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In what may be the biggest understatement since "Houston, we've had a problem" echoed through the cosmos 38 years ago, a Sauk Rapids man said today from his hospital bed that he's lucky to be alive after being struck by a freight train. Christopher Gilhoi, 30, was lying between the tracks when the train, "traveling slower than usual," ran over him Saturday night as he walked home from an evening at the bar with friends. Gilhoi said he remembers almost nothing from the incident, chalking up his foggy memory to the concussion he suffered and being "relatively drunk" at the...

MUSLIM SUBWAY ADS LINKED TO TERROR PLOTS - New York Post Jul 21, 2008 ... An Islamic group plans to blitz 1000 subway cars with advertisements this September in a campaign being promoted by a Brooklyn imam whom ...

MOJAVE - The East Kern Airport District directors approved in principle a plan to add a small live steam railroad to the Legacy Park under development at the Mojave Air and Space Port. The railroad is proposed by the Mojave Transportation Museum as a tourist attraction and means of conveying the community's long history as a railroad town. "We just saw it as a wonderful opportunity for tourism," said Cathy Hansen, museum board member and airport district director. Hansen abstained from the district directors' 4-0 vote on the proposal. The proposed railroad track would circle the park area. It could...

BEIJING (Reuters) — Dozens were injured or killed Monday in a collision of two passenger trains in eastern China, the official Xinhua News Agency cited a medical worker at the scene as saying. Witnesses and a government spokesman also said there were heavy casualties in the crash in Shandong Province, which made 10 cars of the train topple into a ditch, Xinhua reported. “More than 80 people are injured, both seriously and not as seriously,” a hospital official in Zhoucun district told Reuters.

Cars have been a huge part of our lives. We use them to get around anywhere. It might have been the best invention mankind came up with, but we all hate several common things about cars, such as the cost of gas prices and traffic. We think sometimes in our imagination how awesome it would be if cars had wings, so maybe one day we will fly through terrific! We also despise accidents, high insurance and drunk driving. Sometimes, I feel that we need other alternative means of transportation, such as a subway system in the state of Texas; maybe...

WASHINGTON - The Environmental Protection Agency is announcing strong new pollution controls on the nation's locomotives, ships and passenger ferries. They will have to cut soot by 90 percent and smog-causing chemical releases by 80 percent over the next six to seven years through technology improvements in locomotive and ship diesel engines. Those engines often operate for decades. The pollution improvements would be required of new engines as well as old when they are overhauled. The Associated Press has learned that EPA will announce the new requirements Friday in Washington. These requirements would be in addition to regulations already in...

Petraeus: Al Qaida Trying to 'Come Back In' U.S. military officials said there will be no significant reduction in coalition troops in the Baghdad area as part of an effort to stop the Al Qaida offensive in northern Iraq. They said Al Qaida was trying to reenter Baghdad and reverse its losses in 2007. "Al Qaida is trying to come back in," U.S. military commander Gen. David Petraeus said. "We can feel it and see it, and what we're trying to do is rip out any roots before they can get deeply into the ground." Read More Militants Assert...

[Snip]  Government warns of terror threat to trains In a bulletin released Friday to U.S. law enforcement officials, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is warning of “continued strong terrorist interest” in targeting mass transit systems in the U.S. The 10-page threat assessment, obtained by NBC News, cautions that the “U.S. mass transit and passenger rail systems are vulnerable to terrorist attacks because they are accessible to large numbers of the public and are notoriously difficult to secure.”……[Snip] 

n a bulletin released Friday to U.S. law enforcement officials, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is warning of “continued strong terrorist interest” in targeting mass transit systems in the U.S. The 10-page threat assessment, labeled “Unclassified/For Official Use Only” and obtained by NBC News, cautions that the “U.S. mass transit and passenger rail systems are vulnerable to terrorist attacks because they are accessible to large numbers of the public and are notoriously difficult to secure.” Previous rail attacks in Madrid, London and Mumbai “could inspire terrorists to conduct similar attacks in the United States,” the report adds. However, the authors...

Japan proposes 'peace' tunnel to South KoreaJustin McCurry in Tokyo guardian.co.uk Friday February 15 2008 Politicians in Japan have proposed the construction of an 80-mile "peace" tunnel to South Korea that would boost trade and symbolise a recent warming of ties between the former enemies. The proposed tunnel, more than twice as long as the Channel Tunnel, would link Karatsu in south-western Japan and Pusan in South Korea, via two islands in the Japan Sea. It would be part of a 140-mile (230km) rail link passing through the Japanese islands of Iki and Tsushima, and making it possible to travel...

Sometimes the truth just has a way of coming to light. A public information officer with the Texas Department of Transportation this week wrote a column in the Herald-Press describing the financial woes facing TxDOT and how because of those problems the state’s transportation department doesn’t have the money to deal with many of the state’s transportation issues. Apparently, several of the state’s senators do not feel that is the case at all. David Dewhurst called out the state’s interim chairwoman of the Texas Transportation Commission, Hope Andrade, on this very issue, according to a story from the Associated Press....

The French train maker (Alstom) introduces the AGV, which took 10 years and $147 million to develop and will link Milan and Naples in 2011. The Automotrice à Grande Vitesse, or AGV for short, showed its long, silver-and-black nose to the public for the first time on Tuesday. With French President Nicolas Sarkozy in attendance, Alstom unveiled its new, fourth-generation high-speed train at its headquarters in La Rochelle. The train-maker spent 10 years and €100 million ($147 million) to develop the AGV, which it compares with the Airbus's giant A380 jetliner in terms of innovation and its impact on the...

WASHINGTON - It's the government's idea of a really bad day: Washington's Metro trains shut down. Seaport computers in New York go dark. Bloggers reveal locations of railcars with hazardous materials. Airport control towers are disrupted in Philadelphia and Chicago. Overseas, a mysterious liquid is found on London's subway. And that's just for starters. Those incidents were among dozens of detailed, mock disasters confronting officials rapid-fire in the U.S. government's biggest-ever "Cyber Storm" war game, according to hundreds of pages of heavily censored files obtained by The Associated Press. The Homeland Security Department ran the exercise to test the nation's...

FORWARD OPERATING BASE FENTY, Afghanistan, Jan. 16, 2008 – U.S. Army engineers of Task Force Rugged concluded the first of three winter skilled-labor workshops to train local Afghans on construction skills Jan. 13. Army Staff Sgt. Windle Morgan, of Task Force Pacemaker, instructs 50 Afghans students attending a skilled-labor workshop in Jalalabad, Afghanistan. The workshop is hosted by Task Force Rugged, 36th Engineer Brigade, stationed out of Fort Hood, Texas, and 864th Engineer Battalion, of Fort Lewis, Wash. The aim of the workshop, funded by the Commander’s Emergency Response Program, is to develop construction skills among local Afghan residents,...

COLUMBIA, Md. (AP) -- The nation's two largest makers of toy trains are nearing a conclusion to a seven-year-old, multimillion-dollar lawsuit. Columbia-based MTH Electric Trains had sued Lionel, a century-old brand, accusing it of stealing train designs through a Korean subcontractor. The dispute focused on patented computer technology that synchronizes a train set's sound, smoke and speed, critical technology in their small but competitive market. "We're happy that we've reached a settlement," said Jerry Calabrese, chief executive of Lionel, based in Chesterfield, Mich. "It was a long, terrible case." However, MTH founder Mike Wolf said the settlement is contingent on...

Germany has come up with the funds to launch its first magnetic levitation - or maglev - rail service. The state of Bavaria is to build the high-speed railway line from Munich city centre to its airport, making it Europe's first commercial track.

Eurostar has set a record on its inaugural journey from Paris to London via a new high-speed line in Britain. The train, carrying journalists and VIPs, arrived at St Pancras, instead of Waterloo, for the first time. It took two hours, three minutes, 39 seconds.

Congo train crash kills at least 100: government By Joe Bavier A train crash in a remote part of Democratic Republic of Congo killed at least 100 people and injured more than 200, the central African country's minister of information said on Thursday. "We are still discovering the dead. So right now we are putting the death toll at about 100," Toussaint Tshilombo told Reuters, adding that the cause of the crash was still unknown. "It happened late last night, so we haven't had time to look into how it occurred. But we are sending a team tomorrow, and we...

SAN ONOFRE -- Southern California Edison has changed its security procedures for inspecting train cars that enter the San Onofre nuclear power plant after a sleeping illegal immigrant was accidentally carried onto the property, company officials said Wednesday. Edison officials said that a man was found on the San Onofre property -- but not inside its "protected area" where its nuclear reactors and fuel reside -- just after three freight rail cars arrived inside the plant around 12:30 a.m. July 25. The rail cars, on a spur of Southern California's main north-south rail line, carry freight inside the San Onofre...

20 million of Russians do not have enough money to buy even the cheapest ticket for a standard train. Russian Railways offer a salvation of the problem – to launch low-comfort trains, with no air conditioning and one WC per train.

Switzerland has opened the world's longest rail tunnel on land - the 34-kilometre (21-mile) Loetschberg tunnel under the Alps. It will cut the journey time between Germany and Italy by at least a third.

A proposed North American “super corridor” would relieve overburdened highways and promote economic growth in three countries, supporters say. But others wonder whether the proposal might bring in cheap exports and put unsafe Mexican trucks on U.S. roads. The issue takes center stage at a three-day conference that begins today in Fort Worth, Texas. More than 350 transportation, logistics and economic development specialists from the United States, Canada and Mexico are meeting. The conference is sponsored by Dallas-based North America’s SuperCorridor Coalition. The nonprofit coalition, whose members include public- and private-sector organizations, wants to develop an integrated transportation system linking...

Excerpt - Four more people have been arrested by anti-terror police investigating the July 7 attacks. Fifty-two people were killed by four bombers in the 2005 attack on the London transport system. Mohammad Sidique Khan, 30, Shehzad Tanweer, 22, and Germaine Lindsay, 19, detonated bombs on three Tube trains and Hasib Hussain, 18, attacked a bus. The four people arrested today are two men aged 30 and 34 and a woman, 29, from West Yorkshire and a 22-year-old man from Birmingham. ~ snip ~

Report says that more than $45 billion of the estimate is either in error or undocumented. The State Auditor's Office this morning released a report challenging the validity of almost half of a purported $86 billion shortfall in Texas transportation funding over the next generation, and cautioning that the gap estimate "may not be reliable for making policy or funding decisions." That $86 billion figure has been cited repeatedly by Texas Department of Transportation officials and some legislators as a major reason for the state's increasing need for new toll roads. The number is a compilation of estimates from local...

France's TGV train set a new world speed on rails on Tuesday, hitting 574.8 kmh on a stretch of track in eastern France. The experimental version of the Traine a Grande Vitesse (TGV), equipped with two supercharged locomotives and oversized wheels, easily beat the 515.3 kmh set by a TGV in 1990. The TGV narrowly missed the overall world train speed record of 581 kmh reached in 2003 by a Japanese magnetic levitation, or Maglev, train. Manufacturer Alstom arranged the exploit to test its latest engineering designs in extreme conditions, and also to display the TGV's technological prowess to clients...

The modified TGV was powered by two engines A French high-speed train (TGV) has smashed the world record for a train on conventional rails by a big margin, reaching 574.8km/h (356mph). The previous TGV record was 515km/h (320mph), set in 1990. The record attempt by a modified TGV took place on a track between Paris and the eastern city of Strasbourg. The absolute train speed record was set by a Japanese magnetic levitation train - Maglev - in 2003. It reached a top speed of 581km/h (361mph). The TGV set the new record at 1314 (1114GMT) on Tuesday. It...

ON BOARD TRAIN V150, France (Reuters) - A French TGV train broke a world speed record on Tuesday as it hurtled down a newly built track at 574.8 kilometers per hour (357 mph) in the country's Champagne region. The special train called V150, an enhanced version of trains that will run on the Paris-Strasbourg line from June, has been preparing for the record run for weeks and it carried journalists and other guests for the official attempt. Engineer Alstom, state railways group SNCF and track operator RFF had teamed up to show off French engineering excellence and boost export prospects...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Sales of model trains are picking up steam again thanks to deals linking them to the "Harry Potter" and "The Polar Express" movies, along with a new approach to marketing the old-fashioned toys. Lionel, one of the big names in model trains in the 1950s, has watched as its business had to focus less on selling toys to kids than serving an older but much smaller hobbyist market. Folk-rock singer Neil Young, 61, is so passionate about trains that he bought a fifth of the company in 1995. Now, the company is bringing trains back to...

WASHINGTON - The Capitol Limited, an Amtrak train from Chicago, is scheduled to arrive in Washington every day at 1:30 p.m. But frequent rider Edda Ramos knows better than to make plans for the afternoon or evening. She knows a late arrival — sometimes by an hour or two, sometimes by seven or eight — "is the one thing you can count on." The 764-mile route is among Amtrak's most dismal performers, with just 11 percent of trains arriving within 30 minutes of their scheduled time last year. But the problem exists to one degree or another on the majority...

From the Cambridge Evening News: Train job for bomb stunt man17 February 2007A Muslim protester who dressed up as a suicide bomber during a march is cleaning Cambridge trains. Omar Khayam has been employed by First Capital Connect to clean the carriages at its Bedford depot that are used on the Cambridge to London line. A convicted drugs dealer, Khayam wore a suicidebomber style vest at a London protest last year. Fanatics around him waved placards supporting the July 7 London bombings and called for new terror attacks in the demonstration outside the Danish embassy. Khayam later apologised for his...

A Muslim man, who outraged many in the UK last year by dressing as a suicide bomber during protests against the Danish publication of cartoons of the prophet Muhammed, has been hired to clean trains at night – something that has other employees concerned for their safety. Omar Khayam Omar Khayam's picture – taken outside the Danish embassy in London, complete with fake suicide belt – was seen around the world in February 2006, only half a year after the July 7, 2005, train bombings in London that killed more than 50 people. The attention Khayam drew to himself resulted...

   Fanatic ... train worker    EXCLUSIVE  Muslim fanatic works on trains By THE INVESTIGATORFebruary 16, 2007           A MUSLIM fanatic who dressed as a suicide bomber at a rally threatening terror attacks has got a job on TRAINS.  Sick Omar Khayam cleans carriages unsupervised for rail giant First Group.And he has even got keys to onboard electrical cupboards.Furious train drivers last night claimed the safety of staff and passengers is being put at risk. One driver added: “It’s an astonishing security breach.“We cannot believe this man is employed in a job giving him access to locked...

In echoes of Potters Bar, train crash investigators find four vital bolts lying at the side of the tracks as Network Rail orders checks on 600 sets of points around Britain... Rail crash investigators were facing up to the possibility that the Virgin train derailment could have been the result of sabotage. Four vital steel bolts from a set of points that the train had just crossed were found lying at the side of the track. ~snip~ The bolts should have been firmly fixed to a track stretcher bar on the high-speed West Coast line at Grayrigg, near Kendal, Cumbria....

Elected officials, business leaders and environmental watchdogs, invited by the editorial board, recently met at The Dallas Morning News to discuss clean air issues. This is the first of three excerpted transcripts from the roundtable. The speakers quoted: Colleen McCain Nelson, editorial writer; Margaret Keliher, Dallas County judge through 2006; Richard Greene, regional administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency; Tom "Smitty" Smith, director of Public Citizen's Texas office; Jim Schermbeck, Downwinders at Risk board member; Todd Campbell, director of public policy for Clean Energy and mayor of Burbank, Calif.; Al Armendariz, assistant professor, SMU School of Engineering; Robert Cluck, Arlington...

The magical train ride found in the Book and the Movie are the backdrop to the glorious adventure held nightly for 5 weeks in NE Ohio as part of the Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railway (CVSR) offerings leading up to Christmas . The story in a nutshell: A little boy, Jammie clad in jammies(FReeper material ) doubting Santa’s existence any longer, is whisked away one night on a magical train, that picks him up AT HIS HOME & takes him to the North pole where he views the magic of Santa, the elves and the life there. It is a...

Al-Qaeda to explode 30 jetliners and trains in Europe on Christmas eve 13.11.2006 Source: URL: http://english.pravda.ru/hotspots/terror/85491-Christmas-0 Al-Qaeda may apparently be working on another grand terrorist act, this time for Europe. According to reports received from Western intelligence services, al-Qaeda’s terrorists prepare to explode 30 planes and trains across Europe on Christmas time. The terrorist act is said to be conducted at the end of December, when many people book Christmas tours or simply travel to celebrate holidays with their relatives or friends. Al-Qaeda reportedly recruits most experienced Arab gunmen who participate in the guerilla warfare in Afghanistan. Acts of terror...

Excerpt - Intelligence agencies have been warned that al Qaeda may be planning to attack air and rail travel in Europe in actions that may occur during the busy holiday travel season, CBS News has learned exclusively. In separate interviews with Arab and other intelligence sources, CBS News has been told that the warnings come from interrogations of al Qaeda suspects who recently left Afghanistan and Pakistan. "One suspect said plans for repeating the Heathrow attempt (a reference to the failed 'liquid bomb' plot interrupted in August) were all prepared. It is now a matter of taking action," said one...

Zawahiri used madrassa to train bombers: Pak Press Trust of India Islamabad, November 1, 2006|19:18 IST A religious school destroyed in an army air raid in Bajaur tribal area was frequented by Al-Qaeda number two Ayman al-Zawahiri who used it to train suicide bombers, Pakistani officials have said. The facility, known as Maulvi Liaquat's madrassa, was used for imparting training to new recruits with second and third-tier leadership of Al-Qaeda, by al-Zawahiri and his associates Abu Obaida al-Misri and Abu Farrah Libbi, top security officials told a briefing on Tuesday. They displayed to media stills and videos of the early...

San Antonio can get new railroad tracks built around the city, but they'd likely be part of the controversial Trans-Texas Corridor, state officials said Monday. "I know of no mechanism to relocate rail in rural areas other than the Trans-Texas Corridor," said David Casteel, who heads the Texas Department of Transportation's local office. Casteel and other officials asked the Metropolitan Planning Organization board to authorize a $5 million federal study to select a route for the new tracks, which could take three years. TxDOT would put up a 20 percent local match. "We are listening to what the public is...

Flames lit up the sky over New Brighton late last night after a train derailed and several tanker cars caught fire, burning into the early hours this morning and prompting an evacuation of more than 200 homes. Police said as many as 500 to 600 people were told to leave their homes as a precaution in an area including numerous businesses.

I just returned from an extended trip on Amtrak, Houston to Anaheim Ca. .. I wanted to take a slow boat to China, in order to extend the time I had to spend with my son before dropping him off at college, sniff (but as they say, that is another story).. Slow boats weren't available so I took the next slowest form of transportation, a train, and we loved every minute.. It has been years since I took a real train ride, my son had never had the pleasure.. I thought it would be a great time to slow down...

LONDON (AFP) - One in six people in Britain's capital have admitted moving seats on public transport to avoid a passenger they think is Muslim, according to a survey published. Some 35 percent of travellers in London said they had felt nervous or uncomfortable in the last year because someone of south Asian or north African appearance had got on their underground train or bus. Of that number, nearly half said they had moved seats or sat down away from them, the survey, by pollsters YouGov for London's Evening Standard newspaper, suggested on Tuesday. On July 7 last year, 56...

ALARM - deaths and casualties in a collision in the north of Cairo CAIRO - Two trains entered in collision to the north of Cairo Monday evening causing of died and from the casualties, one learned from police sources.

Early this morning,an Aer Lingus plane from NYC to Shannon, was isolated at Shannon because of a bomb threat.All passengers were evacuated and re-screened, and the aircraft was searched for bombs. It proved a false alarm-like yesterday's escorted return of a US flight to Amsterdam because of suspicious passenger activity. What is going on here ?

For the last couple of years, not a day has passed without the high cost of gasoline being in the news. It’s a hot topic at home, at the coffee shop and at work. Everyone is concerned about what it costs to fill up these days. I can relate. Even my tiny car with its twelve-gallon tank gets expensive to fuel when I’m paying $3.039 for gas. And yeah, I know that if you allow for inflation it’s actually cheaper now than it was twenty years ago. The pain comes not so much from the actual price but from the...

Lebanon spy agency led Germans to bombmaker BERLIN (Reuters) - Lebanon's military intelligence agency gave German authorities information that led to the arrest of a Lebanese man the Germans suspect planted suitcase bombs at two train stations, German prosecutors said on Monday. "The decisive tipoff about the arrested suspect came on Friday evening from the military intelligence agency in Lebanon," said Frauke-Katrin Scheuten, spokeswoman for the German Federal Prosecutors office. On Saturday, German police detained one of two men they suspect came close to exploding makeshift bombs on two trains in the cities of Dortmund and Koblenz last month. Police...

<p>CAIRO, Aug 21 (Reuters) - Two trains collided in the Nile Delta north of the Egyptian capital Cairo on Monday and there were many casualties, police and health ministry sources said.</p>

The internet is beginning to clog (again) with those who wish to deny the reality of terrorism - even as their denials are unraveling around their ankles like poorly knitted socks.

The arrests of "Middle Eastern-looking" men, who were buying huge numbers of cellphones finally made it into the "mainstream media" : a pro-Arab group claimed its members were being treated unfairly. Details and background of the story may be accessed at the link provided here.

Britain-with a bit of US and Pakistani assistance-had just foiled mass murder in the skies;but with al-Qaeda,there is often a "Plan B". This one could be just as deadly !