If you’re an old-schooler, you might still go to the local bar and pay for a beer with cash. You could even try and pay with a cheque, though the pen-and-paper method has mostly fallen out of favor these days. But if you’re a little more modern, you might use a tap-to-pay feature on a […]
The first generation of real-time train information screens for British railways came in the form of suspended color CRTs in familiar rounded fiberglass housings. They were a ubiquitous sight across the network for years, until of course suddenly, they weren’t. Can they be brought back? [Heliomass] has come about as close as it’s possible to […]
There’s a train vulnerability making the rounds this week. The research comes from [midwestneil], who first discovered an issue way back in 2012, and tried to raise the alarm. Turns out you can just hack any train in the USA and take control over the brakes. This is CVE-2025-1727 and it took me 12 years […]
One of the blockbuster talks at last year’s Chaos Communications Congress covered how a group of hackers discovered code that allegedly bricked public trains in Poland when they went into service at a competitor’s workshop. This year, the same group is back with tales of success, lawsuits, and appearances in the Polish Parliament. You’re not […]
Here in the United States, we’re lagging behind the rest of the world when it comes to shiny new passenger rail, despite being leaders in previous centuries. The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) has just released a story map of how the US could close the gap (a little). The Corridor Identification and Development (CID) Program […]
Subway cars have a tough life. Moving people through a city efficiently underground every day and night takes a toll on the hardware. To keep things running efficiently, NYC rebuilds its cars every six years. The enormous job of refurbing a subway car back to factory spec happens in one of two yards, either in […]