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Reflections on the May 12, 2015 Amtrak train crash in Philadelphia... First Day at School You’re a gym teacher at a new school, in charge of 30 kids in a gym, on your first day at work. You can’t keep your eye on all of them at once. While you were helping a couple of kids improve their free throws at one end, you hear a shout at the other end of the gym; one kid knocked another down. Scenario 1: You don’t know either kid at all, so you objectively ask the kids to all explain what happened. You...

At least 21 people were hurt, two of them seriously, on Saturday when a Los Angeles commuter train struck a car that was crossing the tracks and derailed into a street near the University of Southern California campus. A silver Hyundai Sonata was left crumpled and unrecognizable following the collision, according to a Reuters witness. The lead train car jumped the tracks, crashing through a metal fence and across a grass-covered median before coming to rest in the middle of Exposition Boulevard. One person on the Metrolink train suffered serious injuries, the Los Angeles Fire Department said, and a person...

The drive to expand commuter rail across Northwest Indiana seems to have died sometime over the last year, yet there was virtually no recognition of the loss. There was no wake. No funeral. No obituary. While some knew the movement was ailing, few apparently knew the seriousness of the situation. And no one seemed willing to accept responsibility. Now, five years after the Regional Development Authority was created to, in part, jump-start commuter rail expansion, the proponents are quietly trying to bring the cause back to life. Rather than continuing to embrace the full build-out of rail lines to Lowell...

HARTFORD — The effort to block the proposed busway between Hartford and New Britain picked up the backing of two top Republican candidates Thursday. “The future is rail — and high-speed rail at that,” said 1st District congressional hopeful Mark Zydanowicz. Jason Welch, who is angling to snatch the 31st District state Senate seat, said the busway “is not a bad idea. It’s just not the best idea.” Welch, a Bristol lawyer, is taking on 18-year incumbent Democrat Tom Colapietro. Welch said that a commuter rail line from Waterbury to Hartford, which would hook into rail lines running to New...

Passenger rail in Austin — for 40 years the subject of speculation, argumentation, elections and, finally, construction — will leave the station early in the morning on March 22, Capital Metro officials announced just after noon. Federal rail regulators, in town the past several days as Capital Metro did on-schedule testing of the 32-mile line from Leander to downtown Austin, gave their blessing this morning, Capital Metro interim chief executive officer Doug Allen said. The line, which was to have opened a year ago (and even earlier under original predictions), had been plagued by glitches in its signal and...

A cat has become such a well-known user of a Devon bus service that its drivers know where to let him off. Casper has been queuing with other passengers to get the number three service from his home in Plymouth for months, bus company First said. It added that he often sat in the queue and then quietly padded on board and curled up on a seat for the ride. Casper's owner Susan Finden, 55, who picked him from a rescue home in 2002, said he had always been a free spirit. Mrs Finden said she named her pet after...

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...

FReep this Poll! "When driving on the freeway, do you most often move over to the right lane to allow faster drivers to pass or do you maintain your speed and lane?" Move over Maintain

Lefties launch 'Move over' campaign By: Dave Downey - Commentary Sunday, June 17, 2007 Look out, all you left-lane campers. Soon, you could be approached from behind by an impatient commuter with the words "move over" and a giant arrow pointed in the direction of the No. 2 lane pasted across his or her windshield. Those drivers who routinely get irritated when you create those mile-long backups now have a polite way of communicating with you. For $29, they can buy their very own "move over" windshield decals through the Web site leftlanedrivers.org. The site was set up earlier this...

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger declared a state of emergency following the collapse of one of the San Francisco Bay area's most traveled sections of freeway, as workers began clearing debris from a fiery accident that destroyed an important commuter link.A freeway interchange that funnels traffic off the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge collapsed onto another highway ramp in Oakland, Calif., Sunday, April 29, 2007, after a gasoline tanker truck overturned and caught fire.

A worldwide investigation has uncovered an al-Qaida loyalist's plan to blow up the PATH train tunnels under the Hudson River, thwarting a terrorist conspiracy the FBI called "the real deal," authorities said Friday. The alleged mastermind has been arrested. "The individuals were moving forward," said Special Agent Mark J. Mershon, assistant director of the FBI's New York office. They "were about to go to a phase where they would attempt to surveil targets, establish a regimen of attack and then acquire the resources necessary to effectuate the attacks." Mershon identified the plan's mastermind as Assem Hammoud, a 31-year-old Lebanese citizen...

Two Roosevelt Island Tram cars carrying dozens of people over the East River were left hanging Tuesday when the system lost power due to a mechanical problem, officials say. Rescue crews have begun the process of using cages and baskets to get the passengers off. Both cars stopped moving around 5:15 p.m., stranding about 80 people, officials say. The tramcars were still stalled after 7 p.m. while engineers worked to restore power. One of the tramcars had about 50 people, the other about 30. We are told that there are nine children on board. No injuries were reported. Eyewitness News...

A federal appeals court ruled yesterday that the District cannot impose a commuter tax without the permission of Congress, dealing another blow to the city's quest for home rule. In a sharply worded opinion, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit reinforced the view that the District is a creation of Congress and subject to its will. The ruling was signed by three judges, including John G. Roberts Jr., who had heard the case before he became chief justice of the United States.

ITHACA--According to the Ithaca Journal (which cannot be reposted here thanks to the cretins at Gannett news), the City of Ithaca and the rest of Tompkins County is considering imposing a local income tax.According to the article, the democrat-controlled legislature is looking at a 10 percent surcharge on top of the amount of state taxes county residents pay. They are also considering an additional 1 percent surcharge on income of more than $100,000, and 2 percent added for incomes of $200,000 or more.Recognizing that a lot of people drive into the county to work at Cornell from outlying (red counties),...

Feds hit brakes on rail moneyA federal agency questions the assumed benefits of commuter rail in the Triangle. The Federal Transit Administration has changed its rating of the Triangle's proposed commuter rail service from "recommended" to neutral, saying it cannot endorse the $695 million project until it resolves new doubts about its benefits. The Triangle Transit Authority, which hopes to start running commuter trains in 2008, is counting on federal funding to cover 61 percent of the system's cost. Without that money, the project is dead. Federal officials are not questioning how fast TTA trains will run or how many...

The purpose of FreeRepublic.com's multiple message boards is to limit the topics for each board to particular topics. Posting the same message on all the boards defeats the purpose of multiple-boards for special topics. It is very annoying to see the same message on every bulletin board. PLEASE! DO THE READERS A FAVOR. STOP CROSS-POSTING YOUR MESSAGES!

A new study by a team of German researchers suggests that commuting could be hazardous to your health. The study found an increased risk in having a heart attack, within two hours of being in traffic. Interestingly, patients who had taken the bus or ridden a bike were even more likely to have an attack. The research team, led by Annette Peters of the National Research Center for Environment and Health in Neuherberg, looked at 691 people who suffered a heart attack between 1999 and 2001. They found that nearly one in 12 attacks was linked to being stuck in...

A sad cartoon... America mourns with Spain lo siento muchismo, Espana

Lawmaker Accuses White House of Stripping Aid to Rural Airports By Lara Jakes Jordan Associated Press Writer/Feb.10,'04 WASHINGTON (AP) - More than 100 small airports nationwide are facing federal budget cuts that could ground commuter flights and strip rural communities of a crucial connection to airline hubs. The White House budget for the 2005 fiscal year would eliminate aid to 23 airports, and force 82 more to pay part of the costs to continue commuter flights to hub airports. Without the funding, many of the small airports would have to eliminate commuter air service, Rep. John Peterson, R-Pa., said Tuesday....

<p>"They don't see any survivors," said Paul Mulrooney, a spokesman for Georgia Express, the Canada-based airline that owned the Cessna 208 Caravan single-engine plane, one of seven in its fleet. "At this point in time, it's looking rather bleak."</p> <p>The Ontario-based air service runs only during the winter, when ice makes the ferries inoperable, Mulrooney said.</p>