The State of U.S. Railroads

The State of U.S. Railroads
Author: Brian Weatherford
Publisher: Rand Corporation
Total Pages: 65
Release: 2008
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0833045059

The volume of freight transported in the United States is expected to double in the next 30 years. An increased use of rail freight could allow the supply chain to accommodate these increased volumes while minimizing highway congestion and improving energy efficiency in the transportation sector. Shippers and policymakers are concerned that the existing infrastructure--much diminished after decades of track abandonment--lacks sufficient capacity to accommodate the increased demand for rail freight. This report draws from publicly available data on the U.S. railroad industry to provide observations about rail infrastructure capacity and performance in freight transportation. Railroads have improved their productivity in the past three decades, mitigating immediate concerns about capacity, but concerns about future capacity constraints appear to be justified. Insufficient data exist to determine whether rail performance is now stable, significantly declining, or improving. The railroad system is privately owned and operated, but there is a public role for easing rail capacity constraints because private decisions about transportation investment and freight shipping have public consequences for safety and the environment. A better understanding of the public and private cost trade-offs between shipping freight by truck and by rail is needed. Improvements to data quality and freight-modeling tools will improve the ability for policymakers to better target public investment in the rail freight transportation system.

The Story of American Railroads

The Story of American Railroads
Author: Stewart H. Holbrook
Publisher: New York : Crown Publishers
Total Pages: 536
Release: 1947
Genre: Americana
ISBN:

The birth and development of our national railroad system, the men who built it in spite of weather, politicians, desert, and rivals; the ingenuity and inventiveness used to improve constantly devices and techniques in railroading.

Railroads of New Jersey

Railroads of New Jersey
Author: Lorett Treese
Publisher: Stackpole Books
Total Pages: 246
Release: 2006-03-28
Genre: Transportation
ISBN: 081174356X

• Regional histories of the major railroads • Railroad attractions Dividing the state into regions, the author recounts the stories of the people and events that shaped the state's railroad history, explores the major phases of the industry's development, and identifies the state's rail-culture relics--steam and diesel locomotives, routes, bridges, stations, and landmarks, as well as tourist railroad lines and Rails to Trails paths.

Traqueros

Traqueros
Author: Jeffrey Marcos Garcilazo
Publisher: University of North Texas Press
Total Pages: 244
Release: 2012
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 157441464X

Perhaps no other industrial technology changed the course of Mexican history in the United States--and Mexico--than did the coming of the railroads. Tens of thousands of Mexicans worked for the railroads in the United States, especially in the Southwest and Midwest. Construction crews soon became railroad workers proper, along with maintenance crews later. Extensive Mexican American settlements appeared throughout the lower and upper Midwest as the result of the railroad. The substantial Mexican American populations in these regions today are largely attributable to 19th- and 20th-century railroad work. Only agricultural work surpassed railroad work in terms of employment of Mexicans. The full history of Mexican American railroad labor and settlement in the United States had not been told, however, until Jeffrey Marcos Garcílazo's groundbreaking research in Traqueros. Garcílazo mined numerous archives and other sources to provide the first and only comprehensive history of Mexican railroad workers across the United States, with particular attention to the Midwest. He first explores the origins and process of Mexican labor recruitment and immigration and then describes the areas of work performed. He reconstructs the workers' daily lives and explores not only what the workers did on the job but also what they did at home and how they accommodated and/or resisted Americanization. Boxcar communities, strike organizations, and "traquero culture" finally receive historical acknowledgment. Integral to his study is the importance of family settlement in shaping working class communities and consciousness throughout the Midwest.

The State of U.S. Railroads

The State of U.S. Railroads
Author: Brian A. Weatherford
Publisher: Rand Corporation
Total Pages: 65
Release: 2008-08-19
Genre: Transportation
ISBN: 0833046357

U.S. railroads have improved their productivity, but increasing freight volume threatens performance-degrading capacity constraints. This report describes the current state of railroad capacity and performance for freight transportation. The public consequences of private investment decisions justify a public role in addressing concerns about railroads, but better data and analysis are needed to inform transportation policymaking.

American Railroads

American Railroads
Author: Robert E. Gallamore
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 523
Release: 2014-06-17
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0674725646

Overregulated and displaced by barges, trucks, and jet aviation, railroads fell into decline. Their misfortune was measured in lost market share, abandoned track, bankruptcies, and unemployment. Today, rail transportation is reviving. American Railroads tells a riveting story about how this iconic industry managed to turn itself around.

Waiting on a Train

Waiting on a Train
Author: James McCommons
Publisher: Chelsea Green Publishing
Total Pages: 306
Release: 2009-11-06
Genre: Travel
ISBN: 1603582592

During the tumultuous year of 2008--when gas prices reached $4 a gallon, Amtrak set ridership records, and a commuter train collided with a freight train in California--journalist James McCommons spent a year on America's trains, talking to the people who ride and work the rails throughout much of the Amtrak system. Organized around these rail journeys, Waiting on a Train is equal parts travel narrative, personal memoir, and investigative journalism. Readers meet the historians, railroad executives, transportation officials, politicians, government regulators, railroad lobbyists, and passenger-rail advocates who are rallying around a simple question: Why has the greatest railroad nation in the world turned its back on the very form of transportation that made modern life and mobility possible? Distrust of railroads in the nineteenth century, overregulation in the twentieth, and heavy government subsidies for airports and roads have left the country with a skeletal intercity passenger-rail system. Amtrak has endured for decades, and yet failed to prosper owing to a lack of political and financial support and an uneasy relationship with the big, remaining railroads. While riding the rails, McCommons explores how the country may move passenger rail forward in America--and what role government should play in creating and funding mass-transportation systems. Against the backdrop of the nation's stimulus program, he explores what it will take to build high-speed trains and transportation networks, and when the promise of rail will be realized in America.

Amtrak, America's Railroad

Amtrak, America's Railroad
Author: Geoffrey H. Doughty
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Total Pages: 244
Release: 2021-09-07
Genre: Transportation
ISBN: 0253060656

Discover the story of Amtrak, America's Railroad, 50 years in the making. In 1971, in an effort to rescue essential freight railroads, the US government founded Amtrak. In the post–World War II era, aviation and highway development had become the focus of government policy in America. As rail passenger services declined in number and in quality, they were simultaneously driving many railroads toward bankruptcy. Amtrak was intended to be the solution. In Amtrak, America's Railroad: Transportation's Orphan and Its Struggle for Survival, Geoffrey H. Doughty, Jeffrey T. Darbee, and Eugene E. Harmon explore the fascinating history of this popular institution and tell a tale of a company hindered by its flawed origin and uneven quality of leadership, subjected to political gamesmanship and favoritism, and mired in a perpetual philosophical debate about whether it is a business or a public service. Featuring interviews with former Amtrak presidents, the authors examine the current problems and issues facing Amtrak and their proposed solutions. Created in the absence of a comprehensive national transportation policy, Amtrak manages to survive despite inherent flaws due to the public's persistent loyalty. Amtrak, America's Railroad is essential reading for those who hope to see another fifty years of America's railroad passenger service, whether they be patrons, commuters, legislators, regulators, and anyone interested in railroads and transportation history.