Passenger train travel on Amtrak and freight trains have been severely disrupted by a defect in a bridge near Rocky Mount, North Carolina that was discovered and required immediate repairs.

About 50 passenger and freight trains pass daily over the bridge which is near Rocky Mount, North Carolina, according to CSX Corp., owner of the rail line.

The company said it hoped to complete repairs in the next 24 hours but it could take longer.

“We are working to re-route trains,” said CSX spokeswoman Meg Scheu. “We have held some freight trains, but are working to re-route others.”

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In Japan a new bullet train is being tested that has a top speed of 360 kilometers per hour (223 mph). The East Japan Railway Company is testing the train to put into service between the cities of Tohoku, Yamagata, and Akita in Japan.

The prototype of the next-generation bullet train designed to travel at 360 kilometers per hour has been brought to Sendai for trial operations, East Japan Railway Co. (JR East) said.
Six “FASTECH 360Z” carriages were transported to Sendai on freighters from train factories in Kobe and other areas. They were transferred to trailers at the Port of Sendai and brought to a bullet train depot in Sendai.
FASTECH 360Z will begin trial operations on the Tohoku, Yamagata and Akita Shinkansen lines in April.
FASTECH 360Z carriages are smaller than FASTECH 360S, another version of the prototype that is used for test runs exclusively on the Tohoku Shinkansen. via  MSN-Mainichi Daily News.

In an attempt to get passengers flying out of one of the smaller regional airports in North Carolina and not driving to Raleigh Durham International Airport, US Airways has cut the airfare by 25 to 40 percent on all flights going out of Piedmont Triad International Airport. This will be interesting to see if it is a trend by US Airways and other airlines to boost regional airport traffic by lowering fares at the smaller airports and bring people back, as opposed to having them drive to the larger airports that offer direct flights.

US Airways announced Monday that it was cutting fares on flights to 33 cities from Piedmont Triad International Airport. The airline has 23 daily flights from PTI, making it the airport’s largest carrier.

Prices on advanced purchases have been cut an average of 25 percent while walk-up fares, the most common for business travelers, have been cut an average of 40 percent.
The new fare structure took effect immediately, Feb. 13. Among the cities with discounted fares are Chicago, Boston, Dallas and Phoenix. Most of the flights will go through the US Airways hubs in Charlotte or Philadelphia.

US Airways to offer discounted fares from PTI - 2006-02-13.

When planning your dream trip, it always makes sense to book travel insurance in case of cancellation due to serious illness or other catastrophes. We so often expect all to go well, but when a crisis does arise it can save a great deal of grief and heartache if you have a policy that can help. The Houston Chronicle has an interesting article on travel insurance today. Here is an excerpt:

Travel insurance — specifically trip cancellation insurance, emergency medical assistance and medical evacuation coverage — can protect the costly investment a major trip can involve. It also can ensure that you and your family get good medical care if you get sick or injured while you’re away.
You aren’t likely to need travel insurance if your idea of a trip is piling into the car and driving 50 miles to grandma’s house. But if you’re planning a major jaunt, especially abroad, it’s something to consider.
“I think the longer you book in advance and the more expensive your trip, the more you should consider buying travel insurance,” said Tim Jarrell, publisher of Fodor’s, the guidebook company. “If it’s an expensive or once-in-a-lifetime trip, you should get travel insurance just in case the trip is canceled or something happens.” Read the rest at the  Houston Chronicle.

If you love to travel by train, or are looking to save some money when you travel next, Amtrak is having a sale of train travel. Fares are up to 90 percent off.

For example, traveling from Atlanta to New Orleans can be done for as low as 31 dollars one way. That is a significant savings over airfare between  these two cities.

Visit Amtrak today to save with their Hot Deals.

A geeky tool, RSS, is entering the mainstream, and the travel industry is learning that it can be very useful for pushing out deals and bargains on specific cities and flights for travel.

Travel sites are, like many other Internet companies, stuck using the acronym RSS, which computer geeks have dubbed this process. The acronym stands for “Really Simple Syndication” - a term that is not particularly user friendly; “grabbing” is a more appropriate word.
Regardless, for now users must look for the little orange (usually) RSS box, as on the front page of Orbitz.com or Sidestep.com, or type in the Web address of the site’s RSS feature (for example, rss.travelocity.com) to which they want to subscribe.
From there, the process is often as simple as billed. On Orbitz’s RSS page, for instance, you click on the category of deals you want featured on your MyYahoo page, like flight deals or hotel and vacation deals to a specific destination. After signing into your personalized page once, those deals appear and are updated according to the schedule of the travel site. via New York Times.

If you are interested in  RSS, or using it already, do not forget  to click on the orange RSS logo on our sidebar to sign up for The Travel Bloggers Feed. We  put the whole feed into your RSS reader every day.

This sounds like the ride from Hell. It is one thing to have a traveling fiasco, another to have it between Florida and New York.

Amtrak’s Silver Meteor train arrived in New York from Florida more than 28 hours late on New Year’s Eve, releasing more than 100 exhausted, hungry and angry passengers.

Their train had been stuck in Jacksonville, Fla., for half a day because of a derailed CSX freight train, then stopped again in rural Georgia as they waited for the tracks to reopen. A litany of complaints echoed through New York’s Penn Station as about 100 passengers finally stepped off the escalator from the tracks below.

Some train cars ran out of toilet paper. People ran out of money to buy food. Young children were cranky and scared, and some adults were concerned about running out of medications, passengers said. USATODAY.com.

The Swiss have decided that smoke filled trains are to be a thing of the past. They will be  joining Italy, Belgium, Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden in making their trains  smoke free.

“In addition to protecting non-smoking passengers and staff from passive smoke, the ban will also free up more seats, as smoking compartments — typically underutilized — are currently being converted into non-smoking ones,” notes Fabrice Morel, President and CEO of the Rail Europe Group. Within 6 months, all ashtrays will be removed from SBB trains, a process that has already begun. Smoking is prohibited in Swiss rail stations except in designated areas and on the outdoor platforms.

This will be a most welcome transition for the non smoking traveler.

Travel is rebounding after the 911 attacks and the holiday season is showing the that even with higher prices for hotels and airline tickets, people are traveling in record numbers. Colorado is seeing the benefits in this article from the Denver Post:

record number of Coloradans will pack their suitcases this holiday weekend despite higher travel costs, according to a survey released Monday by AAA Colorado.

The auto club estimates that 31 percent more Coloradans will travel this weekend than did last year.

“The bottom line is people are finally rebounding from tragedies such as the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks,” said AAA Colorado spokeswoman Alexa Gromko. “Plus, we’re seeing some of the best early-season snow we’ve seen in years. The hype is up.” Nationally, 63.5 million Americans are expected to travel 50 miles or more from home this weekend, a 1.7 percent increase over last year.

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