Railroads

Warren E. Buffett's investment firm may boost its stake in Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp. to 25%, according to documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Berkshire Hathaway Inc., based in Omaha, already owns 15% of the nation's second-largest railroad after buying nearly 14 million shares of Burlington Northern stock in August.

To take Amtrak's Coast Starlight from Los Angeles to the Bay Area is an all-day excursion, 12 hours if you're lucky, 14 or more if there are delays. You can do it only if you have time to give yourself over to the experience, which is why, on a Saturday morning in summer, my 12-year-old son, Noah, and I are in our seats, waiting to leave Union Station for the long passage north.

A freight train once ran through this town near the Guatemalan border. It carried cattle feed, cement and steel. Every day, a hundred or more men and women jumped on its rattletrap cars and hitched a free ride northward. Few locals miss the train, which stopped operating in July. But for the Central American immigrants who pass through southern Mexico on a desperate, 1,200-mile odyssey to the United States, the line's closure is a disaster of epic proportions.

French rail workers intensified their strike, keeping most trains idle for a fourth day as they continued to oppose pension reform plans. The government said it might be willing to talk to individual unions if they would call for a return to work. One moderate union did call for a return, but no real progress toward ending the strike was expected before Tuesday, when civil servants and teachers are expected to strike.

An electrical breakdown snarled traffic on the Northeast rail corridor for hours, delaying trains arriving at New York's Penn Station from Philadelphia and Boston. Damage to overhead wires halted a passenger train about 8:30 a.m., initially blocking New Jersey Transit service and stranding passengers on one northbound train for nearly 2 1/2 hours.

In his medley of train songs, Fallbrook singer Ken Graydon hit upon one Friday with the refrain "there was always a train in my dreams." Graydon was the opening act for an afternoon of hoopla to hail the debut of the North County Transit District's latest public conveyance, German-made light-rail cars that will travel the 22 miles from Oceanside to Escondido on two sets of tracks, with 15 stops.

France confronted a new incident of youth violence Wednesday, a rampage that terrorized passengers as their train rolled west along the Riviera on New Year's Day. The ordeal became front-page news Wednesday in a nation still on edge from riots in November in immigrant-dominated urban areas.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's $222-billion infrastructure bond proposal includes a significant investment in improving Los Angeles' congested rail system, he said Friday. Though his proposal is still in its early stages, local officials are reacting enthusiastically because Los Angeles County's rail lines are becoming increasingly clogged by freight traffic coming from the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach as well as the growing Metrolink commuter rail line.

THOUGH fiercely buffeted by political crosswinds in 2005, Amtrak apparently has survived the political pressure that culminated with the firing of the company's president. As of now, the existing network will continue for 2006. On the plus side, the high-speed Acela trains in the Northeast are back after a service suspension, the Seattle/Portland-Chicago Empire Builder has refurbished equipment and new amenities, and the company carried the most riders ever in 2005.

When a study of the health effects of air pollution at a rail yard in rural Placer County turned up evidence of dramatically high cancer risk from diesel-burning locomotives, air regulators, railroads and residents near rail yards across California were jolted into action. "It was a bombshell," said Sam Atwood, a spokesman for the South Coast Air Quality Management District, which with 19 freight rail yards in the Los Angeles Basin has the largest concentration in the state.