Mind the gap: Man survives scary fall under moving train

Mind the gap: Commuters push train to save trapped man in Perth

ITN

World's highest rail track reaches Everest gateway city

CNN.com

(CNN) -- The world's highest railway rolls even closer to Mount Everest this month when China inaugurates a stretch of track connecting the Tibetan cities of Lhasa and Shigatse.

Traversing valleys, mountains and crossing the glacier-fed Brahmaputra River, the line takes in breathtaking views of snow-capped peaks and majestic plateaus as it wends from the territory's capital to its second city.

The track is an extension of the Qinghai-Tibet line -- an engineering marvel named the "closest stretch of railway to the sky" after it first carried passengers above 5,000 meters (16,404 feet) in 2006.

Work on the new $2.1 billion line across the roof of the world began in 2010.

When it opens, it will allow passengers to connect by rail from Beijing all the way to Shigatse, a gateway to Everest, which lies just 240 kilometers (150 miles) away, on the border with Nepal.

Suolang Deji, an officer with Shigatse's tourism department, told CNN the railway would be inaugurated at the end of August and would initially carry Chinese visitors.

"The first batch of tourists are from Shandong provice," she said.

Huge investment

With the arrival of the train, the journey from Lhasa to Shigatse shrinks five hours of driving over terrain ranging in altitude from 3,600 to 4,000 meters, to two hours by rail.

The railway is part of a huge Chinese investment program in the infrastructure of its remote western territories that is seen as an effort to consolidate Beijing's economic and political control of the autonomous region.

Such developments have not been welcomed by some Tibetans who say China invaded their land in 1950 and dispute Beijing's claim that the Himalayan plateau has historically been part of China.

Political tensions mean that access to the railway for non-Chinese tourists is likely to be subject to tight controls.

In addition to Chinese visas, foreign visitors already require special permits to enter Tibet and the availability of these is subject to sudden change.

Anyone hoping to travel on from Shigatse to Everest or Nepal will have to wade through further red tape.

Man jumps onto railway track to save woman from oncoming train

ITN

 

Drunk man stops train on the tracks in South Yorkshire

ITN

China Plans Beijing-United States High-Speed Rail Line

breitbart

By Jordan Schachtel 

Chinese experts are studying and considering plans to build a high-speed rail line that stretches from China to the United States.

If constructed, the project, titled the “China-Russia-Canada-America” line, would stretch out to cover over 8,000 miles of land.

China’s Beijing Times newspaper reported the line would start in China, continue into Siberia, then pass through an extensive, 125-mile tunnel underneath the Pacific Ocean, then run through Alaska and Canada to finally reach destinations within the continental United States. The total expected trip time is two days (36 hours) with the train traveling at an average speed of 220 miles per hour.

Some skeptics have doubted the plausibility of the high-speed rail plan. If constructed, the Bering strait tunnel would have to be by far the longest underwater tunnel on earth.

Others had concerns revolving around the financial aspect of the project. "China's railway sector is still being haunted by deep debts. Therefore, even with the government's support, it must persuade banks to lend a colossal amount of money," said an expert at Beijing Jiaotong University.

The report does not mention whether Canada or the United States were consulted in developing plans for the project.

The China-United States rail line is one of four proposed plans to expand China’s high-speed rail coverage.

The Eurasia Line would cover London, Paris, Berlin, Warsaw, Kiev, Moscow, Kazakhstan, Khabarovsk(Russia), and would end in Manzhouli (China).

The proposed Central Line would have stops in Urumqi (China), Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Iran, Turkey, Germany, and “other countries.”

The Pan-Asian Line would canvas Kunming (China), Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Malaysia, and Singapore. A Chinese official said the Pan-Asian line’s construction will start next month.

China has completed roughly 6,200 miles (10,000 km) of its own high-speed rail network, with plans to expand it to roughly 11,000 miles (19,000 km) by 2015.

Pensioner hit by train on level crossing and walks away uninjured

ITN

 

Film on Hershey's Cuban enterprises debuts Tuesday

Read on murfreesboropost >>
Now:

Train Runs Over Couple Having Sex on Tracks

Read on breitbart >>

Cuba buys Russian passenger trains

cubastandard

Muromteplovoz SV-10 train set

CUBA STANDARD — In the first massive purchase of passenger rolling stock in decades, Cuban state rail company Unión de Ferrocarriles de Cuba (UFC) ordered 300 two-car shuttles from Russian rail manufacturer OAO Muromteplovoz, International Railway Journal reported.

Over the past five years, UFC has bought at least 164 DF7G-C diesel-electric engines from China Northern Rail Corp. Ltd. as part of a general overhaul of the island’s decaying rail system; most of the Chinese locomotives are pulling freight trains. The Russian order rivals the Chinese one in size.

According to Russian press reports, the first 17 sets of Russian-made SV-10 diesel shuttles have already been shipped to the island. The remaining 283 in the contract will be assembled at a Cuban plant near Matanzas, cutting the cost for Cuba in half; Cuban technicians are being trained in Murom, west-central Russia.
The simple design of the SV-10 is based on Soviet-era track maintenance vehicles. The 100km/h SV-10 train sets can seat nearly 100 passengers, according to Muromteplovoz.

According to International Railway Journal, the first sets will be used on a new line connecting the port of Mariel with Havana; the line is under construction.

Condolecias del Presidente de España por el TERREMOTO!!! en Santiago de Compostela

Major fire after train carrying oil derails in Quebec town near Canada-US border

worldnews

Sûreté du Québec

By Tracy Jarrett, NBC News

A Quebec town was evacuated after a train carrying petroleum products derailed and exploded in the early hours of Saturday morning, setting a massive blaze that authorities said continued to burn as responders feared additional blasts.

Several tanker cars exploded around 1 a.m. local time on Saturday in Lac-Megantic in the Canadian province, a lakeside town of about 6,000 people near the border with the U.S. Police said the blast was powerful enough to set ablaze several buildings in the town center that includes a library, bars, apartments, and stores.

"When you see the center of your town almost destroyed, you'll understand that we're asking ourselves how we are going to get through this event," town Mayor Colette Roy-Laroche said at a news briefing, according to Reuters.

An area of a half mile around the train has been secured by police, but the fire continued to burn through Saturday morning, Sergeant Gregory Gomez del Prado of the Quebec Provincial Police told NBC News.

"There are still wagons which we think are pressurized. We're not sure because we can't get close, so we're working on the assumption that all the cars were pressurized and could explode. That's why progress is slow and tough," local fire chief Denis Lauzon told Reuters.

Quebec town is evacuated after a train carrying petroleum products derailed and exploded causing a massive fire.

Police officials said they believe at least 50 tanks caught fire.

“It’s dreadful,” Lac-Megantic resident Claude Bedard told the CBC. “It’s terrible. We’ve never seen anything like it. The Metro store, Dollarama, everything that was there is gone.”

Over 1,000 people have been evacuated from the center of town and are being housed in a nearby primary school, Del Prado said. It is unknown when these residents may be allowed back into the area.

It is not yet clear whether anyone was injured, but Quebec Provincial Police say that they are still looking for some people that have been reported missing.

“There was a bar in the area open at the time of the accident. We know from the witnesses, that some of them were able to get out and escape the fire, others, they were with people that are still missing. We don’t know what happened to them,” Gomez del Prado said.

The Transportation Safety Board of Canada said it has sent four investigators to the scene of the accident. The investigators are set to arrive Saturday afternoon, and will be joined by additional investigators as the day goes on.

“At this point what we want to do is gather information,” said Chris Krepski, a spokesman for the TSB. “We will travel to the site to gather information, interview witnesses and talk to the operator, but we will have to wait until the area is safe and secure before we go in and examine wreckage.”

Prime Minister Stephen Harper tweeted that his "thoughts & prayers are with those impacted in Lac Megantic. Horrible news."

Police are working to locate any missing persons before investigating the cause of the derailment.

In the meantime, firemen from the surrounding area including some from Franklin County, Maine, worked to secure the area and put out the remaining fire.

“All of the firefighters in the surrounding areas have come to help,” Gomez del Prado said. “This blast, it’s a catastrophe for the town, a catastrophe for the people, and a catastrophe for the environment. It’s a major, major event.”

The rail line is operated by Montreal, Maine & Atlantic, which owns some 510 miles of track in Maine and Vermont in the United States and in Quebec and New Brunswick in Canada, according to Reuters.

Montreal, Maine, & Atlantic was not immediately available for comment.

NBC News’ Ian Johnston contributed to this report.

Paul Chiasson / The Canadian Press via AP

Smoke rises from railway cars that were carrying crude oil after derailing in downtown Lac Megantic, Quebec, Canada, Saturday, July 6, 2013. The derailment sparked several explosions and forced the evacuation of up to 1,000 people.

Video/ Tube worker jumping from runaway train in London

itnnews

Dramatic footage: Woman faints and falls on Madrid's Metro rail track

itnnews

Train orgasm

Biodiesel Train Crossed US-Canada Border 24 Times to Exploit Biofuel Loophole

www.treehugger.com/ Michael Graham Richard

Flickr/CC BY-SA 2.0

You don't have to be Sherlock Holmes to figure out that there's something going on if a train crosses the US-Canada border 12 times back and forth (24 times across the line) without unloading its cargo. The CBC in Canada looked into it, and they discovered that a Toronto-based company was behind this strange behavior, making several million dollars importing and exporting biodiesel to exploit a loophole in a U.S. green energy program.

Here's the CBC's segment on it:

 

Renewable identification numbers (RINs) are credits set up by the EPA to "promote and track production and importation of renewable fuels such as ethanol and biodiesel." They are valuable because if an oil company doesn't have enough, it can buy them from others. In this case, the fraudsters...

Bioversel Trading hired CN Rail to import tanker loads of biodiesel to the U.S. to generate RINs, which are valuable in the U.S. because of a "greening" policy regulating the petroleum industry. The EPA's "Renewable Fuel Standard" mandate that oil companies bring a certain amount of renewable fuel to market, quotas they can achieve through blending biofuel with fossil fuel or by purchasing RINs as offsets.
Because RINs can be generated through import, the 12 trainloads that crossed into Michigan would have contained enough biodiesel to create close to 12 million RINs. In the summer of 2010, biodiesel RINs were selling for 50 cents each, but the price soon fluctuated to more than $1 per credit.
Once "imported" to a company capable of generating RINs, ownership of the biodiesel was transferred to Bioversel's American partner company, Verdeo, and then exported back to Canada.

Hopefully this media attention will push legislators to close that loophole, and others, and will bring scrutiny to others who have no doubt been doing the same thing as Bioversel.

3 dead in Canadian train derailment

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Germany - Trains operators get hacking warning

Miniatur Wunderland: largest model railway / railroad in the world

Este es el más grande del mundo. Cubre 1.150 metros cuadrados / 12.380 pies cuadrados,  y  casi seis millas de la pista y aún no se completa.

Los hermanos gemelos Federico y Gerrit Braun, de 41 años, comenzarón a trabajar en el "Wunderland en miniatura" en el año 2000.
El conjunto abarca seis regiones, incluyendo Estados Unidos, Suiza, Escandinavia, Alemania y los Alpes austríacos

La sección estadounidense cuenta con maquetas gigantes de las Montañas Rocosas, Everglades, Grand-Canyon, etc

.... y el Monte Rushmore.

La sección suiza cuenta con un mini-Matterhorn.

La parte escandinava tiene una nave de pasajeros de largo 4 pies flotando en un "fiordo".

Se espera que esté terminada en 2014, cuando el conjunto de trenes que cubren más de 1.800 metros cuadrados / (19.376 pies cuadrados) y cuentan con casi 13 kilómetros de vía, momento en el cual los modelos detallados de las partes de Francia, Italia y el Reino Unido se hayan añadido

Se compone de 700 trenes con más de 10.000 coches y vagones.

El tren más largo es 46 pies de largo.

El paisaje incluye 900 señales, edificios de 2.800, 4.000 coches - muchos de ellos con los faros iluminados.

y 160.000 figuras diseñadas de forma individual.

Miles de kilogramos de acero y madera se utilizarón para construir el escenario

Los 250.000 luces están manipuladas a un sistema que imita la noche y el día de forma automática a encender y apagar

Todo el sistema se controla desde un centro neurálgico masiva de alta tecnología

Mas de 500.000 horas de trabajo y  8 millones de dólares han invertido los hermanos en el proyecto.

"Gerrit dijo: "Nuestra idea era construir un mundo de hombres, mujeres y niños que pueden quedar igualmente asombrados y sorprendidos"

Frederik agregó: "Si los juegos de azar en Las Vegas, senderismo en los Alpes o remar en los fiordos noruegos - en todo Wunderland es posible." Este vídeo de 4 minutos vale la pena ver estas cosas asombrosas.

LOST TUNNEL: Plans for an Ireland-Scotland railway found