Trains

San Diego TRAINS come and go at the Santa Fe Depot, as they have for nearly a century. But much has changed at the landmark station. Built for the 1915 Panama-California Exposition -- in a combination of Spanish Mission and Colonial Revival styles with a dash of Moorish flavor -- the downtown depot has become a venue for contemporary art as well as a hub for mass transportation.

If it were a hub for ships instead of trains, Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp.'s Hobart rail yard would rank as the fourth-largest U.S. container port, behind Los Angeles, Long Beach and New York-New Jersey. The Hobart yard sits southeast of downtown Los Angeles on 245 acres of continuous movement. It's the busiest rail yard in the country for transferring cargo containers between trucks and trains.

The long, mournful wail of a 3,000-horsepower diesel locomotive's horn on the outskirts of downtown Los Angeles signaled the end Tuesday of American railroads' "Dinger dynasty." After 43 years in the locomotive cab, third-generation passenger train engineer Tom Dinger pulled into Union Station for the last time. "It's a little bit melancholy," Dinger said as he eased up on the huge engine's black-handled throttle. For nearly 90 years, a Dinger has been at the controls of U.S. passenger trains.

THE growth in lowfare air carriers flying in Europe coincides with a growing awareness of the environmental effects of air travel. The amount of carbon dioxide (which many scientists link to global warming) generated per passenger on short-haul flights is about four times that generated by a train trip, according to the Carbon Neutral Co. The company, based in Britain, helps businesses and individuals mitigate their contribution to global warming.

A train traveling to Pakistan caught fire early today in northern India, killing at least 64 people, and officials said two suitcases filled with flammable material that appeared to be explosive devices were found at the scene. V.N. Mathur, general manager of the Northern Railway, said one of the suitcases was found inside a burned train car and the other was on the railroad track.

With a name meaning understanding and agreement, the Samjhauta Express linking India and Pakistan was a symbol of hope that the two nations might finally trade decades of enmity for friendship. That ideal of cooperation seems to have been a target in the firebomb attack that killed scores of passengers trapped in two of the train's burning carriages as it sped toward the Pakistani border.

Pakistan's top envoy arrived in India's capital Tuesday to nudge along a fitful peace process in the aftermath of a deadly firebombing aboard a train connecting the rival nations. The attack on the Samjhauta Express, in which at least 68 people burned to death, lent a greater sense of urgency to a previously scheduled visit here by Pakistani Foreign Minister Mian Khursheed Mehmood Kasuri.

IT'S a long way from Los Angeles to Chicago in a coach seat, especially if that coach seat is on Amtrak's Southwest Chief. The train journey takes 42 hours, winding through Arizona, New Mexico, Kansas, Missouri, Iowa and Illinois, but an upgrade to a more comfortable and private sleeper can be prohibitively expensive -- unless you know the ropes. As a frequent flier fan (or, some would say, fanatic), I can play the airline upgrade game with the best of them.

Some transit advocates attend meetings. Others write letters. Some even picket outside subway stations. Numan Parada makes maps. At a time when a subway-to-the-sea along Wilshire Boulevard is still far from a reality, he is plotting it on a map anyway. With the click of a mouse, he puts a notch next to the Getty Center on the rail line he envisions branching off Wilshire Boulevard to follow the 405 Freeway corridor to the San Fernando Valley. "That's a good place for a station," he said.

China has entered the high-speed-rail era. The signs are hard to miss. "Sixth national speed-up," proclaims a red banner the size of a Sunset Strip billboard in the middle of the Beijing train station. "Harmonious, made-in-China" bullet trains. In the station in Tianjin, posters of smiling families in first-class seats line the walls, under the heading "Pursuit of Harmony."