Top Stories
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Pakistan’s ailing trains show a country a long way from getting on track
DestinationsFor all the wonders offered by a train journey across Pakistan — a country of jaw-dropping landscapes, steeped in a rich history and filled with unexpected pleasures — it also presents some deeply troubling images. At every major stop on the long line from Peshawar, in the northwest, to the turbulent port city of Karachi, [...]
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Amtrak NY-Boston service shut for the weekend after commuter rail crash
TransportA commuter train traveling eastbound from New York City derailed near the Connecticut suburb of Fairfield during the evening rush hour on Friday and collided with a westbound commuter train, injuring up to 60 people, three critically, officials said. The collision of the two Metro North trains forced Amtrak to shut down service indefinitely between [...]
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Eurostar train direct from London to Provence — and into the life of Cezanne
DestinationsSoon after we emerge from Le Tunnel, we start the time-honoured litany of English folk on to the Continent. “The French are so much more stylish.” “Thinner too.” “Cultured.” We eat croissants and pains au chocolat and resolve to kick out the schoolboy Franglais once and for all. “I am, finally, going to learn French [...]
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Amtrak upgrades Wi-Fi giving business travelers another reason to choose rail
DigitalComing soon on Amtrak: fewer excuses to not work while commuting. The national railroad, which operates 21,000 route miles, is upgrading its Wi-Fi service to 4G on many routes across the country. Amtrak says the aim is to offer increased wireless speeds and greater reliability. Hopefully, this will enable a wider set of online features [...]
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New York’s Penn Station is still a mess, and it will likely stay that way
TransportThe busiest passenger train station in the United States is a 1960s-era, utilitarian labyrinth in the basement of a basketball arena. Pennsylvania Station, a gateway to the nation’s biggest city, was designed to accommodate about 200,000 riders a day. Now, it is packed with more than 600,000. At rush hours, it resembles a human demolition [...]
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New Jersey transit execs cite “security” to avoid explaining Hurricane Sandy failure
TransportAs superstorm Sandy barreled toward the tri-state area, two of the nation’s largest transportation agencies worked to safeguard their systems, moving buses and rail cars to areas they thought would be protected. But NJ Transit and New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority had vastly different rates of success. Eleven MTA rail cars were damaged, compared with [...]
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Amtrak’s new locomotives could be the ticket to reinvent the rail line
SkiftXAmtrak has unveiled at a plant in California the first of 70 new locomotives, marking what the national passenger railroad service said it hopes will be a new era of better reliability, streamlined maintenance and more energy efficiency. On a broader scale, the new engines displayed Monday could well be viewed as emblematic of the [...]
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Warren Buffett rails against airline investing
TransportNoted investor Warren Buffett continues to decry airline investing even though he didn’t lose any money on his most famous airline investment, US Airways. At the recent Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting, Buffett responded negatively when asked a question about airline investing. “Investors have poured their money into airlines and airline manufacturers for 100 years with [...]
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Iraq lays out plans to rebuild its devastated rail network
DestinationsIn a shabby, rusty train that had just left Baghdad for the southern city of Basra, Riyadh Saleh moved restlessly from carriage to carriage, searching for a comfortable, air-conditioned seat. Saleh was one of about 200 passengers taking a 25-year-old diesel train to Basra last week; he was enticed by fares as low as 7,500 [...]
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The new World Trade Center transit hub is finally taking shape
DestinationsWith the blast of an airhorn, ironworkers on Monday began bolting into place the first of 610 steel pieces of the soaring wing-like arches of the World Trade Center’s new transportation hub. Not due to open until 2015, the 800,000-square-foot (74,322-square-meter) transit hub will eventually link numerous New York City subway lines with commuter trains [...]
