Month: August 2006

ROME, Ga. – The Rome Railroad was founded on Dec. 21, 1839, as the Memphis Branch Railroad and Steamboat Company of Georgia. The line’s 20-mile route between Rome, Ga., and Kingston, Ga., was completed in 1849. The following year, the company changed its name to the Rome Railroad Company. “From Rome, cotton and other commodities were shipped down river on the Coosa to Gadsden, Alabama and other points,” reads a historical marker in Kingston. The route was sold to the Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis Railway in 1894, which by that time leased the Western & Atlantic Railroad, which passed

LONDON – Thirty-four people had to be evacuated this lunchtime after a fire started on a lorry that was being transported on a freight train in the Channel Tunnel. Eurotunnel, the operator of the Channel Tunnel, said all services had to be suspended this afternoon due to the small blaze in which nobody was hurt. John Keefe, a spokesman for Eurotunnel, said: “It was a freight shuttle going through with about 34 people on board, who have all been evacuated safely. “Eurotunnel is conducting checks of the tunnel and its equipment. Once these investigations are completed, Eurotunnel will commence a

WASHINGTON – Calling it the most significant development in railroad brake technology since the 1870s, Federal Railroad Administrator Joseph H. Boardman announced his intention to propose revised federal rail safety regulations to facilitate the installation of Electronically Controlled Pneumatic (ECP) brake systems capable of preventing derailments and shortening train-stopping distances. “ECP brakes are to trains what anti-lock brakes are to automobiles—they provide better control,” Boardman said. “It offers a quantum improvement in rail safety,” he added. ECP brakes are applied uniformly and virtually instantaneously on every rail car throughout the train, rather than sequentially from one rail car to the