engineer caps, railroad history lovers. Seventy years after the First Transcontinental Railroad was completed in 1869, the steep Rocky Mountains of Wyoming and Utah were still giving the Union Pacific Railroad trouble. Despite having massive steam engines, the Union Pacific, one of the biggest railroads in America, still struggled to move heavy freight trains over the mountains and would often have to use multiple locomotives to get trains to their destination. This practice required more workers and more fuel. In 1940, the Union Pacific’s mechanical engineers teamed up with the American Locomotive Company to build one...

South America’s new transcontinental railway is considered to be one the biggest infrastructure projects of the century and is also known as the “Panama Canal on railway tracks.” A 3,755-kilometer land connection is set to be built between the continent’s Atlantic and Pacific coasts. Bolivia is a landlocked country, so the Andean nation is especially keen on getting the ball rolling soon. Bolivian President Evo Morales met Swiss President Doris Leuthard to sign a memorandum of understanding on the construction of the transcontinental railway. Morales met with representatives of German and Swiss railway firms, and Germany’s State Secretary of Transport,...

March 28-29, 2015 Departure: Red Ball Parking Garage – 142 East 31st Street, NY, NY 10016 Arrival: R10 Social House – 179 N Harbor Dr, Redondo Beach, CA 90277 13 states – NY, NJ, WV, PA, OH, IL, IN, MO, OK, TX, NM, AZ, CA 2811.5 miles in 26 hours, 28 minutes, 13 seconds 106.21 mph Overall Average 23 Minutes 17 Seconds Stopped 107.79 mph Moving Average 3 Fuel Stops: 8m13s, 11m29s and 3m35s 70 Gallons Fuel Capacity ~230 Gallons of E85 used 12.22 MPG

New gaffe: Obama hails America's historic building of 'the Intercontinental Railroad'Andrew Malcolm September 23, 2011 | 5:24 am "We’re the country that built the Intercontinental Railroad," Barack Obama. That's what the president of the United States flat-out said Thursday during what was supposed to be a photo op to sell his jobs plan next to an allegedly deteriorating highway bridge. A railroad between continents? A railroad from, say, New York City all the way across the Atlantic to France? Now, THAT would be a bridge! It's yet another humorous gaffe by the Harvard graduate, overlooked by most media for whatever...

WASHINGTON, May 9, 2006 – Thirty-three days after pedaling out of Los Angeles, a group of cyclists arrived at the Pentagon today as part of the Airline Ride Across America to honor the 33 airline crewmembers who died during the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. A group of cyclists arrives at the Pentagon May 9 as part of the Airline Ride Across America to honor the 33 airline crewmembers who died during the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. The riders left Los Angeles on April 2. Along the way they raised about $100,000 for 9/11 memorials in...

Federal agents contend that a Pennsylvania man tried to work with al Qaeda in a plot to blow up the Alaska pipeline, another pipeline in Pennsylvania and a refinery in New Jersey, according to a published report. Michael Curtis Reynolds, 47, has not officially been charged with terrorism, but a prosecutor at a hearing said that Reynolds tried to "provide material aid to al Qaeda" and that the case "involves a federal offense of terrorism," The Philadelphia Inquirer reported in its Sunday editions. CBS News correspondent Randall Pinkston reports that a tip from Shannen Rossmiller - a judge from Conrad,...

Victoria pilot breaks transcontinental record for small planes A rather ordinary looking little airplane rolls to a stop on the runway at Victoria Regional Airport and a rather ordinary looking gentleman, gray-haired and bespectacled, slides back the plane's canopy and steps out onto the wing. No dashing Lucky Lindy in a bomber jacket and a flapping aviator's helmet, he's wearing a businessman's long-sleeved button-down, slacks and loafers. He could be your grandfather or mine going to a friend's on Sunday for a companionable game of dominos on the porch. But the news release just issued by the National Aeronautic Association...

30 years after the Wright Brothers made their first successful powered flight a young and successful businessman, Howard Hughes, decided to build the world's fastest land plane. The aircraft was Hughes' first design and was therefore dubbed the "H-1." Howard Hughes had three major goals in the design of the H-1: it had to be the fastest land plane in the world, it had to have a range that would carry it from coast to coast without refueling, and it had to be a practical aircraft to fly and to operate. Howard Hughes and his design team met each goal...