Biden infrastructure plan: Amtrak vows new routes. Here's where

...Amtrak late Wednesday released a proposed map of new and expanded service if it can land the $80 billion President Joe Biden proposed for the rail service as part of his American Jobs Plan, a massive $2 trillion plan to rebuild the nation's aging infrastructure...

https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/news/2021/04/01/biden-infrastructure-plan-amtrak-vows-new-routes-american-jobs-plan/4834427001/

Europe’s flight-shame movement has travelers taking trains to save the planet - The Washington Post

If he had hopped on a plane, Johan Hilm would have gotten from Sweden to Austria in two hours. Instead, the lanky Swede made an epic overland journey by rail, bus and ferry that took more than 30 hours. He joined a growing crowd of Europeans who are spurning air travel out of concern for the environment this summer.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/europes-flight-shame-movement-has-travelers-taking-trains-to-save-the-planet/2019/08/02/1bd38486-ac96-11e9-9411-a608f9d0c2d3_story.html

Silent, water-emitting trains fuelled by hydrogen ‘to be introduced to UK railways in two years’ | The Independent

Upgrading existing rolling stock means diesel can be phased out without costly electrification of railways....
https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/hydrogen-trains-replace-diesel-electric-alstrom-eversholt-air-pollution-a8715861.html

America Could Stop Almost Half of Train Crashes. Here’s Why It Doesn’t. -- The Daily Beast

Penn Central Commuter Train N-48 was en route to New Canaan, Connecticut, with a three-man crew and 60 to 80 passengers aboard, when disaster struck. The train's engineer, Frank J. Bojarski, inexplicably ignored an order that should have prompted him to stop the train at the crossing and yield to another train, N-49, headed in the opposite direction. ....
https://www.thedailybeast.com/america-could-stop-almost-half-of-train-crashes-heres-why-it-doesnt

Experts: Lives at risk if no sleep tests for train engineers

U.S. officials are abandoning plans to require sleep apnea screening for truck drivers and train engineers, a decision that safety experts say puts millions of lives at risk....
https://apnews.com/ac5ac5c34bf64a09af0a0678e0823ff6/US-nixes-sleep-apnea-test-plan-for-truckers,-train-engineers

Stable Rollers - Numberphile

Tadashi Tokieda is back. This time talking about stability, instability and train wheels....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ku8BOBwD4hc&feature=youtu.be

Wind power now runs all electric passenger trains in the Netherlands

All of the electric passenger trains running in the Netherlands are now powered entirely by wind. One year ahead of schedule, Dutch railway company NS announced its entire electric train fleet is running on 100-percent wind power as of January 1, 2017, ushering in a new era of green transportation. Renewable energy advocates hope the early success will inspire planners to incorporate wind-powered trains in other high-speed rail projects around the world, including some proposed in the United States.
http://inhabitat.com/wind-power-now-runs-all-electric-passenger-trains-in-the-netherlands/

With Industry Help, Oil Train Regulations May Fall Short Of Protecting Public Safety

In early June, a Union Pacific train carrying Bakken crude oil derailed outside the small Oregon town of Mosier. It was a relatively calm day in the otherwise windy Columbia River Gorge, which prevented the accident from forming a fireball that could have decimated the town. Still, at least four cars caught fire and spilled 42,000 gallons of crude into the Columbia River, forcing the evacuation of several homes and a school near the accident.

The derailment was far from the first accident involving oil trains — 2015 was the most expensive year on record for oil train explosions, with damage costing the United States $29.7 million. Three major derailments and explosions occurred that year alone, including one in West Virginia that forced the evacuation of 1,000 residents.

In May of 2015, the Department of Transportation enacted new safety rules aimed at preventing oil trains, which had seen a 25-fold increase in the amount of oil shipped by rail between 2010 and 2014, from derailing and endangering communities alongside the tracks.

In Mosier, however, those safety regulations weren’t enough. The initial findings from the investigation into the accident revealed that broken screws along the track most likely caused the derailment. Those same screws, however, had been cleared by Union Pacific’s own safety inspection just weeks before the derailment....
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2016/07/13/3796792/oil-train-regulations-industry-overview/

Inside the Massive Factory Where Siemens Builds Trains

Inside the massive Siemens train factory near Sacramento, Ca, building one of the most advanced, and fastest, trains in the US.