BARCELONA, Spain — The deadly train wreck in southern Spain has cast a pall over one of the nation’s symbols of success.
The collision Sunday killed at least 40 people and injured dozens more, according to officials as of Monday night.
Here’s a look at the history of a rail network that became a crown jewel of contemporary Spain, by the numbers.
The number of years since Spain inaugurated its first high-speed AVE, which means “bird” in Spanish.
Both before and after that milestone, successive Spanish governments devoted tax revenues and European Union development aid to its high-speed rail network that quickly caught up and surpassed high-speed pioneers Japan and France.
The first high-speed train to speed across Spain preceded the opening of the 1992 Summer Olympic Games in Barcelona by two months.
Both marked high points in Spain’s recent history after it emerged from the economic doldrums and cultural and political isolation of the 20th-century dictatorship of Gen. Francisco Franco.
How many kilometers, equal to 2,400 miles, of high-speed rail that Spain has laid over the last three-plus decades for its 49 million residents.
Only China — with 45,000 kilometers (28,000 miles) for its 1.4 billion people — has more high-speed track, according to the International Union of Railways.
Spain’s commitment to high-speed rail, which the railway union defines as rails for trains going 250 kph (155 mph), has helped Spain shed its reputation of often being behind the industrial curve compared to other leading economies.
Spain’s train builders have been able to capitalize on its domestic expansion. A Spanish consortium built Saudi Arabia’s high-speed line connecting the holy cities of Mecca and Medina that opened service in 2018.
The approximate number of hours a train trip took between Madrid and Barcelona before and after the 2008 adoption of high-speed rail.
On an old, slow train, the 600-kilometer (385-mile) journey between Spain’s biggest cities used to take around seven hours, meaning many business travelers opted to take a plane.
Now that trip can be done in 2.5 hours, and Spain announced plans in November to modernize the Madrid-Barcelona line to allow trains to reach 350 kph (218 mph), matching the fastest Chinese trains. That would bring the transit time down to less than 2 hours.
The AVE has helped unite a country whose main population centers other than Madrid are located on its coasts, separated by some of the most sparsely populated areas in Europe.
Every region and provincial capital has pushed hard for its own high-speed line. Some critics say the administrations may have spent too much on questionable lines to the detriment of investing in local commuter lines, which suffer many more delays than the high-speed rail does.
Missing out on an AVE line and stop has become synonymous with economic decline for a provincial city.
The move away from air travel to rail also remains a key plank of Spain’s green energy and electrification plan to fight climate change.
The number of deadly accidents involving a high-speed train in Spain’s history. One official described Sunday’s collision as transforming a train into a “mass of twisted metal.”
Spanish officials say they are still at a loss to understand what went wrong Sunday night when one high-speed train jumped the track and collided with another fast train going the other direction.
Álvaro Fernández, the president of public train company Renfe, told Spanish public radio station RNE that both trains were traveling well under the speed limit and “human error could be ruled out.”
One of the two trains was operated by Renfe and another by a private company.
Spain’s worst train accident this century occurred in 2013, when 80 people died after a train derailed in the country’s northwest. An investigation concluded the train was traveling 179 kph (111 mph) on a stretch with an 80 kph (50 mph) speed limit when it left the tracks. That stretch of track was not high speed.
The number of operators with high-speed trains in Spain.
Only in 2022 did Spain open its rail network to private companies to compete against Renfe.
The first company to get into the private high-speed market was Iryo, which is Italian-owned. It was followed by the French company Ouigo.
It was an Iryo train that first derailed on Sunday, knocking the Renfe train off its track. Iryo has said it is working with officials to determine the causes of the accident.
Public concern is particularly high in Bangkok due to the frequent and sometimes fatal construction accidents on major road projects. In the latest case, a construction crane collapsed on Thursday, killing two people, just a day after the train tragedy in which 32 people died.
Public outrage has centered on Italian-Thai Development, the contractor responsible for both sites where the past week’s accidents occurred. The company, also known as Italthai, was also the joint lead contractor for the 33-story State Audit Office building, which toppled while under construction in March, killing about 100 people.
It was the only major structure in Thailand to collapse from an earthquake whose epicenter was in Myanmar, more than 1,300 kilometers (800 miles) away.
Twenty-three individuals and companies were indicted in that case, including Italthai’s President Premchai Karnasuta, on charges including professional negligence causing death and document forgery. Italthai, a major developer in Thailand which has won many government projects, has denied wrongdoing in that case as well as the more recent crane crashes.
Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul has responded to the latest incidents by ordering the Transport Ministry to terminate contracts with, blacklist and prosecute the companies involved. Unfinished projects will be funded by seizing performance bonds and bank guarantees, with the government reserving the right to sue for extra costs. Additionally, a “scorecard” system to keep track of contractors’ performance records should be enforced by early February.
Investigators can often find the technical cause of accidents, such as human error or equipment failure.
But critics say construction safety faces broader systemic problems, pointing to lax regulation, poor enforcement, and corruption. A lengthy investigation determined that the building collapse in March, though triggered by an earthquake, was fundamentally caused by flawed structural design and effort to evade regulations.
“I don’t think Thailand fails in terms of the body of knowledge in engineering or even in the technical aspects,” said Panudech Chumyen, a civil engineering lecturer at Bangkok’s Thammasat University. “I think there’s a failure in our system; there are so many gaps that I don’t know where we should begin to close them.”
He said the safety challenges range from laxity in law enforcement to red tape and the lack of integration in safety policies among different stakeholders in projects. He also pointed to a shortage of independent assessors without conflicts of interest, which often results in performance reports that do not reflect reality.
The involvement of Chinese companies in the building collapse, as well as troubled rail and road projects, has also drawn attention.
Wednesday’s train accident took place on a line that is part of a Thai-Chinese high-speed railway project linking the capital to northeastern Thailand. It is associated with an ambitious plan to connect China with Southeast Asia under Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative, which has caused controversy in many of its activities around the world, including corruption scandals.
Concern over Chinese construction practices increased after the collapse last year of the State Audit Office project, in which the Chinese company China Railway No. 10 was co-lead contractor with Italthai. Its Bangkok representative, Zhang Chuanling, was charged with violating Thailand’s Foreign Business Act by using Thai nationals as nominee shareholders to hide Chinese control of its local affiliate.
Thais were outraged by the collapse. Many took to social media to post criticism and images of the so- called “tofu-dreg projects” or “tofu buildings,” a term used to describe shoddy buildings or infrastructure built too hurriedly or with payoffs to allow them to evade regulatory standards. The phrase was popularized to describe such a damage after the 2008 earthquake in Sichuan, China.
China’s ambassador to Thailand, Zhang Jianwei, said Thursday that China requires its companies to follow the rules when participating in overseas projects, and that Beijing is willing to “guide Chinese companies to actively cooperate with the Thai authorities’ investigation.”
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AP researcher Shihuan Chen in Beijing contributed to this report.
VALHALLA, N.Y. — A more than $182 million settlement has been reached with victims of a deadly 2015 collision between a train and an SUV at a suburban New York crossing.
The majority of the settlement with Metro-North Railroad goes to the families of five passengers killed when an SUV got stuck on the tracks in Valhalla, about 20 miles (32 kilometers) north of New York City, the Journal News reports.
About $79 million of the settlement will go to one specific passenger, based on their projected lifetime earnings, according to the newspaper. Payouts to the families of other passengers killed in the crash range from $35 million to $4 million.
The Journal News reviewed the settlement last week before it was sealed by a judge and no longer made available to the public.
A jury in 2024 found that Metro-North bore 71% of the liability for the five passengers’ deaths and the injuries of others, and 63% for the death of the SUV driver whose car was on the tracks. The jury specifically faulted the train engineer and the railroad’s oversight of the line’s electrified third rail.
Andrew Maloney, a lawyer for some of the roughly 30 injured passengers, said the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which operates the commuter system that also serves parts of Connecticut, should have resolved the litigation sooner.
“This should have never taken 11 years,” he said Monday. “They dragged it out.”
Maloney added that problems identified with the third rail’s design still have not been corrected all these years later.
The MTA declined to comment on the specifics of the settlement. But it said in a statement that it has continued to work with state and federal transportation officials on “material railroad crossing safety enhancements throughout the railroad network over the last decade.”
The Feb. 3, 2015, crash occurred during the evening rush hour as the SUV drove onto the tracks while navigating in backed-up traffic.
The crossing gate arm came down onto the vehicle and the driver ended up driving further onto the tracks.
The train smashed into the SUV at about 50 mph (80 kph) after the engineer hit the emergency brake only three seconds before the fiery collision. Parts of the railroad’s electrified third rail ripped off the ground, piercing the SUV’s gas tank and slicing into the train’s first passenger car.
BELGRADE, Serbia — Serbia’s protesting university students on Sunday collected signatures throughout the country for their request for an early parliamentary election that they hope would oust the autocratic government of President Aleksandar Vucic from office.
Braving freezing weather, the students set up nearly 500 stands in dozens of cities, towns and villages in the Balkan country for residents to sign the election demand, which isn’t a formal petition. Students have said that Sunday’s action was meant to put further pressure on Vucic and as a test of support.
Young protesters have been at the forefront of a nationwide movement against Vucic’s populist rule in Serbia. More than a year of street protests first started in November 2024 after a train station disaster that killed 16 people.
The concrete canopy collapse in the northern city of Novi Sad was widely blamed on alleged rampant corruption and disregard of construction and safety rules during renovation work at the station. No one has been held responsible for the tragedy.
Vucic has refused to schedule an immediate early vote, but has suggested that it could be held sometime next year. Both parliamentary and presidential elections are otherwise due in 2027.
“We have stands that serve to connect with the citizens,” said Igor Dojnov, a student manning one of the points in central Belgrade.
While street protests have subsided, discontent with Vucic’s government is believed to be widespread.
Milca Cankovic Kadijevic, a resident of Belgrade, said that she supported the students, because “I have a desire to live decently — me, my children and my grandchildren.”
Vucic has formally promised to take Serbia into the European Union, but he has maintained close links with Russia and China, while facing accusations of clamping down on democratic freedoms and allowing corruption and organized crime to flourish.
He has denied this, and accused the protesters of attempting to orchestrate a “color revolution” under unspecified orders from the West. The term “color revolution” has been used to describe a series of mass protests at the beginning of the 21st century that sometimes led to the toppling of governments in the former Soviet Union states, the former Yugoslavia, the Middle East and Asia.
NEW YORK — NEW YORK (AP) — Ka’Von Wooden loved trains. The 15-year-old had an encyclopedic knowledge of New York City’s subway system and dreamed of becoming a train operator.
Instead, on a December morning in 2022, Ka’Von died after he climbed to the roof of a moving J train in Brooklyn and then fell onto the tracks as it headed onto the Williamsburg Bridge.
He is one of more than a dozen New Yorkers, many young boys, who have been killed or badly injured after falling off speeding trains. Other risks include being crushed between the train and tunnel walls and being electrocuted by high-voltage subway tracks. “Subway surfing” dates back a century but it has been fueled by social media.
Early Saturday morning, New York City police found two girls dead — ages 12 and 13 — in what apparently was a subway surfing game that turned out to be fatal, authorities said. Metropolitan Transportation Authority President Demetrius Crichlow said in a statement that “getting on top of a subway car isn’t ‘surfing’ — it’s suicide.”
Authorities have tried to address the problem with public awareness campaigns — including a new one featuring Grammy Award-winning rapper Cardi B — and by deploying drones to catch thrill-seekers in the act. But for some, a more fundamental question is not being addressed: Why are kids like Ka’Von able to climb on top of subway cars in the first place?
“When Ka’Von died … literally two weeks later, another child died. And another one. That makes no sense,” his mother, Y’Vonda Maxwell, told The Associated Press, saying transit and law enforcement officials haven’t done enough. “Why should my child have not been the end?”
Making trains harder to climb, and train surfers more easy to detect with cameras and sensors, could be part of the solution, some experts say. The MTA, which operates the subway system, has said it is studying the issue. But it has yet to report any broad new rollout of technology or physical barriers that might make it harder for people to get on top of trains.
In June, Crichlow told a news conference to introduce a new public awareness campaign that the MTA was experimenting with pieces of circular rubber tubing designed to prevent a person from being able to climb between two cars to the top of a train.
It was being piloted in between two cars to make sure it would fit into the tight spacing of the tunnels and that it wouldn’t break down or harm service or riders, he said.
“So far the equipment seems to be holding up,” he said.
Six people died surfing subway trains in the city last year, up from five in 2023.
Tyesha Elcock, the MTA worker who operated the train Ka’Von rode the day he died, is among those who thinks more should be done to prevent deaths.
The first sign of trouble that day was when the train’s emergency brake kicked in, she said.
Elcock discovered Ka’Von’s body between the train’s seventh and eighth cars. A group of sad-faced teens on the train made it clear what had happened. “Did y’all leave your friend back there?” she asked them.
Elcock said another operator traveling in the opposite direction saw Ka’Von on the train’s roof and reported it over a radio. Because of patchy radio service, she said, she didn’t get the warning.
But she thinks an even simpler solution could have saved Ka’Von’s life: locking the doors at the ends of subway cars. That would cut off access to the narrow gaps between train cars where subway surfers use handholds to hoist themselves onto the roof.
“Lock it when we’re in service so people can’t climb up and be on top of the train,” Elcock said.
The MTA’s leaders have said that they looking into possible ways to prevent subway surfing, including engineering solutions, but the agency declined to make any of its safety experts available for an interview.
In 2023, Richard Davey, then the head of buses and subways for the MTA, said officials were “weighing” the option of locking doors between cars — which is now done only on a handful of 1980s-era trains. But he said that locking doors “brings its own risk.” Some New Yorkers have complained that locking the passageways between train cars might prevent them from escaping to another part of the train during an emergency.
Under questioning from City Council members and reporters last year, MTA officials ruled out some other physical interventions, including building more barriers to prevent access to tracks, or putting covers over the gaps between train cars to prevent would-be surfers from climbing up.
“Listen, you have to be able to do work on top of a train car,” MTA CEO Janno Lieber said at a news conference, adding that you can’t “cover it with barbed wire.”
The MTA has asked social media companies to take down videos glamorizing subway surfing, and reported in June that, in 2025, more than 1,800 videos had been taken down.
It’s also promoted public service announcements telling people to “Ride inside, stay alive,” in voices of local teens and, with the city’s schools, released a comic-book themed campaign this past summer designed to show the dangers of subway surfing and impact on loved ones.
More than 300,000 New York City school children use the subway to get to and from school each day.
The NYPD reported that arrests of alleged subway surfers rose to 229 last year, up from 135 the year before. Most were boys, with an average age of around 14, according to police. The youngest was 9 years old.
Branislav Dimitrijevic, an engineering professor of the New Jersey Institute of Technology, said retrofitting trains to prevent roof access would be expensive.
“There’s so many stories in transportation where things can be fixed, but they cost a lot of money. And then you ask the public, ’Are you willing to (pay) for us to fix this? But your taxes would go up tremendously.’ And people say ‘no,’” Dimitrijevic said.
Dimitrijevic suggested the MTA might be able to install cameras and use artificial intelligence to detect riders trying to climb a train. Andrew Albert, a nonvoting member of the MTA board, said he has been asking the agency about the plausibility of physical sensors but hasn’t gotten a response.
The NYPD has patrolled popular subway surfing routes with field response teams and drones, reporting in July that it had used them to make 200 rescues, mostly of teens. But the missions can’t be everywhere at once. They also say they make home visits to the homes of subway surfers they’ve identified.
Trains in some other cities, such as Hong Kong and Dubai, aren’t easily climbable. They have streamlined bodies, lack handles on the outside and don’t open between cars.
Some rail systems have resorted to extreme tactics to keep people from riding on top of trains. In Indonesia, railway officials once installed hanging metal flails to try and deter passengers from riding atop train cars to avoid overcrowding. They also tried spraying riders with red paint and hitting them with brooms.
The MTA purchased a few new subway cars that don’t have the outdoor gaps exploited by subway surfers, but they represent just a sliver of the number currently in service, and won’t be deployed on lines popular for surfing anytime soon.
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Associated Press reporter Marc Levy in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, contributed to this report.
FILE – Cleophus Cooksey Jr., accused of killing eight people over a three-week span in late 2017, listens during his trial in Maricopa County Superior Court, May 5, 2025, in Phoenix, Ariz. (Mark Henle/The Arizona Republic via AP, Pool, File )
LISBON, Portugal — Details started to emerge about the people who were killed when a streetcar in Portugal’s capital derailed, as the first investigative report examining what caused the popular Lisbon tourist attraction to crash was expected to be released Friday.
The distinctive yellow-and-white Elevador da Gloria, which is classified as a national monument, was packed with locals and international tourists Wednesday evening when it came off its rails. Sixteen people were killed and 21 more were injured.
Multiple agencies are investigating what Portugal’s Prime Minister Luis Montenegro has described as “one of the biggest tragedies of our recent past.”
The government’s Office for Air and Rail Accident Investigations said it has concluded its analysis of the wreckage and would issue a preliminary report Friday. Chief police investigator Nelson Oliveira said a preliminary police report is expected within 45 days.
Portugal’s attorney-general’s office said Thursday that eight of the dead have been identified: five Portuguese, two South Koreans and a Swiss person.
There is “a high possibility,” based on recovered documents and other evidence, that the victims also include two Canadians, one American, one German and one Ukrainian, according to the head of the national investigative police, Luís Neves. Investigators are still working to identify three of the victims.
The transport workers’ trade union SITRA said the streetcar’s brakeman, André Marques, was among the dead.
Spaniards, Israelis, Portuguese, Brazilians, Italians and French people were injured, the executive director of Portugal’s National Health Service, Álvaro Santos Almeida, said. Five remained in serious condition.
“This tragedy … goes beyond our borders,” Montenegro said in a televised address from his official residence. Lisbon hosted around 8.5 million tourists last year, and long lines of people typically form for the streetcar’s short and picturesque trip a few hundred meters up and down a city street. Thursday was a national day of mourning.
Hundreds of people attended a somber Mass Thursday evening at Lisbon’s majestic Church of Saint Dominic. Montenegro, Portuguese President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa and Lisbon Mayor Carlos Moedas were among the stricken attendees, some dressed in black, in the candlelit sanctuary.
The electric streetcar, also known as a funicular, is harnessed by steel cables and can carry more than 40 people. Officials declined to comment on whether a faulty brake or a snapped cable may have prompted the descending streetcar to careen into a building where the steep downtown road bends.
“The city needs answers,” the mayor said, adding that talk of possible causes is “mere speculation.”
Aside from investigations by police, public prosecutors and government transport experts, the company that operates Lisbon’s streetcars and buses, Carris, said it has opened its own investigation.
The streetcar, which has been in service since 1914, underwent a scheduled full maintenance program last year and the company conducted a 30-minute visual inspection of it every day, Carris’ CEO Pedro de Brito Bogas said Thursday.
The streetcar was last inspected nine hours before the derailment, he said during a news conference, but he didn’t detail the visual inspection nor specify when questioned whether all the cables were tested.
Lisbon’s City Council halted operations of three other funicular streetcars while immediate inspections were carried out.
Felicity Ferriter, a 70-year-old British tourist, said she was unpacking her suitcase at a nearby hotel when she heard “a horrendous crash.”
The couple had seen the streetcar when they arrived and intended to ride on it the next day.
“It was to be one of the highlights of our holiday,” she said, adding: “It could have been us.”
Francesca di Bello, a 23-year-old Italian tourist on a family vacation, had been on the Elevador da Gloria just hours before the derailment.
They walked by the crash site on Thursday, expressing shock at the wreckage. Asked if she would ride a funicular again in Portugal or elsewhere, Di Bello was emphatic: “Definitely not.”
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Hernán Muñoz in Lisbon contributed to this report.
OMAHA, Neb. — The Transportation Department is going to train 163 track inspectors to dramatically increase the number of people who know how to spot critical problems with railroad bridges, but the railroads themselves will still be responsible for inspecting their own bridges and the results will still be kept confidential.
Currently, there are only seven Federal Railroad Administration employees trained to assess bridges, although their primary responsibility is to review each railroad’s inspection plan to make sure they have a good plan in place and that won’t change. But this move will train significantly more people to spot structural problems on railroad bridges while they are out inspecting the tracks. Both federal and state track inspectors will be trained.
“The Trump Administration is delivering on its promises to make government more efficient and keep travelers safe,” Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said. “Leveraging our existing, dedicated workforce to improve oversight of railroad bridge safety is another common-sense win for Americans.”
Jared Cassity, who is the National Safety Director for the nation’s largest rail union, SMART-TD, agreed that having more people trained to spot bridge problems is a good thing, but these inspectors still have more than 70,000 railroad bridges out there across the country to assess.
“The safety of the railroad system relies upon a multitude of components, but few are as critical to the public and the men and women we represent as the integrity of the bridges America’s trains traverse,” said Cassity, whose union represents conductors.
Because there are so few bridge inspectors at the Federal Railroad Administration, roughly 10% of U.S. railroads have not had their bridge management programs audited even 15 years after the rule on Bridge Safety Standards went into effect. But that issue is primarily at smaller short-line railroads. The Federal Railroad Administration said that the biggest railroads that deliver more than 90% of the nation’s freight have all been audited on a regular basis.
But there have still been high-profile rail bridge collapses like the one in Montana two years ago that sent a train hauling petroleum products into the Yellowstone River, sending tar balls downstream that had to be cleaned up. An Oregon railroad bridge maintained by a short-line railroad also collapsed earlier this year underneath a train — three years after it caught fire.
Congress required the railroads to keep bridge inspection reports confidential because of concerns that a terrorist could use them to pinpoint vulnerable bridges. There are provisions of the law that allow state and local officials to request the reports, but those officials have often complained that it is still hard to get that information.
The Association of American Railroads trade group said this move to get more inspectors trained will help ensure rail bridges are safe.
“This important step complements the industry’s own comprehensive bridge management safety programs and rigorous inspections, which will further validate the thousands of rail bridges that keep our economy moving remain structurally sound and properly maintained,” association spokeswoman Jessica Kahanek said.
Some are well-worn warnings as familiar as the changing of seasons. Others are slow burns that end with a bang. Still others are just plain eerie.
Stories of spiritual entities, paranormal activity and creepy cryptids are passed through generations the world over, becoming local legends that only sometimes reach across borders and cultures.
So if the sordid tales you grew up with no longer make you shiver, it’s time to reanimate your roster with global tales of ghosts, hauntings, and petrifying processions.
With Halloween nigh, and the season in many parts of the world ripe for campfires and spooky stories, people gravitate toward fear even in a complex and sometimes scary world. Here are some favorites — lore and fiction, with maybe some truth sprinkled throughout — that The Associated Press gathered from its journalists around the planet:
A visitor dressed in a ghost costume at Goosebump market as a part of Halloween festival in Bangkok, Thailand, Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2024. (AP Photo/Sakchai Lalit)
China: The corpse walkers
A visitor dressed in a ghost costume at Goosebump market as a part of Halloween festival in Bangkok, Thailand, Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2024. (AP Photo/Sakchai Lalit)
A street sign for Balete Drive is seen in Quezon City, Philippines, Friday, Oct. 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila)
Dogs walk in a dimly lit portion of supposedly haunted Balete Drive in Quezon City, Philippines, Friday, Oct. 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila)
Roberto Perez, a 53-year-old who works part-time near Balete Drive, is seen here in Quezon City, Philippines, Friday, Oct. 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila)
An effigy is seen near a railway track where two commuter trains collided in 1987, killing 139 people, in Bintaro, Indonesia, Friday, Oct. 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Tatan Syuflana)
A young girl walks next to a railway track near the scene of a 1987 train collision that killed 139 people in Bintaro, Indonesia, Friday, Oct. 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Tatan Syuflana)
Motorists ride near a railway track where two commuter trains collided in 1987, killing 139 people, in Bintaro, Indonesia, Friday, Oct. 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Tatan Syuflana)
A woman walks in an important Brazilian historical construction from the 18th century named Arco do Teles, in Rio de Janeiro, Friday, Oct. 25, 2024. (Bruna Prado/AP Photo)
If you were out on the road in China in the old days — if you believe the stories, that is — you might have encountered a strange procession.
First, a man carrying a white paper lantern and scattering fake paper money ahead of them, chanting, “Yo ho, yo ho.” Then, a towering, hooded black figure wearing a ghastly mask and marching in an awkward, wooden gait. Bringing up the rear, another man guiding the giant by touch, perhaps with a black cat.
They were corpse walkers — and the giant was the corpse.
Bad things happen when someone gets buried far from home: Without descendants to feed their spirit and keep their grave clean, they’ll have a hard time settling in. They could even come back as a hungry ghost. So when a traveler died, the family would hire people who knew the strange art of walking a stiff body home.
When interviewer Liao Yiwu asked about memories of corpse walkers in the 2000s, some said they’d use a black cat to imbue the body with static electricity to make it walk. Others said there was a third man hiding under the cloak and giving the corpse a piggyback ride.
People kept their distance, he wrote, but the corpse walkers were always welcome at inns because they paid three times the normal rate and were said to bring good luck.
— By David Cohen in Bangkok
France: The legend of St. Denis
One of France’s oldest spooky legends is also one of its most gruesome, because it involves a walking headless corpse.
Said to have been Paris’ first bishop, Denis — later St. Denis — went on to lend his name to what is now the northern Paris suburb of Saint-Denis, famous for its magnificent basilica, its soccer stadium and the Olympic village that housed athletes during the Paris Games.
The third-century Roman rulers of what was then Gaul were apparently less than thrilled that Denis and companions Rustique and Éleuthère were making converts. Even after tossing them in prison, Denis continued to celebrate Mass. In some accounts, Denis suffered all manner of unspeakable tortures to make him renounce his faith — not just run-of-the-mill flagellation, but also mauling by famished wild beasts and being locked in a scorching oven.
Eventually, the three were sentenced to death and beheaded.
Legend has it that Denis’ corpse, lifted by two angels, picked up his severed head and walked from the Mount of Martyrs — the supposed execution site now called Montmartre — for about 6 kilometers (nearly 4 miles) before collapsing in the village of Catulliacum, now the town of Saint-Denis.
In Montmartre today, Suzanne Buisson Square has a statue of St. Denis holding his head, which he is said to have washed in the waters of a fountain there before staggering away with it.
— By John Leicester in Paris
Mongolia: The death worm
Slithering beneath the vast dunes of the Gobi Desert, legend has it, is the monstrous Mongolian Death Worm. It kills prey by squirting lethal venom and can even electrocute from a distance. So goes the folklore that has since inspired depictions of deadly giant worms in movies and fiction. In Mongolia, the creature is known as olgoi khorkhoi, which roughly translates as “intestine worm.”
The critter became known abroad after American paleontologist and explorer Roy Chapman Andrews wrote about it in his 1926 book, “On the Trail of Ancient Man: A Narrative of the Field Work of the Central Asiatic Expeditions.” During a meeting with the Mongolian premier, Andrews was asked to capture a specimen of the giant worm.
“None of those present ever had seen the creature, but they all firmly believed in its existence and described it minutely,” he wrote. “It is shaped like a sausage about two feet long, has no head nor legs and is so poisonous that merely to touch it means instant death.”
Some believe the lore began with a more common animal — a snake called the Tartar sand boa. Others, undeterred, believe the giant worms exists. Subsequent expeditions have yet to yield any proof.
— By Emily Wang Fujiyama in Beijing
Brazil: Bárbara of the Pleasures
It’s the turn of the 19th century, and colonial Rio de Janeiro is bustling. There are merchants, vendors, enslaved people, sailors — and a Portuguese immigrant, about 20 years old, named Bárbara. Legend says she stabbed her sleeping husband to run off with a lover, who then began exploiting her. Bárbara killed him, too, and was on her own.
As the story goes, she turned to sex work inside the Teles Arch. The dank, dark passage led off the plaza where the Portuguese emperor sat, and members of the royal court became faithful clients of the beautiful courtesan known as Bárbara of the Pleasures.
But age and disease caught up to her. One chronicler, Hermeto Lima, wrote in 1921 of a hole in Bárbara’s nose, her bulging eyes, scratched eyelids and skeletal hands.
To rejuvenate, Bárbara started washing with animal blood. When that failed, it’s said, she used blood from infants abandoned in the Wheel of the Exposed — the revolving compartment for foundlings outside a Catholic institution. Between 1738 and 1848, 20,966 babies were left in the wheel, according to text of an imperial ministry report provided by Esther Arantes, a retired professor in the infancy department of the State University of Rio de Janeiro.
Paulo Knauss, 58, director of the Museum of the Brazilian Historical and Geographical Institute, shows how to use the “wheel of the exposed” or “wheel of the foundlings,” a 1738 mechanism used to deposit newborns for charitable institutions, at the Museum of the Brazilian Historical and Geographical Institute in Rio de Janeiro, Friday, Oct. 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Bruna Prado)
A “wheel of the exposed” or “wheel of the foundlings,” a 1738 mechanism used to deposit newborns for charitable institutions, is seen at the Museum of the Brazilian Historical and Geographical Institute in Rio de Janeiro, Friday, Oct. 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Bruna Prado)
Arantes’ archival research yielded no evidence of Bárbara, but Rio’s rumor mill claimed otherwise:
Whenever someone brought a baby to the wheel, “the miserable woman, like a toad, came out from her hiding place, and ran to steal the child,” Lima wrote, adding Bárbara would make sure to drip its blood upon her leprous ulcers.
Bárbara disappeared, but her story lingers. Word is that she still prowls Teles Arch by night, surviving on the blood of babes.
The “madam” in question often walked around hostels with her red heels, especially at night, the sound of “koi koi” trailing behind her. You dare not come out if anyone raised an alarm that they heard the sound. Sometimes horrified students ran out and hostels were shut until morning, or even for days.
The backstory? No one knows for sure, but one popular theory was that she was fired as a teacher and died days later — vengeful, jobless and sad.
— By Dyepkazah Shibayan in Abuja, Nigeria
Britain: The Talbot Hotel
A sobbing woman. Ghostly, dressed in white — or, sometimes, black. And a storied oak staircase with royal connections.
The spooky stories revolve around a staircase that still stands at The Talbot Hotel in Oundle — a United Kingdom market town about 85 miles (135 kilometers) north of London that’s been around since the 1500s.
Mary, Queen of Scots — rival to England’s Queen Elizabeth I — is said to have descended the very same flight of steps on the way to her execution in 1587. But at the time, the multilevel structure was part of nearby Fotheringhay Castle, the site of Mary’s beheading.
Nearly four decades later, the Talbot was rebuilt using stones and other material salvaged from the abandoned Fotheringhay — including the castle’s storied staircase.
Guests and staff have reported seeing a ghostly woman on the stairs, and some have said they heard sobbing in the wee hours — all thought to be the doomed queen. The Associated Press has visited several times and can confirm quality coffee and cakes, but not the presence of ghosts.
— By Laurie Kellman in London
Indonesia: Ghosts of the Bintaro train tragedy
The Bintaro train tragedy of October 1987 is well known in Indonesia. The head-on collision between two commuter trains in the southern area of Jakarta is considered one of the deadliest train accidents in the country’s history.
The collision killed 139 passengers, giving rise to many mystical stories around the railway.
In the 37 years since the crash, many local residents and railway workers have reported seeing apparitions of people dressed in old, bloodstained clothing, wandering near the tracks where the tragedy took place. As the local urban legend goes, these ghostly figures are believed to be the spirits of those who perished in the accident and remain unable to move on to the afterlife. Some people also say there was a figure wandering around and looking for his body parts.
In 2013, another train accident happened at the same track, only 200 meters (yards) from the 1987 accident. The commuter train hit a petrol truck in the crossing gate, killing seven people, including the train engineer.
— By Edna Tarigan in Jakarta, Indonesia
Japan: Yotsuya Kaidan
One of Japan’s most famous kaidan, or ghost stories, is named after the area in Tokyo where the tragic story takes place. Called Yotsuya Kaidan, it’s an unforgettable tale of that archetypal powerless woman whose only recourse for revenge against the man who betrays her love is to become a ghost.
Oiwa, a beautiful woman and wife of the handsome but heartless samurai Iemon, is weak after giving birth to their baby. Iemon is having an affair, and the other woman, seeking to make sure Iemon dumps Oiwa, tricks her into taking poison, thinking it’s medicine, so her face becomes disfigured.
Written in the 19th century and staged as various Kabuki plays and made into dozens of movies, a particularly scary scene is that moment when Oiwa discovers her horrible transformation, a telling moment that speaks volumes about human vanity and frailty. When she combs her hair before a mirror, it falls out in clumps. She sees her twisted, discolored face and cries out: “Is this my face? Is this my face?”
After Oiwa dies, she haunts Iemon, appearing everywhere — perhaps merely his delusion. Iemon is eventually driven to madness.
— By Yuri Kageyama in Tokyo
Kenya: The legend of Ngong Hills
In Kenya, a Maasai folktale about an ogre who used to raid villages for food is told to children. It goes like this:
The ogre lived deep in the forest and would raid neighboring villages to kill cattle — the Maasai community’s symbol of wealth — despite many warriors keeping guard.
The ogre fell in love with a beautiful Maasai woman named Sanayian and he transformed into a Maasai warrior to win her heart. He then revealed his real identity to Sanayian — who then told the warriors. The warriors, using Sanayian as a bait, speared the ogre while he was meeting with his love.
Even after he transformed back into an ogre, he could not survive. He fell and died. His five fingers, it is said, formed the five peaks that are the present-day Ngong Hills, in the outskirts of the capital, Nairobi, and a popular hiking destination.
— By Evelyne Musambi in Nairobi, Kenya
The Philippines: The ghost on Balete Drive
Ask anyone in Manila about Balete Drive and many will associate it with the mysterious “white lady” who appears at night.
The street, named after trees that used to line its sidewalks in suburban Quezon city, has been the subject of scary stories that have been told and retold since the 1950s. There are claims that a beautiful woman with long hair dressed in white would sometimes suddenly appear at night — then just disappear without a trace.
It is said that the sightings were reported by taxi drivers working on late-night shifts. Some claim she would appear asking for a ride and then suddenly disappear from the passenger seat as the vehicle moves. Others say her image would appear at the rearview mirror of drivers driving alone and vanish just as quickly.
“I haven’t seen her,” says 53-year-old Roberto Perez, who works part-time near Balete Drive, “but when I pass there between midnight to about 1:30, I get goosebumps, so I just quickly turn to another street.”
The tale’s origins are unknown. There are varying accounts why the ghost appears along Balete Drive, but the most common story is that decades ago, a girl died due to a car accident along the street. Horror movies in the Philippines have been produced based on this urban legend.
— By Celine Rosario in Bangkok and Aaron Favila in Manila, Philippines
Hungary: The marble bride
Through the branches of stately trees on a leafy avenue in Hungary’s capital, passersby can spot an unusual figure keeping solemn watch from above: the statue of a woman with a mournful expression peering from a stone balcony.
The sculpture, known as the “marble bride,” is unlike any of the other frescoes on surrounding buildings in Budapest, and the mystery of its presence has produced legends going back nearly a century.
In one, a young couple shared an apartment in the building when the husband was called to fight in World War I. The wife waited patiently on the balcony each day for his return, and when a letter arrived with news of his death on the front, the woman died of a broken heart.
But the letter had been mistaken. When the husband returned home and found his wife had died, he had a sculpture carved in her honor and placed where she had spent so many days faithfully waiting.
Another legend says that the husband never returned from the war and, unable to accept his death, the woman stayed waiting on the balcony and eventually turned to stone, and still waits today for a reunion that will never come.
— By Justin Spike in Budapest, Hungary
Thailand: Lady Nak of Phra Khanong
Bangkok is home to one of Thailand’s most famous pieces of folklore: the tragic love of Mae Nak, or the Lady Nak of Phra Khanong.
The young and pregnant Nak was waiting for her husband, Mak, to come back from war to their home on the banks of Phra Khanong canal. Nak and her baby died during childbirth, but Mak still came home to see them waiting. With his unwavering love, Mak rejected warnings that Nak was a ghost until he saw her stretching her arm from the upper-floor porch to the ground to pick up a lime. He fled, and Nak started terrorizing the town in grief and fury.
In one variation of the story’s ending, Nak was stopped either by a shaman who captured her in a clay jar, or a powerful Buddhist monk who performed a rite to rest her spirit in peace.
The story has been reinterpreted into dozens of movies, with the critically acclaimed 1999 version becoming the first Thai movie to gross over 100 million baht — about $2.7 million at the time. The shrine dedicated to Nak at Wat Mahabut, the temple where her body is believed to be buried, is famous for worshippers seeing their prayers about love and children being answered.
WASHINGTON — Two weeks out from Election Day, the crisis in the Middle East is looming over the race for the White House, with one candidate struggling to find just the right words to navigate its difficult cross-currents and the other making bold pronouncements that the age-old conflict can quickly be set right.
Vice President Kamala Harris has been painstakingly — and not always successfully — trying to balance talk of strong support for Israel with harsh condemnations of civilian casualties among Palestinians and others caught up in Israel’s wars against Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Former President Donald Trump, for his part, insists that none of this would have happened on his watch and that he can make it all go away if elected.
Both of them are bidding for the votes of Arab and Muslim American voters and Jewish voters, particularly in extremely tight races in the battleground states of Michigan and Pennsylvania.
Harris over the weekend alternately drew praise and criticism over her comments about a pro-Palestinian protester that were captured on a widely shared video. Some took Harris’ remark that the protester’s concerns were “real” to be an expression of agreement with his description of Israel’s conduct as “genocide.” That drew sharp condemnation from Israel’s former ambassador to the U.S., Michael Oren.
But Harris’ campaign said that while the vice president was agreeing more generally about the plight of civilians in Gaza, she was not and would not accuse Israel of genocide.
A day earlier, the dynamics were reversed when Harris told reporters that the “first and most tragic story” of the conflict was the Oct. 7 Hamas attack last year that killed about 1,200 Israelis. That was triggering to those who feel she is not giving proper weight to the deaths of the more than 41,000 Palestinians who have been killed in Gaza.
Trump, meanwhile, in recent days has participated in interviews with Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya and Lebanese outlet MTV, where he promised to bring about peace and said “things will turn out very well” in Lebanon.
In a post on his social media platform Monday, he predicted a Harris presidency would only make matters in the Mideast worse.
“If Kamala gets four more years, the Middle East will spend the next four decades going up in flames, and your kids will be going off to War, maybe even a Third World War, something that will never happen with President Donald J. Trump in charge,” Trump posted. “For our Country’s sake, and for your kids, Vote Trump for PEACE!”
Harris’ position is particularly awkward because as vice president she is tethered to President Joe Biden’s foreign policy decisions even as she’s tried to strike a more empathetic tone to all parties. But Harris aides and allies also are frustrated with what they see as Trump largely getting a pass on some of his unpredictable foreign policy statements.
“It’s the very thoughtful, very careful school versus the showboat,” said James Zogby, founder and president of the Arab American Institute, who has endorsed Harris. “That does become a handicap in these late stages when he’s making all these overtures. When the bill comes due they’re going to walk away empty-handed, but by then it’ll be too late.”
The political divisions on the campaign trail augur potentially significant implications after Election Day as powers in the region, particularly Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu, closely eye the outcome and the potential for any shifts to U.S. foreign policy.
A new AP-NORC poll finds that neither Trump nor Harris has a clear political advantage on the situation in the Middle East. About 4 in 10 registered voters say Trump would do a better job, and a similar share say that about Harris. Roughly 2 in 10 say neither candidate would do a better job.
There are some signs of weakness on the issue for Harris within her own party, however. Only about two-thirds of Democratic voters say Harris would be the better candidate to handle the situation in the Middle East. Among Republicans, about 8 in 10 say Trump would be better.
In Michigan, which has the nation’s largest concentration of Arab Americans, the Israel-Hamas war has profound and personal impacts on the community. In addition to many community members having family in both Lebanon and Gaza, Kamel Ahmad Jawad, a metro Detroit resident, was killed while trying to deliver aid to his hometown in southern Lebanon.
The war’s direct impact on the community has fueled outrage and calls for the U.S. to demand an unconditional cease-fire and impose a weapons embargo on Israel.
Although both parties have largely supported Israel, much of the outrage and blame has been directed at Biden. When Harris entered the race, many Arab American leaders initially felt a renewed sense of optimism, citing her past comments and the early outreach efforts of her campaign.
However, that optimism quickly faded as the community perceived that she had not sufficiently distanced her policies from those of Biden.
“To say to Arab Americans, ‘Trump is going to be worse’ — what is worse than having members of your family killed?” said Rima Meroueh, director of the National Network for Arab American Communities. “That’s what people are saying when they’re asked the question, ‘Isn’t Trump going to be worse?’ It can’t be worse than what’s happening to us right now.”
Future Coalition PAC, a super PAC backed by billionaire Elon Musk, is running ads in Arab American communities in Michigan focused on Harris’ support for Israel, complete with a photo of her and her husband, Doug Emhoff, who is Jewish. The same group is sending the opposite message to Jewish voters in Pennsylvania, attacking her support for the withholding of some weapons from Israel — a Biden administration move to pressure the longtime U.S. ally to limit civilian casualties.
Harris spokesperson Morgan Finkelstein cast Trump’s approach toward the Middle East as part of a broader sign that “an unchecked, unhinged Trump is simply too dangerous — he would bring us right back to the chaotic, go-it-alone approach that made the world less safe and he would weaken America.”
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Cappelletti reported from Lansing, Michigan. Associated Press writer Linley Sanders contributed to this report.
BERLIN (AP) — Officials are investigating why a concrete bridge partially collapsed in eastern Germany early Wednesday, disrupting a major traffic artery in Dresden and interrupting the heating system for a city nicknamed “Florence on the Elbe” for its Baroque architecture.
No one was injured when a section of the Carola Bridge fell into the Elbe River, the Dresden fire department said on its website. Police are treating the collapse as an accident, because there are no signs of foul play, according to German news agency dpa.
The bridge dates back to East Germany’s formerly communist era, dpa reported, and officials at the scene said that chlorine corrosion from the time could have contributed to Wednesday’s collapse.
The emergency closure of the entire bridge snarled travel for the city’s tram system, as well as motorists, pedestrians and cyclists who use the span to travel between Dresden’s Old Town and New Town. Boat traffic is also halted, affecting cargo ships and tourism sightseeing vessels.
Crews were alerted shortly after 3 a.m. and are concerned more of the bridge — one of several crossings over the Elbe — could collapse in the coming hours.
The last tram crossed the span just 18 minutes before the collapse, dpa reported. The section that fell was scheduled to be renovated next year, while other parts only reopened in March after months of construction.
Pipes that are part of the city’s heating system were also damaged.
“In addition, due to the bursting of two large district heating pipes, we have the problem that the supply of hot water has come to a complete standstill in the entire federal state capital of Dresden,” fire department spokesman Michael Klahre told reporters.
Dresden is about 160 kilometers (100 miles) south of Berlin.
WHITEWATER TOWNSHIP, Ohio (AP) — An evacuation order remained in effect Wednesday for residents in an Ohio community as crews continued to work at the scene of a dangerous chemical leak.
Styrene, a toxic and flammable chemical that is used to make plastic and rubber, began leaking Tuesday afternoon from a railcar in Whitewater Township, a community of about 6,000 people just west of Cincinnati. The Hamilton County Emergency Management Agency advised anyone within a half-mile (about 800 meters) of the area near U.S. Route 50 and the Great Miami River to leave immediately.
Tom Ciuba, a spokesperson for Central Railroad of Indiana, which operates the tracks, said Wednesday that the railcar was no longer venting, He said crews worked overnight to put water on the car, but it hadn’t been removed from the tracks and wouldn’t be until officials determine it is safe to do so. He said air and water quality continue to be monitored, and that several roads near the area will remain closed indefinitely.
The White House said President Biden has been briefed on the leak and was in touch with state and local officials. The Federal Railroad Administration and Environmental Protection Agency officials are at the scene assisting with hazmat operations and air quality testing.
The President has directed his team to provide any resources that may be needed. We urge residents to heed the warnings of emergency personnel, especially those instructed to evacuate.’
It isn’t clear when the evacuation order might be lifted. The area has a mix of businesses, homes and large swaths of undeveloped land.
Several are schools were closed after the leak and remained shuttered Wednesday. No injuries have been reported.
Authorities have said a pressure release valve on the railcar was leaking the styrene, which can cause headaches, nausea and respiratory issues in the short term and more serious health problems including organ damage in the long term.
Last year a train derailment in East Palestine, on the other side of Ohio, caused hazardous chemicals to leak and burn for days. The February 2023 derailment near the Ohio-Pennsylvania border led to new safety rules and increased scrutiny of the rail industry.
Norfolk Southern said Wednesday it has fired CEO Alan Shaw for having an inappropriate relationship with a subordinate.
His ouster comes after two difficult years in the top job and just days after the company’s board announced it was investigating him for alleged ethical lapses.
The Atlanta-based railroad said Shaw had an inappropriate consensual relationship with Norfolk Southern’s chief legal officer, who was also terminated. Norfolk Southern promoted Chief Financial Officer Mark George to be the railroad’s next CEO.
Shaw was leading Norfolk Southern in February 2023 when one of its trains derailed, spilled toxic chemicals and caught fire in East Palestine, Ohio, the worst railroad disaster in the last decade. Then, activist investor Ancora Holdings tried to take control of the railroad earlier this year and fire Shaw.
He weathered congressional hearings and difficult community meetings after the East Palestine derailment, while promising to make Norfolk Southern the “gold standard for safety” in the industry. He also managed to persuade investors not to back the majority of Ancora’s board nominees. Three of its nominees did win seats on the railroad’s board, but that wasn’t enough to give it control.
The derailment near the Ohio-Pennsylvania border prompted the nation to re-examine railroad safety and led lawmakers and regulators to call for reforms. But those proposals have largely stalled, and the industry has made only minimal changes since the derailment, such as installing more trackside detectors to spot overheating bearings like the one that caused the East Palestine crash.
The disappointing financial results Norfolk Southern delivered after the derailment, combined with questions about Shaw’s strategy of keeping more workers on hand during a downturn, made the railroad ripe for pressure from an investor like Ancora. Norfolk Southern’s profits have consistently lagged behind the other major railroads that more aggressively adopted the lean operating model that has become the industry standard.
The railroad said Shaw’s firing was unrelated to Norfolk Southern’s financial performance, and the board reaffirmed its financial guidance. The railroad has said it expects to improve productivity by about $550 million and boost its profit margin over the next two years.
Shaw received $13.4 million compensation last year in his first full year as CEO. But being fired for cause will reduce his severance package.
The railroad’s Chairman Claude Mongeau said, “The Board has full confidence in Mark and his ability to continue delivering on our commitments to shareholders and other stakeholders” despite having only worked on the railroad since 2019. Previously, George was CFO for air conditioning maker Carrier Corporation and Otis Elevator Company.
Mongeau said George will work with John Orr — the chief operating officer hired during its fight with Ancora — to continue improving the railroad’s profits by cutting costs and getting more efficient.
“I look forward to my continued partnership with John and the entire (Norfolk Southern) team as we further our progress on optimizing operations and serving our customers, while creating a safe and satisfying workplace and delivering enhanced value for our employees, customers, shareholders, and communities,” George said in a statement.
Norfolk Southern is one of the six largest railroads in North America with tracks crisscrossing the Eastern United States.
The CSX worker who discovered his friend run over by a pair of remote-control locomotives in a railyard last year sees a simple solution to preventing similar deaths in the future: two-person crews.
But that idea won’t be popular with the railroads that have come to rely heavily on having one person control trains moving around a railyard with a remote control as they take apart and reassemble trains. The tactic that was first approved in 2005 started with two people on the job to watch for hazards, but today one-person remote-control operations are common.
Using remote control operators helps limit costs by using less experienced workers to move locomotives that help assemble trains — a task that once required licensed engineers who are among the highest-paid rail workers. The Brotherhood of Locomotive Trainmen and Engineers and other unions have been raising concerns about the practice recently, particularly because remote-control trains are now being used in places outside of railyards to make local trips to pick up and drop off cars.
Railroads are confident the practice is safe based on their experience using it for years. But Federal Railroad Administration spokesman Warren Flatau said the agency is scrutinizing the use of remote control after this death and several other recent incidents. The expanded use of remote-control trains outside of rail yards is also attracting attention.
The National Transportation Safety Board provided an update on its investigation into the death of Fred Anderson on Wednesday when it posted transcripts of its interviews with the workers involved and other information. Anderson was killed on September 17, 2023, when he stepped in front of two locomotives in CSX’s railyard in Walbridge, Ohio.
Railroad safety has been in the spotlight ever since last year’s disastrous Norfolk Southern derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, forced evacuations and left residents with lingering health fears after a cocktail of toxic chemicals spilled and burned.
At the time Anderson was killed, the remote control operator was riding on a ladder on the back of the second locomotive with no view of the front of the train. That practice is perfectly acceptable under federal and railroad rules because earlier in the shift the remote-control operator had cleared the area around the tracks where he was working.
Anderson and the other carman he was working with, George Oliger, had radioed ahead to get permission to enter the area, but Anderson was still struck by the train. Oliger told investigators afterward that he thinks Anderson’s death would have been prevented if the remote-control operator was on the front of the locomotives or if a conductor or engineer were controlling them from the cab. He said a traditional crew would have likely seen Anderson and rang the bell to alert him to the danger.
“What does it cost for an engineer for the night? $350? If we had two guys on every crew, to spend $350 to save someone’s life or to make our yard a little bit safer, I think that’s what we need to do, you know. Like I said if there had been a two man crew on that crew that night, we wouldn’t be talking,” Oliger said, according to a transcript of his interview.
It’s not clear if anyone would have been able to stop the locomotives in time before they hit Anderson, but if someone operating the train had seen him step onto the tracks, they may have been able to warn him. The locomotives were moving at 10 mph (16 kph) when they struck Anderson, and the remote control operator told investigators that he believes it would have taken the length of an engine to stop them at that speed.
But Randy Fannon, who leads the engineers’ union’s Safety Task Force, said he thinks, “This tragic incident in Ohio involving a remotely operated train, blindly controlled from behind, would not have happened if there had been a locomotive engineer in the cab.”
Fannon said railyard workers are more alert to the risks presented by remote-control trains, but the union is “adamantly opposed to remotely operated trains being used outside fenced-in yard environments where pedestrians or vehicles could come in contact at rail crossings.”
CSX and all the unions directly involved aren’t allowed to discuss Anderson’s death until the NTSB completes its investigation, which the agency has said is focused on CSX’s carmen safety procedure training and awareness.
The Federal Railroad Administration and CSX both put out advisories after Anderson’s death reminding all rail workers that they need to be careful when crossing tracks and should always be aware that a train can move down a track at any time. CSX had its managers stress to all its maintenance workers that they must look both directions before they ever cross tracks.
The railroad said last year that it wasn’t planning any changes to its remote control operations after Anderson’s death because it appeared that all federal and CSX rules were being followed at the time.
Safety statistics on railroad crashes are unclear on how safe this practice is because Federal Railroad Administration reports don’t break out those involving remote control trains from incidents involving trains operated by engineers and conductors.
The Brotherhood of Railway Carmen union has said that three of its members have died in incidents involving remote-control trains since 2015.
The CSX worker who discovered his friend run over by a pair of remote-control locomotives in a railyard last year sees a simple solution to preventing similar deaths in the future: two-person crews.
But that idea won’t be popular with the railroads that have come to rely heavily on having one person control trains moving around a railyard with a remote control as they take apart and reassemble trains. The tactic that was first approved in 2005 started with two people on the job to watch for hazards, but today one-person remote-control operations are common.
Using remote control operators helps limit costs by using less experienced workers to move locomotives that help assemble trains — a task that once required licensed engineers who are among the highest-paid rail workers. The Brotherhood of Locomotive Trainmen and Engineers and other unions have been raising concerns about the practice recently, particularly because remote-control trains are now being used in places outside of railyards to make local trips to pick up and drop off cars.
Railroads are confident the practice is safe based on their experience using it for years. But Federal Railroad Administration spokesman Warren Flatau said the agency is scrutinizing the use of remote control after this death and several other recent incidents. The expanded use of remote-control trains outside of rail yards is also attracting attention.
The National Transportation Safety Board provided an update on its investigation into the death of Fred Anderson on Wednesday when it posted transcripts of its interviews with the workers involved and other information. Anderson was killed on September 17, 2023, when he stepped in front of two locomotives in CSX’s railyard in Walbridge, Ohio.
Railroad safety has been in the spotlight ever since last year’s disastrous Norfolk Southern derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, forced evacuations and left residents with lingering health fears after a cocktail of toxic chemicals spilled and burned.
At the time Anderson was killed, the remote control operator was riding on a ladder on the back of the second locomotive with no view of the front of the train. That practice is perfectly acceptable under federal and railroad rules because earlier in the shift the remote-control operator had cleared the area around the tracks where he was working.
Anderson and the other carman he was working with, George Oliger, had radioed ahead to get permission to enter the area, but Anderson was still struck by the train. Oliger told investigators afterward that he thinks Anderson’s death would have been prevented if the remote-control operator was on the front of the locomotives or if a conductor or engineer were controlling them from the cab. He said a traditional crew would have likely seen Anderson and rang the bell to alert him to the danger.
“What does it cost for an engineer for the night? $350? If we had two guys on every crew, to spend $350 to save someone’s life or to make our yard a little bit safer, I think that’s what we need to do, you know. Like I said if there had been a two man crew on that crew that night, we wouldn’t be talking,” Oliger said, according to a transcript of his interview.
It’s not clear if anyone would have been able to stop the locomotives in time before they hit Anderson, but if someone operating the train had seen him step onto the tracks, they may have been able to warn him. The locomotives were moving at 10 mph (16 kph) when they struck Anderson, and the remote control operator told investigators that he believes it would have taken the length of an engine to stop them at that speed.
But Randy Fannon, who leads the engineers’ union’s Safety Task Force, said he thinks, “This tragic incident in Ohio involving a remotely operated train, blindly controlled from behind, would not have happened if there had been a locomotive engineer in the cab.”
Fannon said railyard workers are more alert to the risks presented by remote-control trains, but the union is “adamantly opposed to remotely operated trains being used outside fenced-in yard environments where pedestrians or vehicles could come in contact at rail crossings.”
CSX and all the unions directly involved aren’t allowed to discuss Anderson’s death until the NTSB completes its investigation, which the agency has said is focused on CSX’s carmen safety procedure training and awareness.
The Federal Railroad Administration and CSX both put out advisories after Anderson’s death reminding all rail workers that they need to be careful when crossing tracks and should always be aware that a train can move down a track at any time. CSX had its managers stress to all its maintenance workers that they must look both directions before they ever cross tracks.
The railroad said last year that it wasn’t planning any changes to its remote control operations after Anderson’s death because it appeared that all federal and CSX rules were being followed at the time.
Safety statistics on railroad crashes are unclear on how safe this practice is because Federal Railroad Administration reports don’t break out those involving remote control trains from incidents involving trains operated by engineers and conductors.
The Brotherhood of Railway Carmen union has said that three of its members have died in incidents involving remote-control trains since 2015.
BILLINGS, Mont. — A health clinic in a Montana town that was polluted with deadly asbestos will ask a federal appeals court on Wednesday to reverse almost $6 million in fines and penalties after a jury determined it submitted hundreds of false claims on behalf of patients.
The jury verdict came last year in a lawsuit brought by Texas-based BNSF Railway, which separately has been found liable over contamination in Libby, Montana, that’s sickened or killed thousands of people. Asbestos-tainted vermiculite was mined from a nearby mountain and shipped through the 3,000-person town by rail over decades.
After BNSF questioned the validity of more than 2,000 cases of asbestos-related diseases found by the clinic, a jury last year said 337 of those cases were based on false claims, making patients eligible for Medicare and other benefits they shouldn’t have received.
Asbestos-related diseases can range from a thickening of a person’s lung cavity that can hamper breathing to deadly cancer. Exposure to even a minuscule amount of asbestos can cause lung problems, according to scientists. Symptoms can take decades to develop.
BNSF alleged the clinic submitted claims based on patient X-ray evidence that should have been corroborated by a health care provider’s diagnosis, but were not. Clinic representatives argued they were acting in good faith and following the guidance of federal officials who said an X-ray reading alone was sufficient diagnosis of asbestos disease.
Judge Dana Christensen ordered the clinic to pay $5.8 million in penalties and damages. BNSF would get 25% of the money because it brought the lawsuit on behalf of the government. Federal prosecutors previously declined to intervene in the false claims case and there have been no criminal charges brought against the clinic.
Clinic attorney Tim Bechtold said in court filings that the judge overseeing the lawsuit gave the seven-person jury erroneous instructions, essentially pre-determining the verdict. Attorneys for BNSF urged the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to affirm last year’s ruling.
Arguments from the two sides were scheduled for 9 a.m. local time on Wednesday in Portland, Oregon.
The judgment prompted clinic officials to file for bankruptcy, but the bankruptcy case was later dismissed at the request of government attorneys. They said the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services was the main funding source for the clinic but also its primary creditor, therefore any costs associated with the bankruptcy would come at taxpayers’ expense.
The clinic has certified more than 3,400 people with asbestos-related disease and received more than $20 million in federal funding, according to court documents.
Under a provision in the 2009 federal health law, victims of asbestos exposure in the Libby area are eligible for taxpayer-funded services including Medicare, housekeeping, travel to medical appointments and disability benefits for those who can’t work.
The Libby area was declared a Superfund site two decades ago following media reports that mine workers and their families were getting sick and dying due to hazardous asbestos dust from vermiculite that was mined by W.R. Grace & Co.
BNSF is itself a defendant in hundreds of asbestos-related lawsuits. In April, a federal jury said the railway contributed to the deaths of two people who were exposed to asbestos decades ago by tainted mining material was shipped through Libby.
The jury awarded $4 million each in compensatory damages to the estates of the two plaintiffs, who died in 2020. Jurors said asbestos-contaminated vermiculite that spilled in Libby’s downtown rail yard was a substantial factor in the plaintiffs’ illnesses and deaths.
BILLINGS, Mont. — A health clinic in a Montana town that was polluted with deadly asbestos will ask a federal appeals court on Wednesday to reverse almost $6 million in fines and penalties after a jury determined it submitted hundreds of false claims on behalf of patients.
The jury verdict came last year in a lawsuit brought by Texas-based BNSF Railway, which separately has been found liable over contamination in Libby, Montana, that’s sickened or killed thousands of people. Asbestos-tainted vermiculite was mined from a nearby mountain and shipped through the 3,000-person town by rail over decades.
After BNSF questioned the validity of more than 2,000 cases of asbestos-related diseases found by the clinic, a jury last year said 337 of those cases were based on false claims, making patients eligible for Medicare and other benefits they shouldn’t have received.
Asbestos-related diseases can range from a thickening of a person’s lung cavity that can hamper breathing to deadly cancer. Exposure to even a minuscule amount of asbestos can cause lung problems, according to scientists. Symptoms can take decades to develop.
BNSF alleged the clinic submitted claims based on patient X-ray evidence that should have been corroborated by a health care provider’s diagnosis, but were not. Clinic representatives argued they were acting in good faith and following the guidance of federal officials who said an X-ray reading alone was sufficient diagnosis of asbestos disease.
Judge Dana Christensen ordered the clinic to pay $5.8 million in penalties and damages. BNSF would get 25% of the money because it brought the lawsuit on behalf of the government. Federal prosecutors previously declined to intervene in the false claims case and there have been no criminal charges brought against the clinic.
Clinic attorney Tim Bechtold said in court filings that the judge overseeing the lawsuit gave the seven-person jury erroneous instructions, essentially pre-determining the verdict. Attorneys for BNSF urged the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to affirm last year’s ruling.
Arguments from the two sides were scheduled for 9 a.m. local time on Wednesday in Portland, Oregon.
The judgment prompted clinic officials to file for bankruptcy, but the bankruptcy case was later dismissed at the request of government attorneys. They said the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services was the main funding source for the clinic but also its primary creditor, therefore any costs associated with the bankruptcy would come at taxpayers’ expense.
The clinic has certified more than 3,400 people with asbestos-related disease and received more than $20 million in federal funding, according to court documents.
Under a provision in the 2009 federal health law, victims of asbestos exposure in the Libby area are eligible for taxpayer-funded services including Medicare, housekeeping, travel to medical appointments and disability benefits for those who can’t work.
The Libby area was declared a Superfund site two decades ago following media reports that mine workers and their families were getting sick and dying due to hazardous asbestos dust from vermiculite that was mined by W.R. Grace & Co.
BNSF is itself a defendant in hundreds of asbestos-related lawsuits. In April, a federal jury said the railway contributed to the deaths of two people who were exposed to asbestos decades ago by tainted mining material was shipped through Libby.
The jury awarded $4 million each in compensatory damages to the estates of the two plaintiffs, who died in 2020. Jurors said asbestos-contaminated vermiculite that spilled in Libby’s downtown rail yard was a substantial factor in the plaintiffs’ illnesses and deaths.
Today is Wednesday, July 24, the 206th day of 2024. There are 160 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History:
On July 24, 1969, the Apollo 11 astronauts — two of whom had been the first humans to set foot on the moon — splashed down safely in the Pacific.
Also on this date:
In 1567, Mary, Queen of Scots, was forced to abdicate her throne to her 1-year-old son James.
In 1847, Mormon leader Brigham Young and his followers arrived in the Salt Lake Valley in present-day Utah.
In 1866, Tennessee became the first state to be readmitted to the Union after the Civil War.
In 1915, the SS Eastland, a passenger ship carrying more than 2,500 people, rolled onto its side while docked at the Clark Street Bridge on the Chicago River. An estimated 844 people died in the disaster.
In 1932, the “Bonus Army,” a group of thousands of World War I veterans and their supporters who gathered in Washington, D.C., to protest the US government’s refusal to redeem cash bonus certificates given to the veterans for their service, clashed with D.C. police; two protesting veterans were shot and killed.
In 1959, during a visit to Moscow, Vice President Richard Nixon engaged in his famous “Kitchen Debate” with Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev.
In 1974, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled that President Richard Nixon had to turn over subpoenaed White House tape recordings to the Watergate special prosecutor.
In 1975, an Apollo spacecraft splashed down in the Pacific, completing a mission which included the first docking with a Soyuz capsule from the Soviet Union.
In 2010, a stampede inside a tunnel crowded with techno music fans left 21 people dead and more than 500 injured at the famed Love Parade festival in western Germany.
In 2013, a high-speed train crash outside Santiago de Compostela in northwest Spain killed 79 people.
Today’s Birthdays: Comedian Ruth Buzzi is 88. Actor Dan Hedaya is 84. Actor Chris Sarandon is 82. Actor Robert Hays is 77. Actor Michael Richards is 75. Actor Lynda Carter is 73. Movie director Gus Van Sant is 72. Former Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., is 71. Country singer Pam Tillis is 67. Basketball Hall of Famer Karl Malone is 61. Retired MLB All-Star Barry Bonds is 60. Actor Kadeem Hardison is 59. Actor-singer Kristin Chenoweth and actor Laura Leighton are 56. Actor-singer Jennifer Lopez is 55. Director Patty Jenkins (“Wonder Woman”) is 53. Actor Eric Szmanda is 49. Actor Rose Byrne and country singer Jerrod Niemann are 45. Actors Elisabeth Moss and Anna Paquin are 42. Former NHL center Patrice Bergeron is 39. Actor Mara Wilson is 37. TV personality Bindi Irwin is 26.
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Enflamed railcars carrying hazardous material were mostly extinguished Saturday, a day after they derailed in a remote area of North Dakota.
Officials said Friday no one had been hurt. The threat to those living nearby remained low, according to county emergency management, which reported no air contamination in the area or downwind.
Twenty-nine cars of a CPKC train derailed around 3:45 a.m. in a marshy area surrounded by farmland that is about 140 miles (225 kilometers) northwest of Fargo, county emergency management director Andrew Kirking said.
Kirking said in a statement Saturday that the fire would still occasionally flare up as responders moved railcars from the tracks. But “firefighting operations through the night and morning have been incredibly successful,” he said.
Emergency officials now say the contents of the derailed cars included anhydrous ammonia, methanol and plastic pellets.
Bill Suess, spill investigation program manager for the North Dakota Department of Environmental Quality, identified ammonia as a potential risk, but wind was carrying the smoke away from the nearby town of Bordulac, which has about 20 residents.
“Wind has been in our favor on this,” Suess said Friday.
Exposure to high concentrations of ammonia in the air can cause burning of the eyes, nose, throat and respiratory tract, and can result in blindness, lung damage or death, health officials say. Exposure to lower amounts can result in coughing and irritation of the nose and throat.
CPKC said in a statement Friday that it has “initiated its emergency response plan and launched a comprehensive, coordinated response.”
The railroad was the result of a merger last year of Canadian Pacific Railway and Kansas City Southern.
The National Transportation Safety Board said Friday that it is investigating.
Rail cars carrying hazardous material that derailed early Friday were still burning more than 12 hours later in a remote area of North Dakota, but officials said no one was hurt and the threat to those living nearby appeared to be minimal.
Twenty-nine cars of a CPKC train derailed around 3:45 a.m. in a marshy area surrounded by farmland that’s about 140 miles (225 kilometers) northwest of Fargo, said Andrew Kirking, emergency management director for Foster County.
By late afternoon Friday, responders were able to “go on the offensive” in fighting the flames and have had “some success knocking the fire down,” Kirking said. With water on both sides of the tracks, officials were still working to get equipment close enough.
The cars were carrying anhydrous ammonia, sulfur and methanol, said Bill Suess, spill investigation program manager for the North Dakota Department of Environmental Quality. The ammonia was the biggest risk, but wind was carrying the smoke away from the nearby town of Bordulac, which has about 20 residents.
“Wind has been in our favor on this,” Suess said. “That risk has greatly subsided. Still there — as long as fires are burning.”
Exposure to high concentrations of ammonia in the air can cause burning of the eyes, nose, throat and respiratory tract, and can result in blindness, lung damage or death, health officials say. Exposure to lower amounts can result in coughing and irritation of the nose and throat.
For now, officials do not plan to evacuate nearby residents, but that could change if the wind shifts, Suess said.
Kirking said the cause of the derailment wasn’t known. The engineer and conductor got away safely, he said.
Kirking said it appeared that 10 to 15 of the rail cars caught fire. Video posted on the social platform X showed the blaze burning intensely. It was still burning as of midday Friday. A railroad fire crew was on the scene.
CPKC said in a statement that it has “initiated its emergency response plan and launched a comprehensive, coordinated response.”
The railroad was the result of a merger last year of Canadian Pacific Railway and Kansas City Southern.
