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Melanie Allen has been "scared to death" this week knowing her son was scheduled to begin a risky escape from the country of Georgia, where Russian troops are poised for further invasion. Lee Allen, 34, and his Georgian wife, Tiko, were to have become part of a caravan fleeing the war-torn country. It may be days before Melanie Allen learns if the couple made it out safely. She was at her Ocean Springs home Tuesday night with friends who are supporting her. -----snip On Monday, four days into the fighting as Russia seized several towns and a military base deep...

The train Nevsky Express on the route Moscow-St. Petersburg will appear the first in Russia to have wireless Internet. It is planned that Wi-Fi technology will be available to passengers by the end of August.

BASRAH, Iraq, June 27, 2007 – The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Gulf Region South District’s rehabilitation of the railway station here is part of the effort to build and develop Iraq’s basic services and strategic infrastructure. The new platforms and sidewalks constructed at Basrah Railroad Station by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Gulf Region South will provide travelers easy access as they come into the station. Photo by A. Al Bahrani  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. “The $480,000 project provides a critical link for the country of Iraq and it ties the southern portion of the...

Railway construction unearths ancient artifacts in Germany By Colin Nickerson, Globe Staff | January 21, 2007 COLOGNE, Germany -- Genialinius Gennatus was one fine duck hunter. Alerts In the third century , he recorded his prowess in high Latin on a stone tablet that he dedicated to Jupiter. That and a hefty donation probably ensured that the tablet won display in the temple to the Roman god in the settlement then called Colonia. Five or six centuries later, Cologne's early Christians, perhaps offended by the tablet dedicated to a pantheist god, chucked it into the silting channel between the Rhine...

At Least 25 Die In German Train Crash LATHEN, Germany, Sept. 22, 2006 (AP) A high-tech train traveling at 125 mph crashed in northwestern Germany on Friday, killing at least 25 people in the first fatal wreck involving the magnetic levitation system. The train, which runs primarily as a demonstration by its manufacturer, was carrying at least 29 people when it struck a maintenance vehicle carrying two workers on the elevated track. Mangled wreckage hung from the 13-foot-high track, with seats and other debris strewn below. Police spokesman Martin Ratermann said the death toll rose to 25 after more searching...

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Gulf Region North The rehabilitation and new construction at the Tameem Railway Station is part of a vision for the future of the country. Department of Defense photo by U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Gulf Region North. KIRKUK -- Neglected and oppressed during the Saddam era, the citizens of Iraq’s northern city of Kirkuk are now rising to rebuild their city and their country’s economy. With operations back on-line in the local oil fields, additional infrastructure preparation for further economic growth is underway.The rehabilitation of the Tameem Railway Station illustrates just one case of economic...

First Rail Line Into Tibet Opens With Environmental Warnings LHASA, Tibet, July 6, 2006 (ENS) - With the opening of the new railway line through the Tibetan Plateau on Saturday, and the increased number of travelers expected to visit the area as a result, WWF and its wildlife trafficking monitoring arm, TRAFFIC, are calling for conservation measures to protect the world's largest and highest plateau. Billed as the highest railway in the world, the final stretch of the Qinghai-Tibet rail line opened Saturday, running over 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) from central China to the Tibetan capital Lhasa. Environmental groups are...

China opens world's highest railway to Tibet by Peter Parks 1 hour, 55 minutes ago The first train on the world's highest railway arrived in Tibet early Sunday, linking the remote Himalayan region with the rest of China in a symbol of power that President Hu Jintao hailed as a "miracle." Hu Saturday launched the rail line at the mountain outpost of Golmud in China's far northwestern Qinghai province, with the event held to coincide with the 85th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese Communist Party. "The project is not only a magnificent feat in China's history of railway...

30,000-year-old Relics Reveal Pre-historic Civilization along Qinghai-Tibet Railway 2006-06-24 13:59:42 Xinhua Chinese archaeologists claim that relics unearthed in the areas along the Qinghai-Tibet Railway proved that human beings lived there at least 30,000 years ago. Archaeologists with the Qinghai Provincial Archaeological Institute said they collected large number of chipped stone tools including knives and pointed implements dating back 30,000 years in the Tuotuo River valley, Hoh Xil, a habitat for Tibetan antelopes, and Qaidam Basin, where the railway runs through, during recent excavations. More than 30 stone implements were also discovered at the site of Sancha River bridge on the...

A bomb capable of damaging track and derailing a high-speed train was found on the Paris-Nantes rail line in western France yesterday.Anti-terrorist police launched an investigation after the device, a plastic tube containing chlorate fuel wired to a battery-operated timer, was seen by a railway worker during a routine track inspection near Angers. There were no reports of any group admitting responsibility. One official said the timer had gone off without causing the bomb to explode, adding: "If it had done, it could have damaged the track and caused a derailment." Two years ago, a group calling itself AZF tried...

The teenage terrorist who blew up a double-deck bus in Tavistock Square, London, killing 13 people including himself, was caught on closed-circuit television two and a half hours earlier. Hasib Hussain, bearded and wearing jeans and a jacket, was pictured at Luton railway station as he and three other bombers headed for the 7.20am train to London last Thursday. In his rucksack was the 10lb bomb that exploded at 9.47am on the No 30 bus shortly after three other bombs went off in Underground trains. Hussain, 18, a nondescript character, troublesome at home in Leeds and an under-achiever at school,...

Why is Bombardier, the world’s third largest plane producer building a railway to the top of the world in China-challenged Tibet? A leader of the Canadian aerospace industry, Bombardier is helping China to build a railway on the "roof of the world". The nearly 1,200-kilometre rail line will be the first to connect China to Tibet’s capital city and is opposed by Tibetans both inside and outside Tibet. Bombardier, already China’s largest feeder plane provider, seems to be taking a page from the book of the Canadian Liberal government, that has propped it up financially, in opening the floodgates to...

Okay, so I am sitting around after work, at peace with the world and seeking argument from no one, when I learn that the famous 4-8-8-4 "Big Boy" steam locomotives of the Union Pacific were NOT the largest in the world. I am confused, because every book I have about railways insists the "Big Boys" were the largest steam locomotives, ever, in the world. But the the Guiness Book of World Records throws a loop, insisting that in 1916 the Virginian Railway had a 2-8-8-8-4-6 locomotive, and that between 1914 and 1929, the Erie Railroad ran a freight train using...

GAZIANTEP - One of three terrorists who attempted to plant a bomb on railway bridge near Dortyol town of southern city of Hatay was captured in southeastern city of Gaziantep, sources said on Saturday. It was learned that the captured terrorist was preparing to bomb Gaziantep governor's office. Sources told A.A correspondent that Anti-Terrorism Office and intelligence teams captured Adil Abi when he was checking the area around the governor's office for a terrorist attack he was planning. Another person who was with Adi escaped. Sources noted that Adil Abi told police that he was among people who tried to...

A chain of booksellers that has been synonymous with Indian rail travel for 125 years is facing the axe because it sounds too English. The threat to A H Wheeler & Co, which published Rudyard Kipling when he was all but unknown, was announced live on television when Laloo Prasad Yadav, the railways minister, delivered his budget. He departed from his prepared text to say in Hindi: "Wheeler, Wheeler, Wheeler. Why do we have a Wheeler bookstall everywhere? The English have left this country long back." Mr Yadav said the government had decided in principle to cancel the company's contract...

GLOBAL JIHAD New al-Qaida plot to burn U.S. forests Arab message board posts 'plan of economic attack' Posted: April 8, 2004 1:00 a.m. Eastern © 2004 WorldNetDaily.com An Arabic-language jihadi website posted a message purporting to be "al-Qaida’s plan of economic attack" on the U.S. that included setting forest fires, according to the Northeast Intellgence Network. The six-point plan appeared Saturday and called for: attacks on the assets of large American companies all over the world; attacks on U.S. oil refineries; attacks on civilian airports with the goal of financially devastating U.S. airlines; deliberate pollution of food system; setting of...

£2.8m railway ransom By Philip Delves Broughton in Paris (Filed: 04/03/2004) A terrorist group is blackmailing the French government, threatening to explode 10 bombs it says are already planted beneath railway lines throughout France unless it receives a £2.8 million ransom. French gendarmes patrol railway lines after bomb threats The group, which calls itself AZF after a chemical factory that exploded in Toulouse in September 2001 killing 31 people, has been in contact with the interior ministry since December when it sent its first letter. As a demonstration of intent, on Feb 21 the group directed the police to a...

Underground railway brings glimmer of hope to the secret Christian 'spies' of North Korea By Jasper Becker in Beijing 29 January 2003 Smuggled out on tiny scraps of folded paper, the news from North Korea's underground church brings both fear and hope to the Christians in China operating a covert and daring struggle to undermine the North Korean regime. "Whoever has a Bible in their hands is accused of being a spy – anything connected with the outside world can mean arrest or death," says one note. "We almost starved to death, but you sent food unexpectedly," reads another. "We...