HORNELL, N.Y. — In a sprawling complex surrounded by hills, hundreds of yellow-vested workers are building the nation’s fastest trains — resembling the European-style rail cars that have largely been absent from American tracks.
The buzz of activity fills the Alstom manufacturing plant in this small western New York town, where concrete floors shine and the whizzing of drills echoes to the high ceilings. In every direction, Amtrak’s most advanced rail cars sit in various stages of construction. Read More...
The 10th in an occasional series on the books that spurred our love of travel.
“It is midnight on the coast of Christmas Island in the Indian Ocean, two hundred miles south of Java.” It is with this scene — of a million scarlet crabs overrunning a tropical beach like some nightmarish alien swarm — that the doyen of natural history, David Attenborough, begins “The Trials of Life.”
Published in 1990 and designed to accompany the nature documentary series of the same name, it’s a book about animal behavior, split into chapters — “Growing Up,” “Home-making,” “Friends and Rivals” — describing different stages of the life cycle. Read More...
Playing to a shouting, hopping, arm-thrusting U Street Music Hall crowd, the live lineup of Buraka Som Sistema repeatedly vowed to keep its Afro-techno-hip-hop going till dawn. The Portugal-based, Angola-rooted sound system performed two versions of "(We Stay) Up All Night" — a track from its new album, "Komba" — but the song title wasn't a literal contract. Most dance-floor bangers don't stay up all night, especially on Tuesdays, and some of the fans had already vanished by the time the 75-minute set ended — 40 minutes shy of midnight. Read More...
