Free Republic

Vice President JD Vance: “I'm proud to announce with HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya that the Trump Administration is launching a program to study long-term health effects of the chemical spill in East Palestine, OH and help residents access the care they need. East Palestine, we will never forget you.”

California’s high speed rail project is facing a financial reckoning after the Federal Railroad Administration declared it in default on $4 billion in federal grants. The latest report from the Department of Transportation exposes years of mismanagement, missed deadlines, and unrealistic ridership projections, raising serious doubts about whether the project will ever be completed. The numbers tell the story. The rail system was originally planned as an 800-mile network, connecting San Francisco to San Diego. Over time, the scope shrunk to 500 miles, then 171 miles, and now just 119 miles. The federal review describes the project as a Sisyphean...

It could be the end of the line for the "train to nowhere." Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has released a scathing report exposing what he said is the unfeasibility of California's long-troubled high-speed rail project — and is threatening to pull the plug on a plan that already has the federal government on the hook for $6.9 billion while Californians are underwriting an additional $9 billion. Duffy said that the federal government is moving to terminate around $4 billion it has currently obligated to the project unless the California High-Speed Rail Authority (CHSRA) can prove it is tenable. He blasted...

Earlier this year, Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) uncovered $4.7 trillion in untraceable Treasury Department payments. Prior to the discovery, Treasury Account Symbol (TAS) identification codes were optional for $4.7 trillion in Treasury Department payments, so they were often left blank and were untraceable. The field is now required to increase "insight into where the money is actually going," the Treasury Department and DOGE announced in February. "Of the 1.5 billion payments that we send out every year, they are required to have a TAS, a Treasury Account Symbol. We discovered that more than one third of those...

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) proposed Wednesday to spend $1 billion per year on the state’s failing high-speed rail project through cap-and-trade programs, even as his budget drowned in massive deficits. As Breitbart News reported, the governor’s revised budget plan sought cuts to a variety of programs to make up a $12 billion deficit. He even proposed cutting off new enrollees for “free” health care to illegal aliens. But high-speed rail — a program that is decades late and $100 billion over budget without a single station being built — will continue to be funded, as Newsom continues to embrace...

The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) submitted a report to Congress urging action to restore passenger train service. The report proposes a daily Amtrak route from Portland to Denver, with stops in Baker City, Oregon. This was reported by the railway transport news portal Railway Supply. Amtrak ended its Pioneer Route in 1997, and efforts to revive it have occurred sporadically since then. Oregon’s senators have endorsed the idea multiple times, advocating for the route’s return. In 2021, Congress instructed the FRA to evaluate potential new long-distance train routes, including the Pioneer Route. The recent FRA report highlights the Pioneer Route...

The Trump administration is launching an audit of California’s high-speed rail project, which is a decade late and is expected to run $100 billion over budget without connecting San Francisco and Los Angeles, as originally intended. As Breitbart News has reported, President Donald Trump warned that the federal government could claw back over $4 billion in spending on the project, just as he blocked $1 billion for the ailing project during his first administration. The San Francisco Chronicle reported that Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy drew protesters in an appearance in Los Angeles to announce the audit: U.S. Secretary of...

As President Donald Trump’s administration makes cuts to government programs, his head of the Department of Transportation announced that federal assistance intended for a major California transit project could be next on the chopping block. In a news conference at Union Station in downtown L.A. on Thursday morning, Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy said that the once “exciting” California’s High-Speed Rail has been “mismanaged.” In 2023, then-President Joe Biden awarded a $3 billion grant to help officials complete the first phase of the project. That grant came after he reinstated a $1 billion grant to the High-Speed Rail Authority that...

California Democrats have written to outgoing Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg to ask for more than half a billion dollars in funding for an ailing high-speed rail project that President-elect Donald Trump defunded in 2019. As Breitbart News reported, Trump withheld $1 billion in funding from the project after Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) canceled the original project. Newsom had explained to the state legislature that the original plan for a Los Angeles-to-San Francisco “bullet” train “would cost too much and, respectfully, would take too long.” Trump then demanded the state refund the money federal taxpayers had given it — applying...

USA: One person was killed and four were injured after a freight train hit a truck standing on the tracks in the city of Pecos, Texas. As a result of the impact, the train derailed and hit buildings.

Sacramento-area congressman Kevin Kiley took to the floor of the House of Representatives recently to declare the following: “Mr. Speaker, I am very happy to report that the newly formed Department of Government Efficiency has honed in on perhaps the single-greatest example of government waste in United States history,” the Republican from Rocklin intoned. “And that is California’s high-speed-rail boondoggle.”

For you FReepers who are Rail Fans or even have had idiot bosses watch this video. This is an audio recording of Train Engineers talking to their dispatchers. The dispatcher is telling these train Engineers to do what? As one Engineer said "this makes stupid look smart" For you Rail Fans this could have been another Lac Megantic disaster because the dispatcher was a moron. as one Engineer said "THERE'S A MOUNTAIN UP HERE!"

DARIEN GAP, Panama—The grind of heavy machinery breaks the silence of the Darién jungle, where the Pan American Highway ends at Yaviza in Panama. Construction workers have cleared towering trees to make way for a steel and concrete bridge mighty enough to withstand flooding from the Chucunaque River. An onsite worker for the construction company Cusa told The Epoch Times the construction project will cut 4 miles into the Darién jungle at a cost of $42 million and includes a second bridge crossing the Tuira River. That would leave some 55 miles to finish the Pan American Highway, also known...

A derailment of a mile-long freight train that injured two crew members overnight is under investigation. It happened in the eastern part of Boulder near Foothills Hospital, close to the intersection of Arapahoe Avenue and 48th Street. The train workers were taken to the hospital and were released on Friday morning. The crash destroyed a rail bridge and some trees were knocked down, but there was no other damage aside from the damage to the train cars. The derailment stretches across a wide area and is expected to take a while to clean up.

Both of Canada’s major freight railroads have come to a full stop because of a contract dispute with their workers, an impasse that could bring significant economic harm to businesses and consumers in Canada and the U.S. if the trains don’t resume running soon. Canadian National and CPKC railroads both locked out their employees after the deadline of 12:01 a.m. Eastern Thursday passed without new agreements with the Teamsters Canada Rail Conference that represents some 10,000 engineers, conductors and dispatchers. ... All rail traffic in Canada and all shipments crossing the U.S. border have stopped... Billions of dollars of goods...

A far-left group has claimed responsibility for the Paris arson attacks that crippled the country's rail network just hours before the opening ceremony of the Olympics. Just hours before the grand procession on the River Seine on Friday night, fires were started at key facilities, bringing trains to a halt and affecting around 800,000 passengers - including athletes and spectators heading to the Games. Preliminary evidence in the investigation showed that strategic points of the network were targeted, indicating that the perpetrators had a detailed knowledge of the network, according to investigators. France's intelligence services and police have been scrambling...

France’s high-speed train system was targeted in a series of attacks Friday, wreaking havoc on the opening day of the 2024 Olympic Games. A series of “coordinated acts of malice” in France led to the cancellation and diversion of a large number of trains, while all travelers were asked to postpone their journeys and not go to train stations on the opening day of the Olympics, according to French rail company SNCF and CNN. Damage was reported at several SNCF facilities as well as the Atlantic, Northern, and Eastern high-speed lines. At least one of the attacks was mitigated by...

France’s state-owned rail company SNCF says a 'massive attack' aimed at paralysing the high-speed network is causing delays and cancellations. A series of coordinated arson attacks on the train infrastructure of France's largest rail company, SNCF, caused a significant number of trains to be re-routed or cancelled on Friday morning, according to the transport company.... The attack is expected to disrupt the transport system on the opening day of the 2024 Paris Olympics.... International travel to and from the UK beneath the English Channel and to neighbouring Belgium has also been disrupted by what SNCF called a series of coordinated...

The High Speed Rail Authority shared an update on the Fresno River Viaduct .. They were widely mocked with Elon Musk and Billy Markus piling in .. California has been mercilessly mocked for boasting about completing the 'world's most pointless crossing' to nowhere at a cost of $11billion. The California High Speed Rail Authority shared an update on the Fresno River Viaduct in Madera County last week, proudly saying it was one of the 'first completed high-speed rail structures'. The Tweet did not get the reaction officials were hoping for with Elon Musk and Dogecoin creator Billy Markus piling in...

The Biden administration could allow California to implement a rule designed to push green locomotives, but a growing list of stakeholders are warning that the regulation would severely impact the state’s economy and the national rail industry. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) could soon determine whether it will allow the California Air Resources Board (CARB) to move forward with a state regulation that would ban the use of locomotives that are more than 23 years past their manufacturing date unless they run using zero-emissions technology, according to Progressive Railroading. The rule could disrupt supply chains and saddle the state’s railway...