Thus, at the upcoming confirmation hearing, members of the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee should ask Foxx the following 10 questions…

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Metro-North employees work at the site of Friday's train crash in Bridgeport, Connecticut. Crews will spend days rebuilding 2,000 feet of track, overhead wires and signals following the collision between two trains Friday evening that injured 72 people, Metro-North President Howard Permut said Sunday. Brian A. Pounds

Two commuter trains collided just outside Bridgeport, Conn., on Friday evening, damaging the tracks and snarling travel in the Northeast. Here’s a look at what commuters can expect Monday, as the work week gets under way, and beyond:

METRO-NORTH RAILROAD SERVICE PROBLEMS:

Connecticut Gov. Dannel P. Malloy says roads could be a mess for a week as Metro-North Railroad crews repair tracks, overhead wires and other equipment.

Reduced service will operate between South Norwalk and New York’s Grand Central Terminal. A shuttle train will operate between New Haven and Bridgeport with shuttle buses running between Bridgeport and Stamford.

Each day, approximately 30,000 Metro-North customers use the stations where service has been shut down, according to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which operates Metro-North.

Regular service will operate between Stamford and Grand Central Terminal. Regular service will operate on Metro-North’s New Canaan and Danbury branches.

AMTRAK SERVICE PROBLEMS:

Amtrak says its Acela Express and Northeast Regional Service between New York and New Haven are indefinitely suspended. Amtrak says it will provide limited service between Boston and New Haven.

COMMUTING ALTERNATIVES:

Jim Cameron, chairman of a commuter group, wants officials in numerous towns to suspend parking rules to accommodate what could be tens of thousands of motorists driving to unaffected train stations.

SCOPE OF WORK:

Crews must rebuild 2,000 feet of track, overhead wires and signals. Several days of around-the-clock work will be required, including inspections and testing of the newly rebuilt system, said Metro-North President Howard Permut.

Copyright (2013) Associated Press. All rights reserved.

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At every major stop on the long line from Peshawar, in the northwest, to the turbulent port city of Karachi, lie reminders of why the country is a worry to its people, and to the wider world: natural disasters and entrenched insurgencies, abject poverty and feudal kleptocrats, and an economy near meltdown.

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Passengers wait to be picked-up after two commuter trains collided in Bridgeport, Connecticut, causing one to derail and injuring up to 70 passengers, May 17, 2013. Michelle McLoughlin / Reuters

A 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 New York and Boston, the national railroad said.

Three people were critically injured and 60 people were transported to area hospitals, police said.

“It’s pretty devastating damage to a number of cars,” Connecticut Governor Dannel Malloy told a news conference. “These cars came into contact (and the impact) ripped open the siding of one of the cars. There is extensive damage in the front and the wheels.”

The accident occurred shortly after 6 p.m. EDT (2200 GMT), authorities said.

“All of a sudden the train started to shake a little bit … like something was bumping into it,” passenger Rowana Shepherd told CBS television. “One entire compartment from the other train was completely ripped open. The whole side was gone and people were lying in between the trains.”

The eastbound train was headed to New Haven, Connecticut, when it derailed and collided with the westbound train that was running to New York’s Grand Central Station, said Aaron Donovan, a spokesman for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), which runs the commuter railroad.

“The head end of both trains, the front end of both trains, collided and received sustained damage. … But it was not a full head-on collision,” Donovan said.

Metro North is a commuter railroad serving the northern suburbs of New York City. It is operated by the MTA, a New York State agency. Fairfield is about 50 miles north of New York City.

The number of injured could rise because hospital officials were told to prepare to receive up to 180 patients total. Metro North trains can carry up to 300 passengers when full.

Thirty-three people were transported to St. Vincent’s Medical Center and 27 to Bridgeport Hospital, police said.

Bridgeport Hospital had two patients with critical injuries, and the others could be described as “walking wounded” with a variety of lesser injuries, spokeswoman Anita Shrum said.

One person had serious head and neck injuries at St. Vincent’s Medical Center in Bridgeport and the others had minor injuries, spokeswoman Dianne Auger said.

The cause of the derailment was not immediately known. The National Transportation Safety Board said it was sending a team of investigators to Connecticut to look into the accident.

Malloy said the collision would have a big impact on the vital rail corridor between Boston and New York City for days.

The Westport and Fairfield stations will be closed to commuter rail and Amtrak service at least through the weekend as workers repair the damage and investigators probe the derailment, he said, adding that there was no reason to believe that it was anything but an accident.

Reporting by Sharon Bernstein, David Bailey, Kevin Gray and Dan Whitcomb; Writing by Dan Whitcomb; Editing by Cynthia Johnston and Philip Barbara.

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Poppies make an appearance near Rians, Provence, France. Ross Werland / Chicago Tribune

Soon 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 properly, starting now.”

It is the right time for such declarations. I’m with my son Conor, who has recently finished college and needs to think what to do next. He’s also here to carry my bag as I’ve broken my kneecap.

“At least if you end up in a French hospital, they’re much better than ours.”

But our real panegyrics are reserved for the train: the first-ever direct London to Aix-en-Provence service, which Eurostar is trialling until 29 June (there will be another train to Avignon for the rest of the summer). It is certainly convenient, and fast: after hopping on at London St Pancras, we bypass Paris and before lunch reach Lyon, the first stop. I reckon George Stephenson is up there on his steam cloud laughing into his stovepipe hat, because the age of the train is definitely not over. In fact it might just be beginning, with global carbon dioxide levels hitting record highs and the success of trains like these crucial. Let’s hope they extend the service, and repeat it next year.

Everything goes to plan until somewhere before Avignon, when Conor rouses me from a doze with an alarming message: “Dad, it’s cloudy.”

English weather in France

I look out of the window and let out a gasp of horror. Floodwater is coursing through the countryside while dark clouds pregnant with rain are threatening to unleash themselves on the poor pantiles and cypress trees. We complain to one of the train staff who makes one of those gloriously expressive French gestures that communicate stoical sympathy and fatalistic despair. A few minutes later he returns with a drinks trolley and gives us both a hefty tot of pastis. What can anyone say? Global warming has interfered with the jetstream and brought Provence the worst possible indignity: English weather. It is the wettest spring in years and we have come to go walking.

After just over six hours we arrive in Aix TGV station and pull on our walking boots. The plan is to tackle part of a new long-distance footpath, the GR2013, opened to mark Marseille’s year as European Capital of Culture. This is no ordinary path: it has been devised by artists to reveal aspects of Provence that are rarely seen and less frequently appreciated. The idea is to show the unexpected, and perhaps this is why we find ourselves clambering over a crash barrier and wandering past a quiet lay-by where some scantily dressed women appear to be waiting in parked cars.

“Do you know them, Dad?” asks Conor, grinning. “They’re waving.”

I’m busy photographing a patch of wild iris so leave him to wave back.

The little GR2013 waymarkers lead us past an old second world war base where asphodels now bloom, and into some lovely rolling countryside. Ahead of us is our ultimate objective, Mont Sainte-Victoire, the mountain that hovers over Aix like a sphinx. If the GR2013 hopes to meld art and landscape, then Mont Sainte-Victoire is its presiding genius, having for many years been the muse for this area’s most famous artistic son, Paul Cézanne. He painted the peak’s crisp geological geometries 87 times, a creative response that would electrify the young Pablo Picasso.

Cezanne’s studio

For our brief overnight stop in Aix, I’m determined to visit Cézanne’s studio (atelier-cezanne.com), purpose-built so the artist could easily view his mountain. His tiny house has miraculously survived much as he left it: his hat is on the peg, his backpack waits by the chair, and on the wooden desk stands his last wine beaker, dry and purple-stained. It is as though the man has simply flown from the window and is out there with the nightingales. All around are objects recognisable from his paintings: the olive jar, the wooden rosary, the empty bottles and the armless cherub figurine, mundane objects that he transformed into thrilling and potent images.

During Cézanne’s life, few people, a handful only, came to this place. He had abandoned the art world of Paris and been depicted as a failure by his former friend Emile Zola in the 1886 novel L’Oeuvre.

Our guide to the artist’s studio, Gabriel, makes a face: “After that, the two men never spoke again.”

Gabriel shows us the extra-tall door in a corner of the room, which allowed Cézanne to take big canvases outside to paint in natural light: “He lived on an allowance from his father then, when the father died, Cézanne inherited everything.”

Cézanne’s stubborn refusal to give up on painting must have been particularly annoying to his parent, a self-made man and bastion of the local bourgeoisie. No one liked the young Cézanne’s works, except the occasional maverick American. At one point some citizens of Aix actually asked their unwanted artist to leave. Sales of his paintings were so rare that the lower room of this one-up-one-down house became choked with canvases.

In the upstairs studio, I find a chest of drawers under the north window that contains souvenirs, photographs and mementoes, among them a letter written to Claude Monet and the clay pipe that features in The Card Players.

Last year, over a century after Cézanne died, it was reported that one of the five versions of this painting sold at auction for over $250m. It’s a shame, I reflect, looking down at that cheap clay pipe, that his father didn’t live to see the moment when his son’s painting became the most expensive the world has ever seen. Mind you, if he had, he would also have witnessed his grandson selling off those treasures for a few francs in the days after Paul died.

Aix’s old town

Leaving the studio we set off up the hill to find the viewpoint where Cézanne painted many of those Mont Sainte-Victoire pictures. Like the studio, it is still much as he found it: a fabulous panorama of pantiled rooftops and cypress trees stretching out across rolling hills to the spectacular peak topped by an enormous cross. One local who spied on the old white-bearded painter reported that his technique could be highly unorthodox. He once got so angry with his failure to render the sublime colours and forms that he grabbed a nearby rock and smashed it through the canvas.

That peak will be our goal tomorrow, but first I want to find Cézanne’s favourite cafe, Les Deux Garçons. We stroll in the twilight through Aix’s fine old town, admiring the tall stone buildings and the narrow streets that open into lovely squares. We stop to eat in one of these, then carry on to Cours Mirabeau, a broad, tree-lined boulevard with, at number 53, Les Deux Garçons. The cafe is unchanged since Cézanne drank his favourite vermouth there. His favourite seat is there, at the rear of the main room on the right, under the ornate gilded mirrors. We drink to Cézanne and his endless determination.

In the morning we take a taxi to a supermarket, stock up on food then get dropped off at the village of St Antonin-sur-Bayon at the base of the mountain.

Almost as soon as we get going we fall into step with a retired army officer, Jean-Jacques, who tells us he has breakfasted on the tiny blue flowers of the aphyllanthes, and proves it by picking some for us. They are very sweet but not very filling.

“This was a Roman road,” he tells us as we carry on along the GR2013. “In those days you could come up all the way from Rome on the Via Aurelia then join the Via Domitia at Narbonne and head into Spain. Provence was very important to the Romans – that’s why they called it Provincia.”

He himself is trekking from his front door to the Atlantic: “It should take about 45 days.”

At a plug of rock underneath the vast cliffs of Mont Sainte-Victoire we come to a cobbled area and a simple hut known as Cézanne’s Refuge, a spot the artist had used to paint the peak. Here we leave Jean-Jacques and head up the hill, winding through patches of wild irises. At every rise in the path, the botany changes: tiny narcissi giving way to delicate wild tulips and then to spotted orchids. We are grateful for the cloud: this could be a hot and shade-free walk in summer (the authorities frequently shut the path for weeks, even months, to prevent summer fires – so check before setting out).

It is late afternoon by the time we reach the old priory, its honey-coloured stones scratched with over three centuries of graffitti. Built in the 17th century, it was ruined during the Revolution, then rebuilt by volunteers in the 1950s. Tucked into a niche in the jagged limestone ridge with views to the Mediterranean and the Alps, it is a stunning location to spend a night. We search around the back and find the refuge, a large room with two big sleeping benches and a fireplace.

As the light of day fades and rain begins to fall, the other parties of walkers set off down again. One of them, a veteran of nights in the refuge, warns us: “It will be cold tonight – you should go down on the north side, there’s plenty of firewood there.”

Taking our torches we set off. We’d been told to watch out for wild boar but we see no sign. This section of the mountain was bought soon after Cézanne’s death by Picasso, who moved into Château de Vauvenargues below. It had been Cézanne’s unique vision that had impressed the Spaniard, inspiring him to push on into the uncharted territory of cubism.

Now, as the dying sun swings low through banks of cloud, we are treated to the mountain’s own ever-changing gallery of light and form: the valleys and forests below fading to soft dark trapeziums and the ridges beyond stretching out in bony layers of mauve and orange. I see then why Cézanne had struggled to represent what he saw, painting the same scenes over and over again, trying to capture something beyond the visually transient.

Wild boar sausage and red wine

Back at the refuge, we stack up a roaring log fire and bake potatoes, which we eat with wild boar sausage and rough red wine. It is going to be a night of pure tranquillity and mountain views. Conor and I can have a father-son discussion about his future. I can mention Cézanne’s life and his heroic determination to follow his passion and talent (though I might play down the way he wilfully ignored paternal advice). It is then that we hear the commotion.

Out in the yard are five heavily laden donkeys tended by a large group of men and women, all dripping wet and cold. A film crew has arrived together with a cast of actors and a support team, part of a project to make a film for next year’s Avignon Festival. Our quiet evening has disappeared, replaced by a long wild night of sprawling conversations – conducted in Franglais, of course – and singing. The father-son stuff will have to wait, but perhaps Cézanne had already made the most vital point for me.

At dawn I am woken by sunlight creeping under the shutters. Can it be true? I tiptoe past slumbering people and piles of wet clothes. Outside I stumble to the edge of the parapet and look out on a magnificent panorama of clouds lying below the peak. We are marooned in a sea of white and above us, at last, is that Provençal sunshine.

• The trip was provided by Visit Provence (visitprovence.com). Réfuge Baudino and Réfuge du Prieuré on Mont Ste-Victoire are free, first come, first served. Walking tours including refuge stays can be organised by Evana. Travel was provided by Eurostar on the inaugural weekly service from London St Pancras to Aix-en-Provence, from £109.50 one-way (until 29 June, then service goes to Avignon for the rest of the summer; next year tba), and by East Coast which has returns York-London from £26. Accommodation in London was provided by the Renaissance Hotel, St Pancras (020-7841 3540, marriott.co.uk, doubles from £247). Further information: aixenprovencetourism.com

MORE PROVENCE ESCAPES

Lavender festival

Fields of Provençal lavender are a beautiful sight during the summer months. Villages host lavender festivals and producers open their doors to visitors, including La Ferme de Gerbaud, a herb farm just outside Lourmarin. A 90-minute guided tour is €5 (free for children), or the Thursday-night tasting meals – which include delicacies such as lavender biscuits – are £26, including wine and a tour of the farm.

Cycling

Cycling is a great way to explore the quiet roads of Provence. The Vaucluse region has cycle paths, themed routes and accommodation that welcomes cyclists. Visit provence-cycling.co.uk for information, advice and tempting itineraries, such as a ride around the Châteauneuf-du-Pape vineyards.

Island life

Off the coast of the French Riviera, at Provence’s southernmost point, are several Mediterranean islands known as the Iles d’Or – Porquerolles and Port-Cros, (which are both national parks) and Levant (which is more touristy, and largely nudist). The islands are covered in pines, fruit trees and vineyards, and with very pretty paths, little villages and beaches. There are lots of expensive places to stay but Hotel Les Medes on Porquerolles has rooms and apartments from €96 per night.

Music festival

The Festival d’Aix-en-Provence (4‑27 July) is an annual music jamboree focusing mainly on opera. From 14 June, the prelude to the main festival includes free concerts on the Cours Mirabeau, one of the town’s liveliest streets. During the festival proper, many of the performances take place in atmospheric outdoor settings, such as the grounds of a chateau or the courtyard of a former archbishop’s palace.

Hidden retreat

Cotignac, east of Aix in the Upper Var region, is a charming town overlooked by tufa cliffs topped with medieval towers, hiding caves and the remains of troglodyte dwellings. With lots of holiday homes to rent, it could be a good out-of-the-way base for exploring the Provence cities and the Canyon du Verdon – one of Europe’s most stunning gorges – and the bright turquoise Ste Croix lake, both an hour away. Cotignac has an outdoor theatre in summer, and there are waterfalls nearby at Sillans-la-Cascade. Other authentic villages to visit include Tourtour, Entrecasteaux, Sillan la Cascade, Barjols, Aups and Villecroze.

This article originally appeared on guardian.co.uk

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A poster in Penn Station from when Amtrak first rolled out Wi-Fi and started advertising to business travelers. David Goehring / Flickr

Coming 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 for train travelers. According to Amtrak’s site, its current Wi-Fi service does not allow for “high-bandwidth actions such as streaming music, streaming video or downloading large files.”

Implementation of the upgrades has begun on the Acela Express line that goes from Boston to Washington D.C., and will eventually be installed on other routes, Amtrak says.

Currently, the service is free for passengers. No word on whether that will change.

Amtrak also announced it lost less money in 2012. Chief Executive Joe Boardman said Thursday the system’s cash operating loss for the year was $361 million, a drop of 19% from the previous year and the smallest loss for the system since 1975.

(c)2013 the Los Angeles Times. Distributed by MCT Information Services.

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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 derby. All it takes to strand hundreds of thousands of people is a glitch on one of only two tracks linking Manhattan to New Jersey under the Hudson River. Suddenly, common areas become overwhelmed with impatient commuters packed into dim, low-ceilinged spaces, waiting and waiting.

“Penn Station is a disaster,” said Vin Cipolla, president of the Municipal Art Society that helped save Manhattan’s now-glorious Grand Central Terminal from demolition.

Two decades after ambitious plans were unveiled to improve Penn Station while expanding it into the massive Beaux Arts post office building across the street, there are few visible signs of change. The multibillion-dollar effort is mired in perpetual bickering among movers and shakers in politics, finance, sports and business.

Ironically, the original Penn Station built a century ago as a Beaux Arts masterpiece, modeled after the monuments of ancient Rome, once rivaled Grand Central for its soaring beauty, classical columns and natural light. It was torn down in 1963 and replaced with the current, smaller Penn Station, notable for its blandness — topped with the familiar, circular Madison Square Garden, among the first buildings of its kind to be built above the platforms of an active railroad station.

Now, a coalition of civic advocates and political leaders is trying to get things moving to overhaul Penn Station by latching on to what they say is a key development: The 50-year-old city permit to operate Madison Square Garden expired in January.

The Department of City Planning is recommending that the City Council renew the special permit for the self-proclaimed “World’s Most Famous Arena” for only 15 years, rather than “in perpetuity,” as requested by the Madison Square Garden Co.

Two civic groups, the Regional Plan Association and Municipal Art Society, say the dingy, cramped and aging basement station can expand and modernize only if the Garden moves, along with its supporting columns that reach down to the train level.

Owners of the Garden, home to the NBA’s Knicks and NHL’s Rangers, have recently invested about $1 billion to gut and refurbish one of the city’s most successful entertainment venues.

Kim Kerns, a spokeswoman for the Madison Square Garden Co., said the arena “meets all required findings for this permit” and noted the Garden helps drive the city’s economy by supporting about 6,000 jobs.

A decision on the permit is expected within two months.

For now, New Jersey Transit, the Long Island Rail Road and Amtrak have hired a design firm to bring some light and fresher air into Penn Station. Changes could include better exits and entrances, improved access to platforms and taxi stands and new signage.

That’s little comfort to passengers walking through smothering, windowless corridors under low-hanging old pipes and wire clusters, filled with fast-food odors.

“I would do anything not to use this station,” said Carole Ryavec, a Manhattan filmmaker. “The force of bodies is overwhelming. It’s a crush. It’s a mass of people — most of whom know where they’re going and counting down the seconds to their train — and nothing is going to get in their way.”

The truth is, no matter what changes are made, real relief will come only when additional tracks are built across the Hudson. Plans for two new tunnels were killed in 2010 by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who cited austerity amid the recession.

The other hope for expanding Penn Station rests with Amtrak — if it could start moving some of its operations across Eighth Avenue into the 1.4-million-square-foot post office building. The 1914 landmark known officially as the James A. Farley building is now nearly empty, except for the postal customer service area. More than 70,000 square feet of space is available to lease for events ranging from fashion shows to automobile expos.

“Future home of Moynihan Station” reads a billboard that has sat for years on the main entrance staircase, heralding long-stagnant promises for a massive Amtrak main terminal, with ticketing and waiting areas, plus retail shops. The new station would be named after Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the late New York senator who envisioned it.

That would free up 100,000 square feet at Penn Station, giving passengers more space, according to the Moynihan Station Development Corp., a New York state agency that paid $200 million to acquire the post office building.

Renderings released by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which is overseeing the project, show the old post office redone with soaring ceilings and skylights.

Construction is under way on the $325 million first phase of the project — including a wide new commuter concourse under the front end of the post office that’s to open in 2016. It will ease access to bare, gritty platforms for Amtrak, NJ Transit and Long Island Rail Road.

But there’s no commercial tenant yet for non-transit areas of the Farley building expected to contribute hundreds of millions of dollars toward completion of the Moynihan Station project, whose final cost could top $1 billion.

“I just don’t see a realistic plan on the table,” said Steve Spinola, president of the Real Estate Board of New York. “It’ll take a miracle.”

What happens now remains an unanswered question.

“Penn Station clearly is not the first-class facility one would expect in New York,” said Kathy Wylde, president and CEO of the Partnership for New York City, a nonprofit organization of the city’s business leaders. “We’re all embarrassed about it, but at this point, it’s a matter of financial resources.”

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Boats, dumpsters and other debris block the North Jersey Coast Line rail track at Morgan Draw Bridge in New Jersey in the aftermath of super storm Sandy in this handout photo. / Reuters

As 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 342 pieces of NJ Transit equipment.

The MTA, which serves more than 11 million passengers on a typical weekday, moved its 6,200-plus subway cars to higher ground, along with more than 500 locomotives and work cars. The agency identified more than 20 areas at risk for flooding. It used wind speed as a gauge for when to shut down operations. Many other moves took place, all detailed in a hurricane plan released as a part of a request under New York’s Freedom of Information Law.

What NJ Transit did to prepare for Sandy remains largely secret. The agency that operates bus and light-rail and commuter rail services declined to release its strategy when requested under New Jersey’s Open Public Records Act. When asked for communications regarding Sandy preparations, NJ Transit released a 3-page “Rail Operations Hurricane Plan” that was stripped of all information except for the title.

Agency spokesman John Durso Jr. said that detailing the agency’s storm preparation plans would create a security risk.

“Recent events including the uncovering of an al-Qaida-led terrorist plot targeting rail service reinforces why NJ Transit will not disclose sensitive information |that could potentially undermine the security of our transit infrastructure, our customers or our employees,” Durso wrote in an email last week.

NJ Transit has been widely criticized for leaving its trains in low-lying areas as Sandy approached, specifically the Meadows Maintenance Complex — a sprawling 72-acre property in Kearny near the Hackensack and Passaic rivers — and its Hoboken yard alongside the Hudson River. The move is estimated to have |cost the agency $120 million in damage, money NJ Transit hopes to recover through insurance and federal aid payments.

The Record, in collaboration with WNYC/New Jersey Public Radio, has asked for details about whether NJ Transit had identified locations in its statewide rail network that were at risk for flooding prior to Sandy; whether rail crews were on duty and prepared for Sandy prior to its surge making landfall; and if NJ Transit police officers assigned to its Office of Emergency Management were trained in reading weather forecast data.

The agency’s leadership has declined to discuss its preparations in detail — instead referring the news organizations to information on its website, prepared press releases issued during Sandy and testimony that NJ Transit Executive Director Jim Weinstein has given during appearances on Capitol Hill and in Trenton before the Assembly Transportation Committee.

Included among the Sandy documents NJ Transit released are weather and climate change reports and emails exchanged among the railroad’s leadership — including Weinstein, state Transportation Commissioner Jim Simpson, rail operations Vice President Kevin O’Connor and Durso — in the days leading up to, during, and after Sandy made landfall 40 miles north of Cape May on Oct. 29.

Included in more than 800 pages of emails were discussions about press releases, talking points for reporters and updates for the governor’s office. The documents did show that NJ Transit prepared for Sandy in many ways. Diesel engines were ordered to be fueled. Emergency contact lists were shared. Employee unions were notified that sick time during the storm wouldn’t be honored without a medical note. Locomotives and cars were moved across the system.

However, hundreds of emails that were requested about how storm preparations were handled at the highest levels of the agency were not released. Security concerns were cited as a reason for denying the public access to those records.

In March, The Record sued NJ Transit under the state’s Open Public Records Act seeking access to those emails and the Hurricane Plan in unredacted form as well as the hundreds of emails that were withheld by the agency in their entirety. That lawsuit is pending.

Weinstein told the Assembly Transportation Committee in December that “the plan that was developed for the relocation of equipment is something that was put together by the railroad months before the action and they have lengthy conference calls on where the equipment is going and who is responsible for it and it’s all documented and detailed.”

In an Oct. 27 email — two days before Sandy struck — Simpson directed the heads of the state Department of Transportation, the New Jersey Turnpike Authority and Weinstein to “finalize plans for Sandy and make sure we have planned for the worst.” Simpson declined to comment for this story.

And in an email describing talking points the day Sandy came ashore, the agency itself included a line that said, “No one should underestimate the power of the storm. At NJ Transit, we took this advice to heart.”

Weather-related documents from the agency said there was a 10 to 20 percent chance of a 10-foot storm surge in Hoboken and a 5-foot surge in Kearny. After Sandy, Weinstein characterized it differently, telling the Assembly committee that there was an 80 to 90 percent chance the yards would not flood.

Gary Szatkowski, chief meteorologist with the National Weather Service office in Mount Holly, said the conclusions NJ Transit drew from that document weren’t sound.

“There was a 10 to 20 percent risk of a storm surge flooding in the rail yard area so they turned that around and said, well, there’s an 80 to 90 percent chance based on this forecast from the weather service that this rail yard wouldn’t flood,” Szatkowski said.

“If you’re talking to your doctor and your doctor says there’s a 20 percent chance you could have a heart attack that could be serious to fatal in the next 72 hours, I wouldn’t turn that around and say there’s an 80 to 90 percent chance everything is fine.”

Szatkowski said that given the proximity of the Kearny and Hoboken yards to water, “a 20 percent risk of even a 5- or an 8-foot storm surge is a catastrophe … whether you’re talking about people who live on the barrier islands or trains in a rail yard that has potential to flood.”

At the December hearing, Weinstein said, “Our decisions were informed by the fact that neither of those rail yards had ever flooded. It is entirely wrong to characterize them as flood-prone.”

Columbia University scientist Klaus Jacob, who helped write a report for the National Research Council on how climate change could affect transportation systems, said of the decision: “It just shows they don’t understand A) the hazard and B) the risk. The past, particularly when it comes to climate change, is not the guide for the future.”

Durso and O’Connor spoke briefly with The Record and WNYC last Wednesday, after NJ Transit’s monthly board meeting. But when asked why the agency didn’t prepare for the 10 to 20 percent chance that the rail yards would flood — as climate experts had warned — Durso abruptly ended the interview and refused to allow O’Connor to reply.

Weinstein and O’Connor have said the dynamics of the storm changed after the agency began its shutdown on Oct. 28, the day before Sandy hit. O’Connor said at that point it was too late.

“Having a plan to remove the equipment is not possible in 12 hours. There is no way I can move every piece of equipment out of the MMC [Meadows Maintenance Complex in Kearny] in 12 hours,” he said.

But weather reports that Sandy was tracking inland came as early as Thursday morning, Oct. 25 — nearly four days before the storm hit and well before NJ Transit had even come to a decision on whether to shut down its bus, rail and light-rail lines.

Szatkowski looked at forecast documents The Record obtained from NJ Transit and saw a problem with how data was entered into weather modeling software used by NJ Transit.

The software requires emergency managers to input current conditions to predict the future track of a storm. Szatkowski’s conclusion, after seeing the NJ Transit documents, was that someone incorrectly entered the direction of Sandy as heading northeast, instead of the storm’s actual direction — west-northwest.

When the correct information is entered into the model, Szatkowski said, the software predicts a catastrophic inland storm.

The MTA’s plan shows the agency had identified specific locations across its rail system that are prone to flooding and included instructions to avoid yards that sit in storm surge areas when storing equipment. It also said that when sustained gale force winds reach 39 mph, rail should be shut down.

“Above that, it’s unsafe to have our people outside on tracks, unsafe to have our customers on platform,” said MTA spokesman Adam Lisberg.

Durso did not respond to a question about whether NJ Transit’s hurricane planning considers wind speed in deciding on a shutdown.

In an Oct. 27 email, a United Airlines official asked Paul Wyckoff, a member of NJ Transit’s executive staff, if a shutdown will occur when winds reach 40 knots or about 46 mph. The airline was trying to plan transportation for its employees.

Wyckoff responded: “I don’t believe there is a hard and fast metric.”

Damage to MTA equipment following Sandy was significantly less than what NJ Transit experienced. In fact, in addition to the 11 cars that needed repairs after the storm, another seven locomotives and six rail cars were damaged — they were left in NJ Transit’s possession and stored in the Hoboken and Kearny yards. NJ Transit has an agreement with Metro-North to provide service out of Port Jervis and Spring Valley and uses Metro-North Railroad equipment.

When asked at the December hearing why NJ Transit suffered much greater losses than New York’s MTA, Weinstein replied: “I think they should be grateful for their good luck.”

Weinstein and O’Connor have repeatedly said the agency could never anticipate flooding in the Kearny and Hoboken rail yards. But at an NJ Transit board meeting in September 2011, before Hurricane Irene hit New Jersey, O’Connor told NJ Transit’s board that in order to protect employees and equipment from damage and injury during Irene, “the decision was made to secure fleet in low-lying locations, such as Bay Head, Hoboken, Suffern, Gladstone and Atlantic City.”

When asked why flooding in Hoboken couldn’t be anticipated during Sandy if the area was classified as “low-lying” during Irene, O’Connor said he was referring to the Hoboken terminal as low-lying, not the rail yard.

But documents show a different story. Months before Sandy struck, NJ Transit had in its possession a $46,000 climate change study — commissioned by the agency — that warned of higher storm surges and said the Kearny and Hoboken rail yards sit in “storm surge areas.”

Now, the agency has commissioned a new report — one to analyze NJ Transit’s performance during Sandy.

“Clearly there are lessons that can be learned,” Durso said.

Reporting for this article was developed in co-operation with WNYC/New Jersey Public Radio. WNYC reporters Kate Hinds and Andrea Bernstein contributed.

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On a broader scale, the new engines displayed Monday could well be viewed as emblematic of the improving financial health of Amtrak, which has long been dependent on subsidies from an often reluctant Congress.

More than 31 million passengers rode Amtrak in the 2012 fiscal year, generating a record $2.02 billion in ticket revenue. Amtrak said it will be able to pay back a $466 million federal loan for the locomotives over 25 years using net profits from the Northeast Corridor line, where ridership hit a record high last year for the ninth time in 10 years.

“The new Amtrak locomotives will help power the economic future of the Northeast region, provide more reliable and efficient service for passengers and support the rebirth of rail manufacturing in America,” Amtrak President Joseph Boardman said in a statement. “Built on the West Coast for service in the Northeast with suppliers from many states, businesses and workers from across the country are helping to modernize the locomotive fleet of America’s Railroad.”

Robert Puentes, a senior fellow in the Brooking Institution’s metropolitan policy program, said Amtrak isn’t the same organization it was a few years ago, relying on federal handouts.

“Even though Washington is mired in debt and dysfunction, Amtrak is reinventing itself,” Puentes said.

The new engines will be used on the Northeast Corridor between Washington, D.C., and Boston and on Keystone Corridor trains that run between Philadelphia and Harrisburg, Pa. Three were unveiled Monday before being sent out for testing. The first is due to go into service by this fall, and all 70 are expected to be in service by 2016.

Amtrak awarded the contract in 2010 to Munich-based Siemens AG, which has made a big investment in the American rail industry over the last decade. The company makes about one of every three light-rail vehicles in North America and is building light-rail vehicles for Minneapolis, Houston and San Diego at the Sacramento plant where Amtrak’s locomotives are being produced.

Among the improvements in the new locomotives are computers that can diagnose problems in real time and take corrective action and a braking system capable of generating 100 percent of the energy it uses back to the electric grid, similar to the way a hybrid automobile’s motor acts as a generator when braking, according to Michael Cahill, CEO for Siemens Rail Systems. That could produce energy savings of up to $300 million over 20 years, the company estimates.

The locomotives also feature crumple zones, which are basically cages built onto the front end of the train that can absorb impact from a collision. The new models will be the first in North America to use them, in compliance with new federal safety guidelines, Cahill said.

The locomotives, called Amtrak Cities Sprinters, are based on Siemens’ latest European electric locomotive and will replace Amtrak equipment that has been in service for 20 to 30 years and has logged an average of 3.5 million miles.

Simply having the same type of locomotive in operation should cut costs, Amtrak spokesman Steve Kulm said. Amtrak now uses three locomotive models, requiring slightly different maintenance, parts and training.

“Now, we will have one model, one inventory and one training program, and all that will help efficiency,” Kulm said.

About 750 people are employed at Siemens’ Sacramento plant. The locomotive project also involves Siemens plants in Columbus, Ohio, Richland, Miss., and Alpharetta, Ga.

The ripple effect spreads farther. As a condition of the Department of Transportation loan, the majority of the products and materials used to build the locomotives must be made in the U.S. As a result, some lighting parts are coming from Connecticut, the driver’s seat from Wisconsin, insulation from Indiana, electronics from Texas and hydraulic parts from California. In all, 70 suppliers in 23 states are providing components, Siemens said.

Amtrak must still seek federal funding for a long list of planned and ongoing improvements, including replacing sections of pre-World War II electrical systems on the Northeast Corridor that cause regular disruptions. The fact that Amtrak has reduced its debt by 60 percent over the last 10 years and its federal operating subsidy to 12 percent could make it an easier sell.

“Ten years ago we were in a tougher spot,” Boardman, the Amtrak president, said last week. “Now Amtrak on the Northeast Corridor is in a much healthier position. We’re trying to maximize that, to the extent we can, to pay for what we should pay for on the Northeast Corridor.”

Copyright (2013) Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett speaks during an interview with Liz Claman of the Fox Business Network, in Omaha, Neb., Monday, May 6, 2013. An astute investor, Buffett has never gotten over the jet lag he felt after investing in US Airways decades ago. Nati Harnik / Associated Press

Noted 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 terrible results,” Buffett said, according to TheStreet . “It’s been a death trap for investors,” he said of the airline industry, after he was asked whether airline consolidation has altered his long-standing view that investors should stay away from airlines.

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