From local Houston headlines, we bring you these weekend news bits... • The suspected father of a murdered three month old baby boy who was found Tuesday in Galveston has surrendered to authorities in Philadelphia. • 8,000 cases of meat from HISD school cafeterias are being pulled after hidden camera video released by the Humane Society shows ill cows being tortured before slaughter. • A Union Pacific train en route to Indiana derailed near......

Good morning, Houston. Imagine that you're driving along one day when a traffic light falls from an overhead line and crashes through your car's windshield. You'd think the city would be responsible for the accident, right? Wrong! Just ask Lei Zheng, who was on a shopping trip with his wife and son last year when a traffic light fell on his Volkswagen. Zheng and his family weren't seriously hurt, but they did ask the......

"How often does the train go by?" "So often you won't even notice." West U residents would likely add "unless wheat spills from the train, gets soaked by inches of rain and then stinks up your backyard" to the above exchange between Jake and Elwood in The Blues Brothers. A Union Pacific train spilled the wheat during an incident three weeks ago, but the clean up was halted due to the record setting amount of......

Here's one of those things we never would have expected people to be able to quantify: According to a TxDOT study, delays at Houston rail crossings will cost us $2.6 billion over the next 20 years. "Gridlock: That's where you're headed eventually," Harris County Judge Ed Emmett told KHOU. "No question about it." Eventually? We've already experienced gridlock trying to get across the East End some mornings, or the Union Pacific tracks on Richmond or......

Twenty-five railroad crossings in the Houston area have been targeted by federal authorities for "active" signage - flashing lights and crossing arms - including the one where four teens died in an accident that involved a train and a stolen SUV last month. That site, where four other accidents have occurred since 1979, has only pavement markings and crossbucks. Family members of the teens who were killed vowed to go on a crusade to improve......

Good morning, Houston. Did you happen to be in the West U. area last night? If so, maybe you noticed the train derailment in the area, which prompted the evacuation of a handful of houses and the closure of a section of Bissonnet Street. The derailment, which involved seven cars, happened on the Union Pacific line near the corner of Community and Judson; four of the cars were carrying wheat and lumber, and another......

Police are still investigating some of the details behind a tragic story that unfolded this morning: at about four AM, a stolen SUV carrying several teenagers hit a stalled train near Baytown, leaving four of the young passengers dead. Police reported that the driver of the Jeep Cherokee did not see the train and ran right into a tanker car. The four backseat passengers were killed instantly. The driver was taken by helicopter to Memorial......

The Metro board approved a $77.3 million agreement yesterday that's a step toward construction of four new rapid transit lines — the first step in a construction project that's estimated to cost more than $1 billion. Under the contract, Washington Group Transit Management Co. will begin work on the early design and construction of four transit corridors: north, from UH-Downtown to Northline Mall; southeast, from downtown to Palm Center; East End, from downtown to......

The Chronicle reported yesterday on a proposal to revive passenger train service between Houston and Galveston — an idea that could become reality in five years, according to a study group. A commuter rail line alongside the Gulf Freeway would (theoretically, at least) become popular with commuters, cut down on freeway traffic and provide a vital evacuation link in case a hurricane threatened Galveston. "It has all the elements that would make it eminently......

TxDOT has dropped plans to build 30-foot-high elevated frontage roads along the Katy Freeway between Washington and T.C. Jester, a move apparently driven by concerns from nearby residents about noise, pollution and aesthetic harm the elevated roads could bring. The proposed new feeder roads were part of TxDOT's $40 million proposal to create continuous frontage roads between Washington Avenue and Taylor Street — there are now gaps between Taylor and Studemont, Yale and Patterson......

Mayor Bill White signed a federal declaration today that made fourteen railroad crossings along the Union Pacific line designated Quiet Zones. The declaration, which is scheduled to go into effect on the first of August, will affect Houstonians from Memorial Drive to Willowbend Blvd., who often hear at least thirty-five different trains blaring horns night and day. According to KTRK, those who live near the train - primarily in West University and Bellaire - will......

As controversy over Metro's proposed University light rail line continues, a much quieter discussion is taking place across town on where to put the future East End rail line. The line — initially a dedicated busway that could eventually be fitted with trains — would go from downtown to the Magnolia Transit Center at Harrisburg and 70th, but how it'll get there is the question. According to the Chronicle, two options have pretty much......

Today's Chronicle has some details of Metro's proposed intermodal terminal, including basics of the complex's design. According to design sketches presented at a public meeting last week, the centerpiece of the terminal — which will connect bus, light rail and commuter rail lines just north of downtown — will be a 400-foot-wide circular plaza called "the Great Space," featuring "greenery, an open-air market and other amenities." Sort of an outdoor lobby, we suppose. Jim Gast,......

Metro is ready to take another step toward its proposed intermodal transit station on the north end of downtown: The Chronicle reports today that the agency is working on a deal with Union Pacific to buy nine acres of the Hardy Rail Yard. The Metro board voted yesterday to negotiate the purchase for the combined light rail/bus/commuter rail station that was proposed earlier this year. The land Metro has its eye on is adjacent to......

Via Off the Kuff, Intermodallity looks at proposed alignments for the East End not-rail line, noting that Metro has proposed four options and is avoiding the catfights taking place along the proposed University line on the west side. The proposals for the Bus Rapid Transit line: • Harrisburg Boulevard, a major route through the residential areas of the East End and, west of 65th Street, through a commercial center. The alignment would run through......

An undercover cop shot a man in the leg during an investigation into car break-ins in southeast Houston this afternoon; the suspect reportedly rammed his car into a police car several times before the shooting The Institute for Rehabilitation and Research and Memorial Hermann will merge May 1, helping to save the struggling rehabilitation hospital A man walking along train tracks north of downtown was injured this morning when he was hit by a Union......

If you live near the train tracks that run through Memorial Park south through West University and Bellaire to Braeswood Boulevard, you’re going to have to keep those ear plugs in while you sleep a little bit longer. A plan to ban train whistles when trains go through the residential areas inside the Loop at night has been postponed, and it may be as late as March before those whistles are silenced. After growing......