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In the week that Britain's high speed rail link closed down because the wrong sort of snow interfered with the engine's electronics, China unveiled the world's fastest train service on one of the coldest days of the year. Days after thousands of passengers were left stranded when Eurostar services were cancelled, China's new system connects the modern cities of Guangzhou and Wuhan at an average speed of 217mph - and it took just four years to build. The super-high-speed train reduces the 664-mile journey to just a three-hour ride and cuts the previous journey time by more than seven-and-a-half hours,...

Passengers stranded when modern-day trains fell victim to the freezing weather have been rescued by the crew of a steam engine. About 100 passengers climbed aboard the first mainline steam locomotive to be built in Britain for almost half a century at London Victoria when electric trains were delayed.  The 1940s technology used to power Tornado, a £3million Peppercorn class A1 Pacific, was able to withstand the snow and ice that brought much of the South East to a standstill on Monday night. Historic solution: The Tornado A1 locomotive came to the aid of stranded passengers let down by...

We all make mistakes, so perhaps this is just one of those cases where the results lend themselves to ridicule. From Fox News: It may sound absurd. But President Obama signed a bill into law Wednesday that requires passengers who carry firearms aboard Amtrak be locked in boxes for their journey. It's a mistake in the law's wording. But for now, the clerical error is the law of the land. I'm sure there's no shortage of antis who would have no problem getting on board with that idea. Thing is: The bill text was correct when the House approved the...

LONDON – The only passenger rail link between Britain and the rest of Europe has been shut down indefinitely, Eurostar said Sunday, promising more travel misery for thousands of stranded passengers just before Christmas. Services have been suspended since late Friday, when a series of glitches stranded five trains inside the Channel Tunnel and trapped more than 2,000 passengers for hours in stuffy and claustrophobic conditions. More than 55,000 passengers overall have been affected.

Here is video of Britain's Queen Elizabeth surprising people by deciding to hop a passenger train to go to her Sandringham Estate for Christmas. Some of the passengers were happy she did it, but wishes she had done so during the rush hour to experience the full effect of public transport. Below are The Today Show personalities talking about the story . . . (VIDEOS)

Lo Wung, 42, taught the monkeys so they could entertain crowds outside a shopping centre in Nshi, in eastern China's Hubei province. But the money-spinning primates turned the tables on their trainer when he slipped during a show, with one quick-thinking monkey flooring him with a kick to the head.

Those hoping to ride the state's high-speed train next decade will have to dig much deeper into their wallets than officials originally thought, a harsh reality that will chase away millions of passengers, according to an updated business plan released Monday. The average ticket on the bullet train from San Francisco to Los Angeles is now estimated to cost about $105, or 83 percent of comparable airfare. Last year, the state said prices would be set at 50 percent of comparable airfare and predicted a ticket from San Francisco to Los Angeles would cost $55. As a result of the...

High speed rail is a glamorous idea -- it's fun to imagine a train streaking through the cornfields from Chicago to St. Louis in four hours. Less glamorous are some of the fixes that need to be made to Chicago's notoriously slow freight rail system. Talk about projects like "signalize interlocking" and "grade separation," and eyes glaze over. But the promise of faster passenger rail is inextricably linked to the down-and-dirty business of freight. To make passenger and commuter trains move faster, you have to get the boxcars out of the way. And to do that, there needs to be...

Pvt. 2nd Class Cheston K. Bun, 1st Battalion (Air Assault) 377th Field Artillery Regiment, Bravo Battery Air Reactionary Force, leads a group of Iraqi commandos through a helicopter loading drill during recent training at Camp Wessam in Basrah. Photo by Spc. Maurice Galloway, 17th Fires Brigade. BASRAH — A group of 14th Iraqi Army commandos recently underwent an intense week of training here at Camp Wessam, honing their helicopter familiarity.  The course, taught by U.S. Soldiers with the 1st Battalion (Air Assault), 377th Field Artillery Regiment, "B" Battery (Bulldogs), Air Reactionary Force (ARF), was more of a refresher, as many...

RUSSIAN investigators have confirmed that the derailment of a passenger train which killed dozens of people was caused by a "terrorist attack", the Interfax news agency reported. "We are indeed talking about a terrorist attack," Vladimir Markin, spokesman for Russia's federal investigative committee... Investigators have found "elements of an explosive device" at the site...

TIKRIT — Twenty-one Iraqi investigators from Ninewa, Diyala, Salah ad Din and Kirkuk provinces attended a Financial Crimes Investigation Course on Contingency Operating Base Speicher, Nov. 22 - 25. The course was taught by members of the International Crime Investigation Training and Assistance Program, in partnership with the U.S. State Department's Salah ad Din Provincial Reconstruction Team and the Legal Office of the 4th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division out of Fort Riley, Kan. The course was designed to advise investigators from Iraq's Commission of Integrity on a myriad of tasks including case development, investigative planning, anti-money laundering...

It started like any other ride on the F train for Oraia Reid. She stepped into a packed car in Park Slope, clutching a magazine and her purse, and sailed smoothly to the West Village, where she was set to give a speech about women's rights against sexual assault. Little did she know she'd be going there with a bit of firsthand experience. Reid, 32 -- who yesterday testified before a City Council committee about the subway groping epidemic -- hopped off the train at West 4th Street and began climbing the crowded stairs to the street. As she hustled...

The stumbling T rider who was almost crushed to death by an Orange Line trolley after a Celtics game said today she feels lucky so many people came to her rescue. The 26-year-old woman admits she drank four 22-ounce beers before trying to catch a train home, but added she does not have a drinking problem, she told thebostonchannel.com today. “I am incredibly thankful that there are that many people who would do something,” Sophia Hartdegen was quoted as saying. “I am incredibly thankful the driver was alert.” The Cambridge woman told the site she’s “traumatized by her near death...

Here is remarkable video of a Boston woman who was drunk tumbling onto commuter train tracks ahead of an oncoming train. Bystanders began waving furiously to warn the train to stop and the train operator was able to get the train stopped just before getting to the woman. What an outstanding job by the train operator to get stopped! . . . (VIDEO)

After a rough spring that saw as many as 20 to 40 percent of New Yorkers exposed to H1N1, subway riders have resorted to defending themselves with their fists. Violence struck on a southbound D train Monday morning after two women got into an argument over one's refusal to cover her mouth while coughing. It ended with her spitting on the other, a punch, and the second woman dragging the first to the floor of the car by her hair. Here's the play-by-play account, as witnessed firsthand by The Business Insider's Lawrence Delevingne: "No one got the conductor --...

Measuring a tiny eighth of an inch by quarter of an inch, this carefully crafted piece of engineering is the world's smallest working train model. The five-carriage train, which is 35,200 times smaller than a real train, nips around an oval route even taking in a ride through a tunnel on its three-quarter inch track. Created by New Jersey train enthusiast David Smith, the miniscule model was built using nothing more fancy than a craft knife and a steady hand...

CONTINGENCY OPERATING BASE BASRA, Iraq, Oct. 23, 2009 – Aided by U.S. forces, Iraqi soldiers with the 14th Provisional Transport Regiment gained valuable skills ranging from first aid to Humvee maintenance during a three-week course at Camp Mirra, Iraq. An Iraqi captain shows his knowledge of the M-16 rifle by teaching a class of his peers Oct. 15, 2009, on Camp Mirra, Iraq. Army Maj. Scott Virgil organized a three-week program in which his soldiers taught their Army counterparts to teach others. U.S. Army photo by Pfc. J. Princeville Lawrence  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. Members of the Military...

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia—As an engineer pulls the throttle, villagers track side gawk at the bullet-shaped train as it gathers speed. Soon, forests and wooden shacks are a blur as a dashboard display reads 250 kilometers an hour (155 miles per hour). Ten years in the making, Russia's state-owned railway is testing eight aerodynamic trains that in December will rush travelers from here to Moscow in less than four hours. With fancy kitchens and leather seats in first class, the Sapsans (Russian for peregrine falcons) mark a change in Russia's egalitarian rail tradition. More broadly, though, Russia's new trains mirror a...

MELBOURNE, Australia — A 6-month-old baby has miraculously survived a train hitting his stroller, which rolled onto the tracks when his mother let go for an instant. The escape was captured on security camera footage that shows the red, three-wheeled stroller plunging off a station platform just as the commuter train pulls in, and the mother's panicked lunge to grab it. The train pushed the stroller about 130 feet (40 meters) along the tracks before it stopped, but it did not go under the train. The baby, who was strapped into the stroller, received only a bump on the head....

<p>MELBOURNE, Australia — A 6-month-old baby has miraculously survived a train hitting his stroller, which rolled onto the tracks when his mother let go for an instant.</p> <p>The escape was captured on security camera footage that shows the red, three-wheeled stroller plunging off a station platform just as the commuter train pulls in, and the mother's panicked lunge to grab it.</p>

A German man mooning at railway staff in a departing train got his trousers caught in a carriage door and ended up being dragged half naked along the platform, out of the station and onto the tracks. The 22-year-old journalism student shoved his backside against the window of a low-slung double-decker train when staff forced him off in Lauenbrueck for travelling without a ticket, a spokesman for police in the northern city of Bremen said. "It's a miracle he wasn't badly hurt," the spokesman said on Monday. "This sort of thing can end up killing you." Instead, dangling by his...

Newborn Baby Falls Through Train Toilet Onto Tracks A baby delivered in a train lavatory has survived tumbling down through the bottom of the carriage and onto the tracks. By Dean Nelson in New Delhi 08 Oct 2009 Passengers on the West Bengal Tata-Chapra Express raised the alarm when they saw Rinku Debi Ray, 28, jump from the speeding carriage in what they believed was a suicide attempt. The train came to a halt more than a mile down the track, but when passengers ran back to help her, they discovered the new mother cradling her new baby in her...

A tractor-trailer loaded with canned beans was struck by a southbound Norfolk Southern freight train at the Coile Street railroad crossing off Snapps Ferry Road about 6:45 a.m. this morning. No injuries were reported as a result of the collision. GPD Officer Jeff Craft said at the scene this morning that Bobby Coffey, the driver of the Swift Transportation tractor-trailer, told police he had been attempting to enter the lot of the So-Pak-Co plant when he encountered a closed gate and came to a stop. The rear of the trailer was on the Norfolk Southern railroad tracks, police said. As...

1)URGENT -- Two freight trains and a passenger train have been involved in a collision near Barendrecht, the Netherlands. 2)Some injuries have been reported following the major train wreck in the Netherlands, but further information is not yet available. 3)Several explosions have occurred after a major train wreck in the Netherlands, the ANP news agency reports.

A woman trying to smash a penny on the tracks was hit by a train Thursday night. Emergency crews rushed to the scene at River Road and Idaho Street in Sedamsville just after 8 p.m. They say the woman in her 20s suffered a minor head injury and was walking around when crews arrived. She was taken to the hospital for observation.

SNIPPET: At about 12:20 a.m., a train was delayed at the Harrison stop at 608 S. State Street after an unidentified man got on the CTA intercom at the station and said he had left a bomb on the train, said Chicago Police News Affairs Officer Hector Alfaro." SNIPPET: "All trains, northbound and southbound on the Red Line tracks were stopped while police investigated, Alfaro said. Police swept the train and found no device, Alfaro said. As of 2:10 a.m., all services had been restored, Alfaro said."

LONDON – Some of Britain's most elite soldiers have been training Libyan forces in counterterrorism and surveillance for the past six months, a newspaper said Saturday. The Daily Telegraph said a contingent of between four and 14 men from the Special Air Service, or SAS, were working with Col. Moammar Gadhafi's soldiers in Libya, a country once notorious for its support of terrorism. The paper cited an unidentified SAS source as saying that the training was seen as part of the deal to release Lockerbie bomber Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, whose return to Libya last month outraged Americans and raised questions...

Note: The following text Snippet is a quote: Chicago Man Arrested for Interfering with Operation of CTA Trains and Busses Robert D. Grant, Special Agent-in-Charge of the Chicago office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) was joined today by Patrick J. Fitzgerald, U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois in announcing the arrest of a Chicago man for making unauthorized radio transmissions over frequencies utilized by the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA). MARCEL CARTER, age 20, who resides at 235 West 37th Place in Chicago, was arrested late Friday evening, without incident, by Officers of the Chicago Police Department...

Two passengers have been stabbed to death after they complained about a man humming on a train, say reports in China. The knifeman was humming along to his CD player when three people in the carriage complained about the noise. A fight began and the trio wrestled the man to the floor and began beating him, said the state-run Xinhua news agency. The man — identified only by his surname Yan — then pulled out a blade and stabbed all three of them.

Driving a subway is so easy an 8-year-old could do it – and one straphanger claims that's who he saw behind the controls of his train. Jules Cattie, a 41-year-old lawyer who lives on the East Side, was shocked when he saw a young child at the wheel, next to the driver, of his Lexington Avenue express train Sunday, according to the Daily News. And the MTA says it's launched "a vigorous and thorough investigation" into the allegation. "I saw him driving. He couldn't have been more than 8 or 9," Cattie told the News. " I thought, 'This is...

Click link for video and details. Wreck occurs at 1:10 mark.

(06-28) 04:00 PDT Brussels, Belgium -- SNIPPET: "Like many spy tales in fiction and reality, "Background to Danger" begins in a train station." SNIPPET: "Fast-forward six decades into a transformed landscape. Europe has erased internal borders. Instead of fighting Nazis or Communists, spy agencies use satellites and wiretaps to track Islamic terrorists who conspire on the Internet. But one thing has not changed much. Trains, stations and the gritty neighborhoods that surround them are often the backdrop to danger." SNIPPET: "In a train station, after all, you never know who might be listening."

WASHINGTON - At least two people have died and several people are trapped and injured after a Metro Red Line train derailed and collided with another Metro train, officials say. The six-car train derailed and then collided with another train between the Takoma Park and Fort Totten stations around 5 p.m. Monday. The trains are "lodged on top of one another," D.C. Fire and EMS spokesman Alan Etter says.

"Rockford woman killed in train derailment Teen in critical condition with burns, 2 others hurt" SNIPPET: "Several cars from a Canadian National Railway Co. train smoldered Saturday near Rockford as federal investigators continued to probe whether standing water from heavy rains was a factor in a Friday night derailment that left a 41-year-old woman dead and three others injured."

A special North Korean train which transported a long-range rocket or intercontinental ballistic missile to a launch site in Tongchang-ri, North Pyongan Province in May recently moved from a missile research center in Sanum-dong, Pyongyang to another launch site in Musudan-ri, North Hamgyong Province, a South Korean government source said Tuesday. South Korean and U.S. authorities believe the North may have transported a second intercontinental missile to the launch site. The North launched a long-range rocket from Musudan-ri on April 5, which had also been transported by special train. Seoul and Washington are wondering whether the North will launch two...

Earlier this year, Republican powerbroker Sig Rogich endorsed Sen. Harry Reid's re-election effort. And today Reid has unexpectedly announced that he no longer wants a government-funded maglev train between LA and Las Vegas, which he had publicly supported for years ─ and he now favors a new train between Victorville and Las Vegas, in which Rogich and his business partners have already invested millions. All right, let's step back, look at this from the beginning and see if it could really be what it seems. Rogich is a big-time Republican donor and has helped numerous Republican candidates in Nevada get...

CANNON AIR FORCE BASE, N.M., June 8, 2009 – Air Force Senior Airman Eric Slaugh was returning here from leave in December when he encountered a snowstorm in northeastern New Mexico, a storm that would detour him into assisting in saving someone's life. Air Force Senior Airman Eric Slaugh, his wife, Marcie, and his son, Skyler, enjoy the view of the Green River in Wyoming during a family vacation. Slaugh, assigned to the 27th Special Operations Component Maintenance Squadron at Cannon Air Force Base, N.M., used his self-aid and buddy care training to assist a man hit by a...

A teenaged American tourist says he spent two hours clinging to the side of a long-distance train as it sped across the Australian outback in the night. Chad Vance said he had to leap onto The Ghan as it left the station at Port Augusta, South Australia, after he had disembarked during a 40-minute stop. He became cold and tired as the train reached speeds of up to 110km/h (68mph) on the journey to Alice Springs. Engineer Marty Wells finally heard his yells and applied the emergency brake. Mr Vance, quoted in the Herald Sun, said: "I feel very lucky...

CONTINGENCY OPERATING BASE BASRA, Iraq, May 22, 2009 – Soldiers from the 4th Infantry Division’s 2nd Battalion, 8th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, met with the commanders of the tactical support unit companies in Basra, Iraq, to discuss training May 12. Capt. Mustafa, right, commander of an Iraqi tactical support unit, identifies the unit’s operational area to U.S. Army 1st Lt. Ray Critchfield, May 12, 2009. U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Brandon LeFlore  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. The battalion is planning a training event for the security forces in the area and is assessing each unit’s...

FORT POLK, La., May 22, 2009 – Early morning in the combat outpost was like that hour before sun up on a Louisiana frog pond, with rumbling, bullfrog snores and socks stinking like pond muck from days of bathing in boot dust and sweat. Carried on the morning dew, the smell of 40 grimy infantrymen racked out in a room too small for morning vapors best described as weaponized funk. Army 2nd Lt. John J. Griffin leads his platoon in partnership with role-playing Iraqi security forces to provide security to the fictitious town of Suliyah prior to the opening...

The Boston-area transit authority trolley driver who allegedly slammed into another train while text-messaging his girlfriend Friday was hired as a minority because of his transgendered "female-to-male" status and had three speeding tickets on his driving record in recent years, ABC News has learned.

Despite His Own Flu Warning, Biden Takes Train Home Known for speaking freely, Biden told NBC's "Today" show on Thursday that he had urged family members to avoid airplanes and subways for fear of contracting the H1N1 flu virus FOXNews.com Friday, May 01, 2009 WASHINGTON -- One day after saying he wouldn't travel in tight quarters because of the swine flu scare, Vice President Joe Biden rode a train Friday from Washington to Delaware.

WASHINGTON (AP) — One day after saying he wouldn't travel in tight quarters because of the swine flu scare, Vice President Joe Biden rode a train Friday from Washington to Delaware. Known for speaking freely, Biden told NBC's "Today" show on Thursday that he had urged family members to avoid airplanes and subways for fear of contracting the H1N1 flu virus. "I wouldn't go anywhere in confined places now," Biden said. The comments infuriated the travel industry and triggered several revisions from the Obama administration, whose official advice is less severe. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano commented, "If he could...

<p>Was Joe Biden giving solid advice . . . or sewing the seeds of panic? Asked on Today this morning how he’d counsel family members in light of the swine flu, the Veep said he wouldn’t take a plane, a subway train, or be in any other confined space.</p>

Lausanne (Switzerland), A container for transporting swine flu virus samples exploded on a Swiss train, authorities said Tuesday, but stressed that there was no danger to the public. The container, which was filled with dry ice and carried samples of the H1N1 swine flu virus and was destined for Switzerland's national influenza centre in Geneva, exploded Monday night on board a train. A laboratory employee had picked up the samples in Zurich to transport them by train to Geneva, but the package exploded near Fribourg and Lausanne, after melting dry ice, which had been wrongly placed, caused a build-up of...

As Al Bundy once said… This will send us rocketing to the poor house. But wait… won’t this stimulate the economy. Why YES.. it will stimulate the economy of Japan or France because that’s the only place in the world that will make these bullet trains. Isn’t it ironic that the path Reid has laid out takes these unsuspecting customers from the “City of Angles” to “Sin City” and we and our grandkids and our great grandkids are happy to pay for it.

WASHINGTON - A commuter train engineer text messaged a promise to a teenage railroad fan — "I'm gonna do all the radio talkin' ... ur gonna run the locomotive" — minutes before a crash that killed 25 people in California last year, according to documents from federal investigators. The transcript of text messages sent and received by engineer Robert Sanchez were released Tuesday as the National Transportation Safety Board opened a two-day hearing into the Sept. 12 collision in the Los Angeles suburb of Chatsworth that also injured at least 130 people.

GARYSBURG, N.C. -- Amtrak officials say they removed a passenger who was behaving suspiciously from a train in North Carolina on Monday. The Silver Star was headed to Miami from New York when it stopped in Garysburg, N.C., near N.C. 64. That happened just before 7 p.m. about 30 miles east of Rocky Mount. Officials declined to say what the passenger was doing.

We know that most lawmakers did not read the spending bill before they voted on it and it appears that Barack Obama didn't either. Despite the president's continued claims that there are no earmarks in the bill, Politico.com is reporting that $8 billion have been allocated for high-speed rail grants to select states. This news was welcomed by Nevada Senator Harry Reid, who has lobbied for a Las Vegas to Los Angeles railway for years. A spokesman from Harry Reid's office, however, denied this was an earmark, saying the funds are for competitive grants that would be awarded by the...

Station calls time on kissingDean Kirby February 16, 2009 RAIL stations and romantic farewells go hand-in-hand. Tearful clinches as the train prepares to leave - immortalised by Trevord Howard and Celia Johnson in the classic film Brief Encounter - have always pulled at the heart-strings. But not at Warrington Bank Quay Station, it seems. A No Kissing sign has been put up at after concern that commuters were being delayed by passionate embraces. It is now prohibited to do nothing more than shake hands at the station taxi rank. If lovers insist on puckering-up, they now have to go...