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    Separatists Hijack Train Carrying Over 400 Passengers in Pakistan

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    The authorities were struggling to reach the remote site of the ambush in the country’s southwest, and the passengers’ fate was not immediately known.Separatist militants hijacked a train carrying more than 400 people in an isolated mountainous area of southwestern Pakistan on Tuesday. The fate of the passengers, whom the militants said they were holding hostage, was not immediately clear.The militants, Baloch ethnic fighters, forced the train to stop in the Bolan district of Balochistan Province after opening fire on it, according to railway and police officials. The train was traveling from Quetta, the capital of Balochistan, to Peshawar, the capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province. It was to pass through several cities, including Lahore and Rawalpindi, near Islamabad.Shahid Rind, a spokesman for the Balochistan provincial government, said the authorities were struggling to reach the site of the ambush because of the challenging terrain.Rashid Hussain, a trader in Quetta, said his family had left on the train for Rawalpindi in the morning but had become unreachable after 2 p.m. “I am deeply worried,” he said by telephone. “The government is not providing any updates. Neither roads nor trains are safe in this province.”The seizure of the passenger train highlighted the increasing sophistication of a separatist insurgency in Pakistan’s southwest. The attack was the latest in a series of violent episodes in Balochistan, a province bordering Iran and Afghanistan that is the site of major Chinese-led projects, including a strategic port.A group known as the Baloch Liberation Army, or B.L.A., claimed responsibility for the train hijacking. In a statement, it said its militants had taken hostages, some of whom were security personnel.The government has yet to confirm reports of hostages or any casualties.Last year, the B.L.A. carried out one of Pakistan’s deadliest terrorist attacks, a suicide bombing that killed at least 25 people, including security personnel, at Quetta’s busy railway station.The group also claimed responsibility for a deadly bombing targeting a convoy carrying Chinese citizens near the international airport in Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city. The separatists accuse the Chinese of stealing the province’s resources.In recent months, separatist groups have escalated high-profile attacks along Balochistan’s three major highways, directly challenging the state’s authority. Last week, an alliance of the groups, including the B.L.A., announced plans to intensify attacks on Pakistani security forces, infrastructure and Chinese interests in the region.“It points to two key trends: the increasing operational capabilities and sophistication of separatist groups and the weakening control of the government in Balochistan,” said Abdul Basit, senior associate fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore.At the Quetta railway station, families of passengers aboard the train anxiously gathered at the information counter on Tuesday, seeking updates.Many people in the region had begun to prefer rail travel after frequent militant ambushes on the highways in which passengers were killed after being taken off buses. Frequent protests have also caused road blockages.Train services had resumed only in October after a two-month suspension because of militant attacks on railway tracks. More

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      Elon Musk Proposes Privatizing Amtrak, Calling Rail Service ‘Sad’

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      Almost since Amtrak’s creation in 1971, the 21,000-mile U.S. intercity passenger rail service has been fighting calls that it should be privatized.Now it may have met one of its most aggressive and powerful skeptics yet.Speaking at a tech conference on Wednesday, Elon Musk added Amtrak to the list of government-funded services on his chopping board, calling the federally owned railroad “embarrassing” and saying that privatization was the only way to fix it.“If you go to China, you get epic bullet train rides,” said Mr. Musk, the billionaire who is working to dismantle the federal bureaucracy under the Trump administration. “They’re amazing.”China’s trains, which are subsidized by the communist government and have produced large public debts, link every large Chinese city and run at speeds of at least 186 miles per hour. Amtrak’s northeastern Acela, the fastest American passenger train, tops out at about 150 m.p.h.“And you come back to America, and you’re like, ‘Amtrak is a sad situation,’” Mr. Musk said at the conference, which was organized by the bank Morgan Stanley. “If you’re coming from another country, please don’t use our national rail. It’s going to leave you with a very bad impression of America.”Mr. Musk, who has criticized an ambitious effort to build a high-speed rail system in California, has also called for the privatization of the U.S. Postal Service, a concept that President Trump has floated. The president has not called for privatizing Amtrak, and the White House did not immediately reply to a request for comment on Thursday.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      At the Brooklyn Academy, Musical Journeys Through Minefields

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      The Silkroad Ensemble’s “American Railroad” and Alarm Will Sound’s “Sun Dogs” used music and images to engage with difficult topics.The completion of the transcontinental railroad was a herculean achievement. In 1850, the United States had 10,000 miles of track; by 1900, trains carried people, goods and ideas from coast to coast over 215,000 miles of track. Recently, historians have begun to tally the human cost of this construction project, especially among the people who performed the dangerous and backbreaking labor and the Native tribes whose lands and livelihoods were slashed through by the tracks.On Saturday at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Silkroad Ensemble brought this history to life in “American Railroad,” an evening of multimedia storytelling that probed collective scars while letting musical lineages tangle in beguiling ways. Carried by the joyful collaboration of brilliant improvisers, the performance proved that this ensemble has lost none of its verve since Rhiannon Giddens, a musical polymath and scholar of Appalachian music, became artistic director in 2020. (The ensemble was founded in 1998 by Yo-Yo Ma to celebrate the cultures along the ancient Silk Road.)A haunting tune from Appalachia, “Swannanoa Tunnel,” anchored the program. A work song created by incarcerated Black laborers, it describes the deadly cave-in of a railroad tunnel. Giddens sang it with a voice splintering with emotion over a background of harsh percussive thuds.Individual numbers paid tribute to dispossessed Native Americans, Irish famine refugees and Chinese laborers cut off from their families by racist immigration laws. While each time the cultural context was deftly sketched through specific sounds — a Celtic harp, a pentatonic tune — the interplay of instruments native to other regions revealed new affinities. Historical photographs, projected above the stage, added visual poignancy.Rhiannon Giddens, the artistic director of the Silkroad Ensemble, singing “Swannanoa Tunnel.”Ellen QbertplayaAt times, though, the program had a didactic streak that felt at odds with the polycentric spirit of the music making. The inclusion of an Indian-inspired segment with fiery tabla solos by Sandeep Das was a musical highlight. But the accompanying text slide, drawing links between the transcontinental railroad and industrialization in British-ruled India, brought an unnecessary whiff of the classroom. Silkroad is involved in curriculum design in middle schools in underserved communities across the country, and at moments like these, the desire (stated in its publications) to “reset the narrative” in historiography feels heavy-handed.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      NJ Transit Riders to Get a Fare Holiday After Summer of Delays

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      After a spate of breakdowns that caused long delays, an unscheduled “fare holiday” on the statewide transit network will start on Aug. 26.After struggling to provide reliable service to commuters this spring and summer, New Jersey Transit is giving its customers free rides for a week, Gov. Philip D. Murphy announced on Thursday.The unusual “fare holiday” on all modes of the agency’s statewide transit network, which will run from Aug. 26 through Sept. 2, comes less than two months after New Jersey Transit raised all of its fares by 15 percent. The increase received heavy criticism from customers and elected officials.Mr. Murphy and state transportation officials argued that the fare increase was necessary to close a gap of more than $100 million in the agency’s budget. Additional annual increases of 3 percent are scheduled.Mr. Murphy, a Democrat, said in a statement that the fare holiday was a “thank you” to the agency’s loyal customers for enduring a period when “transit service has not consistently met their expectations — or our own.”During an appearance on “Good Day New York” on Fox 5 New York, the governor said, more plainly: “It’s been a really ugly summer. I think June was one of the worst months we’ve had.”Critics immediately took to social media to carp about the choice of the week leading up to Labor Day, a time when many commuters are on vacation.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Googly-Eyed Trains Lift the Spirits of Boston Riders

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      Organizers of a plan to adorn some trains with googly eyes said that if the trains could not be reliable, they could at least make commuters smile.Demonstrators marched to the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority’s Boston headquarters in April with a single, deeply researched demand.Put googly eyes on some trains, they said. Two months later, their demands have been met — at least until the decals wear off.The campaign was organized by two recent college graduates who cast the effort as an attempt to improve commuters’ spirits and promote empathy for the metal contraptions that transport them.“When T trains are delayed, people can at least look into the eyes of the train when it finally arrives, and feel some love and understanding in their hearts,” the organizers wrote before the march to the Transportation Authority’s headquarters.“The T doesn’t want to be late,” they wrote. “It feels bad being late.”The organizers said the Transportation Authority also had “a responsibility to improve the lives of Bostonians.”If the city’s trains can’t be reliable, they wrote, at least they could bring a smile to riders. The system averages about 766,000 riders on weekdays.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      New Jersey Transit Service Disrupted for Third Time in Less Than a Week

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      Rush-hour commuters at Penn Station faced a shutdown of close to an hour, followed by extensive delays, after Amtrak investigated a report of a problem with overhead wires.New Jersey Transit service was disrupted once again on Monday evening, with travel suspended in and out of Pennsylvania Station for nearly an hour because of a report of a problem with Amtrak overhead wires in one of the Hudson River tunnels.Service was suspended at 6:37 p.m. and resumed shortly before 7:30 p.m., but trains were still subject to delays of up to 60 minutes, a New Jersey Transit spokesman said.It was at least the fifth disruption for New Jersey commuters in the last two months, and the third in less than a week. Amtrak and New Jersey Transit trains share the portion of Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor between New York City and Trenton, N.J., so issues with Amtrak tracks or wires immediately affect New Jersey Transit service.Trains were held in place for about 25 minutes, or in some cases pulled back to Penn Station, according to a New Jersey Transit customer service representative.An Amtrak spokesman said service had been suspended as a precautionary measure after a report of trouble with the overhead wires that provide the electricity that powers trains moving in and out of Penn Station. The inspection turned up no problems, he said, so service resumed after about half an hour.During the shutdown, trains were diverted to Hoboken, N.J., and New Jersey Transit rail tickets were accepted for rides by private bus companies and PATH trains in Newark, Hoboken, N.J., and Midtown Manhattan.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Euro 2024 Tournament Runs Smoothly in Germany, but the Trains Do Not

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      Sweltering train cars, frequent delays and regular cancellations: At the Euro 2024 men’s soccer tournament, Germany’s faltering rail system emerges as a tough opponent.Niclas Füllkrug arrived early at the Adidas campus just outside Herzogenaurach, a picture-postcard town in Bavaria that was to host the German national team before this summer’s European soccer championships. The staff had been told that players would start arriving on a Monday morning, a few days before their opening game. But Füllkrug, one of the team’s forwards, turned up on Sunday night.He had decided to make the 300-mile journey from his home in Hanover by high-speed train on Germany’s national railway carrier, Deutsche Bahn. The company was not just one of the tournament’s sponsors; it was also supposed to be a standard-bearer of the event’s ecological credentials.But years of failure to invest in rolling stock, upgrade railways and digitalize signal boxes have made Deutsche Bahn notorious for delays and cancellations. In a country that has long prided itself on its efficiency and punctuality, Germans — as well as fans — had been warning for months that the problems might mar the tournament.So Füllkrug was hardly surprised when he found himself crammed into a train car packed with high school students on a class trip. He spent the journey fielding their questions about life with the national team.By the time he made it to Herzogenaurach, he had been traveling for several hours longer than expected, hardly ideal preparation for an elite athlete on the eve of a major tournament. Still, the delays had at least vindicated his decision to build in extra time. In Germany, as Füllkrug said, it pays to “have a bit of respect for Deutsche Bahn.”Many of the hundreds of thousands of fans from across Europe — as well as a remarkable number from the United States — who have joined him in Germany will, after an often fraught opening week, doubtless understand what he means.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      NJ Transit Disrupted for Many by Disabled Train at Penn Station

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      New Jersey Transit service into and out of the Midtown Manhattan transit hub was suspended and commuters were rerouted to buses and the PATH train. Amtrak reported 90-minute delays.New Jersey Transit service into and out of New York’s Pennsylvania Station was suspended Tuesday morning for about an hour and all Amtrak trains passing through the station were delayed because of overhead wire issues and a disabled commuter train on the tracks, train officials said.Service for New Jersey Transit was restored shortly after 9 a.m., but riders heading to and from Penn Station were still experiencing lengthy delays. Officials had diverted trains bound for Manhattan to Hoboken, N.J., and directed travelers to take the PATH train or buses instead. The station in Hoboken quickly became overcrowded, according to pictures posted on social media, as commuters tried to make their way to work.The disruption ruined the morning commute for thousands of New Jersey residents as the delays rippled out along the various rail lines in the state. Some riders reported being stranded at stations, waiting more than 45 minutes for their trains to arrive.The problems on Tuesday came on the heels of major rush-hour delays at Penn Station earlier this month, caused by an inspection of tracks owned by Amtrak. Service was significantly delayed for more than an hour.Service was also disrupted in May when an overhead wire used for traffic signals fell and struck a cable in Kearny, N.J., that provides electrical power to trains on Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor. Trains were halted on Amtrak and New Jersey Transit in both directions between Penn Station and Newark, and delays stretched to more than four hours.On Tuesday, frustrated commuters used social media to complain about the delays, ask for updates and request refunds.“Without a doubt, delays are frustrating for everyone involved, including us,” Amtrak Northeast wrote in response to one post. “Regarding compensation, your full trip must be completed before we can take this into consideration.” More

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      Judge Orders Rail Operator to Pay $400 Million to Tribe for Trespassing

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      BNSF Railway broke its agreement with the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community when it ran hundreds of train cars a week containing crude oil through the tribe’s land in Washington State, according to a federal judge.A judge has ordered a railway company to pay nearly $400 million for trespassing on Native American land by far exceeding the number of train cars carrying crude oil that it was allowed to run through a tribe’s land, according to documents filed Monday in federal court in Washington State.According to the documents, filed in U.S. District Court in Seattle, the company, BNSF Railway — which operates one of the largest railroad networks in North America — committed “willful, conscious and knowing trespass” when it ran several 100-car trains carrying crude oil every week through the Swinomish Reservation, which spans about 15 square miles on Fidalgo Island in the western part of the state.Under an agreement between the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community and the rail company, one eastern-bound train, and one western-bound train, of 25 cars or less, were allowed to pass through the tribe’s land each day. But from September 2012 to May 2021, BNSF exceeded that allowance, with at least six 100-car trains traveling in each direction per week, according to a 2015 lawsuit filed by the tribe.Each week, the trains passed through the far north end of the tribe’s land, near a casino, gas station, convenience store and R.V. park, lawyers for the tribe said in the suit. They noted that crude oil, notoriously dangerous cargo, had resulted in derailments, deadly explosions and spills, as well as environmental contamination. BNSF ignored repeated demands by the tribe to cease its “unauthorized use,” according to the suit, and said it would continue running the same number of trains through Swinomish land. In a trial earlier this month, it was determined that the rail company had “breached the contractual obligations” of its agreement with the tribe, and that it should be stripped of the net profits gained through its unauthorized use of Swinomish land, Judge Robert S. Lasnik said in court documents that were filed Monday.In an email on Monday, BNSF refused to comment on the case, and lawyers representing the company did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Steve Edwards, the chairman of the tribe, said in a statement on Monday that the group was thankful that Judge Lasnik had ruled in its favor. He noted that the large sum the judge had ordered the rail company to pay reflected the “enormous wrongful profits that BNSF gained by using the tribe’s land day after day, week after week, year after year over our objections.”“This land is what we have,” Mr. Edwards said. “We have always protected it, and we always will.” More