Commuter rail agencies provide mobility to millions of people across the country, often using Amtrak infrastructure and services. Given these interactions, an abrupt Amtrak cessation could have a significant impact on commuter rail operations. Amtrak's chronic financial problems and recent budget proposals make such cessation possibility. This book was asked to examine:(1) The extent to which commuter rail agencies rely on Amtrak for access to infrastructure and services,(2) Issues that commuter rail agencies would face if Amtrak abruptly ceased to provide them with services and infrastructure access, and(3) The options available to commuter rail agencies should Amtrak abruptly cease to provide those services and infrastructure access.

A saga about one of the oldest and most romantic enterprises in the land America s railroads The Men Who Loved Trains introduces some of the most dynamic businessmen in America. Here are the chieftains who have run the railroads, including those who set about grabbing power and big salaries for themselves, and others who truly loved the industry.

As a journalist and associate editor of Fortune magazine who covered the demise of Penn Central and the creation of Conrail, Rush Loving often had a front row seat to the foibles and follies of this group of men. He uncovers intrigue, greed, lust for power, boardroom battles, and takeover wars and turns them into a page-turning story for readers.

Included is the story of how the chairman of CSX Corporation, who later became George W. Bush s Treasury secretary, was inept as a manager but managed to make millions for himself while his company drifted in chaos. Men such as he were shy of scruples, yet there were also those who loved trains and railroading, and who played key roles in reshaping transportation in the northeastern United States. This book will delight not only the rail fan, but anyone interested in American business and history."

Though the history of the German railway system is often associated with the transportation of Jews to labor and death camps, Todd Presner looks instead to the completion of the first German railway lines and their role in remapping the cultural geography and intellectual history of Germany's Jews.

Treating the German railway as both an iconic symbol of modernity and a crucial social, technological, and political force, Presner advances a groundbreaking interpretation of the ways in which mobility is inextricably linked to German and Jewish visions of modernity. Moving beyond the tired model of a failed German-Jewish dialogue, Presner emphasizes the mutual entanglement of the very categories of German and Jewish and the many sites of contact and exchange that occurred between German and Jewish thinkers.

Turning to philosophy, literature, and the history of technology, and drawing on transnational cultural and diaspora studies, Presner charts the influence of increased mobility on interactions between Germans and Jews. He considers such major figures as Kafka, Heidegger, Arendt, Freud, Sebald, Hegel, and Heine, reading poetry next to philosophy, architecture next to literature, and railway maps next to cultural history.

Rather than a conventional, linear history that culminates in the tragedy of the Holocaust, Presner produces a cultural mapping that articulates a much more complex story of the hopes and catastrophes of mobile modernity. By focusing on the spaces of encounter emblematically represented by the overdetermined triangulation of Germans, Jews, and trains, he introduces a new genealogy for the study of European and German-Jewish modernity.

"Craig Sanders has done an excellent job of research... his treatment is as comprehensive as anyone could reasonably wish for, and solidly based. In addition, he succeeds in making it all clear as well as any human can. He also manages to inject enough humor and human interest to keep the reader moving." Herbert H. Harwood, author of The Lake Shore Electric Railway Story and Invisible Giants: The Empires of Cleveland s Van Sweringen Brothers

A complete history of Amtrak operations in the heartland, this volume describes conditions that led to the passage of the Rail Passenger Service Act of 1970, the formation and implementation of Amtrak in 1970 71, and the major factors that have influenced Amtrak operations since its inception. More than 140 photographs and 3 maps bring to life the story as told by Sanders. This book will become indispensable to train enthusiasts through its examination of Americans long-standing fascination with passenger trains. When it began in 1971, many expected Amtrak to last about three years before going out of existence for lack of business, but the public s continuing support of funding for Amtrak has enabled it and the passenger train to survive despite seemingly insurmountable odds."

This is a complete facsimile of the 1904 edition originally published by the Interborough Rapid Transit Company to commemorate the opening of New Yorkas first subway line. From the perspective of both urban history and the history of transportation, this book is an important primary source. Building the cityas first subway in the early years of the twentieth century required delicate collaboration between public and private interests and called for the expenditure of considerable sums of both public and private money. The book introduces us to Abram S. Hewitt, a late nineteenth-century mayor of New York City. It was Hewitt who realized that, while private capital alone had been perfectly adequate for building elevated rapid transit lines in New York as early as the 1870s, the more costly construction of underground rapid transit lines was far beyond the ability of private corporations to finance. Hewitt set in motion a chain of events that sanctioned the use of public funds for subway construction, with the completed facility then to be leased to a private company for day-to-day operation. The private firm that emerged, both to build and to operate the first subway in New York, was called the Interborough Rapid Transit Company, a name that would later be rendered more crisply as the IRT. The City of New York and the Interborough Rapid transit Company inaugurated service over the cityas first subway line on Thursday afternoon, October 27, 1904. Mayor George B. McClellan, son of the Civil War general, took the controls of the first ceremonial train at City Hall Station in downtown Manhattan and headed north. In one way or another, the subway has been going ever since. The book alsopresents important tabular and statistical information, as well as clear and concise narrative descriptions of technical details.

"Steel Trails of Hawkeyeland offers a comprehensive examination of railroads in Iowa from the introduction of the iron horse to the present. It is more than a study of a single, albeit significant American state. Hofsommer superbly relates local events to the national picture. His is a one-of-a-kind volume." H. Roger Grant, author of Follow the Flag: A History of the Wabash Railroad Company

In the time of jet airplanes and interstate highways, the Internet and e-commerce, it is difficult to comprehend and appreciate the impact that railroads had on Iowa s landscape in terms not just of transportation service and economic development, but of political, social, and cultural linkage as well. Railroads helped to define the character of America, and that certainly was the case in Iowa. Pioneer lines penetrated the interior from established Mississippi River communities during the state s early railroad era, and later opened up huge tracts for agricultural opportunity as well as urban development.

A wide-ranging survey of Iowa s railroad experience, Steel Trails of Hawkeyeland offers a snapshot of a fascinating and critically important element in the state s history, and emphasizes the tight symbiotic relationship between Iowa and its railways. Packed with more than 250 photographs, this is a thorough and engaging book."

With the coming of railroads, upstart Chicago quickly became the Midwest's center for commerce and trade, overtaking its older rival, St. Louis. The first tracks to link the East coast with the West ran through Chicago, and within a few decades the city grew to be the hub of an immense transportation network that stretched across the nation. Noted transportation writer David M. Young vividly tells how railroads created and shaped Chicago, from the earliest times to the present. He shows how the expansion of rail lines promoted the growth of the suburbs, and how Chicago's burgeoning manufacturing hub became home to such corporate giants as Cyrus McCormick's harvester operation and catalogue houses Montgomery Ward; Spiegel; and Sears, Roebuck and Company. For the most part, the railroad companies that schemed to bypass Chicago failed. As the hub of a vast transportation network, Chicago experienced many tragic accidents at rail crossings. One of the first books to deal with the history of accidents and issues of safety, The Iron Horse and the Windy City reveals how Chicago eventually forced railroad companies to eliminate dangerous crossings by installing barriers or by raising tracks above street level. Railroad magnates, entrepreneurs, and ordinary people come to life in this first comprehensive account of the impact of railroads on Chicago. Transportation historians and general readers interested in Chicago will find it both essential and engaging.

Signal Failure is a history of the relationship between railways and government in the United Kingdom. It is intended for both railway enthusiasts and professionals. Setting the relationship against the growth of the railways, the book looks at the way in which it developed.

Two major U.S. Midwestern railroads, the Rock Island Lines and the Milwauke Road, filed for bankruptcy after 1975 and the Court ordered them dismembered. This study explains the economic factors causing financial failure such as total rail line excess capacity in the region leading to low density of freight traffic; in addition, labor union rules required unnecessary large train crews. The regulations of the Interstate Commerce Commission aggravated the economic problems by limiting rail line abandonments and mergers designed to improve efficiency. Congress passed the Staggers Act in 1980 to correct a large part of the regulatory limitations to efficient reorganization of the U.S. rail system, but it was too late to save the Rock Island and the Milwaukee Road.
The later chapters are economic analyses of the more recent mergers of the large railroads from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Coast. A key saving resulted from the court ruling that segments of rail line could be sold to new short-line railroads without the selling carrier having to pay special compensation to rail workers who were discharged. The Illinois Central Railroad was a prime example of a carrier that sold almost all of its branch lines. Great efficiencies in operations were realized as the Union Pacific acquired the Missouri Pacific and the Southern Pacific. Comparable efficiencies were realized by the Burlington Northern acquisitions of the St. Louis-San Francisco and the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe.

The Jewett Car Company was born in Akron, Ohio, in the heyday of the electric railway boom in the 1890s. The company gained an excellent reputation for its elegant, well-built wooden cars for street railway companies, interurban lines, and rapid transit service. Cities large and small used Jewett cars. Many interurban lines employed the graceful, arch-windowed, wood interurban that Jewett was famous for. Competition from automobiles and from larger car builders such as J. G. Brill and the St. Louis Car Company signaled the beginning of the end for Jewett. The company was offered the opportunity to produce munitions for World War I, but refused when a German nationalist banker who was a major source of financing for Jewett refused to allow the company to do anything that would harm Germany. As a result, the Jewett Car Company died, but the reputation of their product survives to this day.

Rising from the corporate wreckage of the 1970s, when even the nation's largest railroad filed for bankruptcy, American railroads are once again a major part of the global economy. Richard Saunders brings to life this amazing story of revitalization, showing how a combination of creatively structured aid from the public sector and talented private management gave railroads new momentum. By 2002, American railroads carried five times the tonnage they hauled in their former heyday, and they did this with one-tenth of the employees. How did this revolution happen? Saunders shows how limited, disciplined, and politically risky government intervention stabilized a sinking industry. Whatever their results for other industries, President Carter's deregulation and President Reagan's tax revisions restored the railroads' financial health. Container cars and other new technologies also helped to transform inefficient railroads into vibrant enterprises. Corporate strategies varied on the road to success, and even skilled managers encountered pitfalls, but the railroads' resurgence and growth proved to be unstoppable. After the merger mania of the mid-twentieth century, the main U.S. railroad systems evolved into seven transregional corporate giants. Of the "Super Seven," only four survived past the 1990s-the Norfolk Southern, CSX, Union Pacific, and Burlington Northern-Santa Fe. These four set the standard at a time when no other major railroads could afford the new technologies needed to turn a profit. A sequel to Merging Lines, this engagingly written account brings the story of American railroads up to the twenty-first century. As American transport enters the twenty-first century, the iron horse that consolidated the Industrial Revolution once again flexes its muscle.

Invisible Giants is the Horatio Alger-esque tale of a pair of reclusive Cleveland brothers, Oris Paxton and Mantis James Van Sweringen, who rose from poverty to become two of the most powerful men in America. They controlled the country's largest railroad system -- a network of track reaching from the Atlantic to Salt Lake City and from Ontario to the Gulf of Mexico. On the eve of the Great Depression they were close to controlling the country's first coast-to-coast rail system -- a goal that still eludes us. They created the model upper-class suburb of Shaker Heights, Ohio, with its unique rapid transit access. They built Cleveland's landmark Terminal Tower and its innovative "city within a city" complex. Indisputably, they created modern Cleveland.

Yet beyond a small, closely knit circle, the bachelor Van Sweringen brothers were enigmas. Their actions were aggressive, creative, and bold, but their manner was modest, mild, and retiring. Dismissed by many as mere shoe-string financial manipulators, they created enduring works, which remain strong today. The Van Sweringen story begins in early-20th-century Cleveland suburban real estate and reaches its zenith in the heady late 1920s, amid the turmoil of national transportation power politics and unprecedented empire-building. As the Great Depression destroyed many of their fellow financiers, the "Vans" survived through imaginative stubbornness -- until tragedy ended their careers almost simultaneously. Invisible Giants is the first comprehensive biography of these two remarkable if mysterious men.

North America faces a transportation crisis. Gas-guzzling SUVs clog the highways and air travelers face delays, cancellations, and uncertainty in the wake of unprecedented terrorist attacks. New Departures closely examines the options for improving intercity passenger trains' capacity to move North Americans where they want to go.

While Amtrak and VIA Rail Canada face intense pressure to transform themselves into successful commercial enterprises, Anthony Perl demonstrates how public policy changes lie behind the triumphs of European and Japanese high-speed rail passenger innovations. Perl goes beyond merely describing these achievements, translating their implications into a North American institutional and political context and diagnosing the obstacles that have made renewing passenger trains so much more difficult in North America than elsewhere.

New Departures links the lessons behind rail passenger revitalization abroad with the opportunity to recast the policies that constrain Amtrak and VIA Rail from providing efficient and effective intercity transportation.

After almost a quarter of a century, Monon: The Hoosier Line is back in print in a revised second edition featuring an updated Epilogue, additional photographs, and a new Afterword by Frank Van Bree, President of the Monon Railroad Historical-Technical Society, Inc.

Many railroads served the state, but the Monon was Indiana s own. If you wanted to travel from Delphi to Broad Ripple, or from Gosport to Smithville, you took the Monon. The self-proclaimed "Hoosier Line" celebrated its heritage by naming its flagship passenger train The Hoosier, featuring Indiana cooking in the dining cars and offering homespun service. Monon celebrates the history of this magnificent railroad, from its inception in 1847 as the New Albany & Salem Rail Road, then as the Louisville, New Albany & Chicago, to its merger in 1970 with the L&N, and beyond. The informative text is enhanced by 258 black-and-white illustrations and a special color insert, "The Monon in Color," with 17 additional photographs."

This comprehensive history of North American railroad electrification has been out of print for many years. Now, Indiana University Press is proud to announce its return in an new, updated second edition.

For most of the first half of the 20th century the United States led the way in railroad electrification. Before the outbreak of World War II, the country had some 2,400 route-miles and more than 6,300 track-miles operating under electric power, far more than any other nation and more than 20 percent of the world s total. In almost every instance, electrification was a huge success. Running times were reduced. Tonnage capacities were increased. Fuel and maintenance costs were lowered, and the service lives of electric locomotives promised to be twice as long as those of steam locomotives. Yet despite its many triumphs, electrification of U.S. railroads failed to achieve the wide application that once was so confidently predicted. By the 1970s, it was the Soviet Union, with almost 22,000 electrified route-miles, that led the way, and the U.S. had declined to 17th place.

Today, electric operation of U.S. railroads is back in the limelight. The federally funded Northeast Corridor Improvement Program has provided an expanded Northeast Corridor electrification, with high-speed trains that are giving the fastest rail passenger service ever seen in North America, while still other high-speed corridors are planned for other parts of the country. And with U.S. rail freight tonnage at its highest levels in history, the ability of electric locomotives to expand capacity promises to bring renewed consideration of freight railroad electrification.

Middleton begins his ambitious chronicle of the ups and downs of railway electrification with the history of its early days, and brings it right up to the present which is surely not the end of this complex and mercurial story."

The Turkestano-Siberian Railroad, or Turksib, was one of the great construction projects of the Soviet Union\u2019s First Five-Year Plan. As the major icon to ending the economic \u0022backwardness\u0022 of the USSR\u2019s minority republics, it stood apart from similar efforts as one of the most potent metaphors for the creation of a unified socialist nation. Built between December 1926 and January 1931 by nearly 50,000 workers and at a cost of more 161 million rubles, Turksib embodied the Bolsheviks\u2019 commitment to end ethnic inequality and promote cultural revolution in one the far-flung corners of the old Tsarist Empire, Kazakhstan. Trumpeted as the \u0022forge of the Kazakh proletariat,\u0022 the railroad was to create a native working class, bringing not only trains to the steppes, but also the Revolution. In the first in-depth study of this grand project, Matthew Payne explores the transformation of its builders in Turksib\u2019s crucible of class war, race riots, state purges, and the brutal struggle of everyday life. In the battle for the souls of the nation\u2019s engineers, as well as the racial and ethnic conflicts that swirled, far from Moscow, around Stalin\u2019s vast campaign of industrialization, he finds a microcosm of the early Soviet Union.

For much of the postwar era, French society had a contradictory view of passenger trains, scorning them as quaint anachronisms on the one hand, yet also fearing their economic and social impact. All this changed with the introduction of the famed Train a Grande Vitesse (TGV) between Paris and Lyon in the early 1980s. In vivid detail, Meunier describes the political, economic, and social factors that both helped and hindered the development of the world's fastest, most technologically advanced train.

The present-day enthusiasm in France for high-speed rail travel dates only to the successful launch of the now-famous TGV in 1981. Until now, most published accounts of French high-speed rail have been of a technical nature and have ignored or minimized the historical, political, economic, and social context. Historians have been left with detailed descriptions of locomotives and experimental test runs, but there has been scant information cercerning why the machines were built and why the tests were carried out in the first place. This book is the first full-length treatment of high-speed rail travel and the bibliography is one of the most complete on the subject.

Louisville & Nashville Steam Locomotives
Revised 1968 Edition
Richard E. Prince

A revised new edition of an encyclopedic study.

"For over one hundred years the steam locomotives provided the principal motive power on the Louisville & Nashville RR. During this period over 2000 different steam engines were owned by the Old Reliable." Thus begins Richard E. Princes encyclopedic study of the Louisville & Nashville s Steam Locomotives.

First published in 1959 and revised in 1968, this is the crucial book for the Louisville and Nashville Locomotive's many steam fans. With hundreds of vintage photographs, detailed rosters, and schematic drawings it is an invaluable resource for railroad buffs and historians. But even casual readers will be swept up in Prince s history of the growth and diversification of the L&N.

Richard E. Prince is author of nine railroad books. He attended Georgia School of Technology in Atlanta. During World War II, he joined the Merchant Marines and sailed on steam Liberty ships. He worked in several capacities for the L&N Railroad and the Union Pacific Railroad. He is now retired and lives in Omaha, Nebraska. Among his many books are Atlantic Coast Line Railroad and Seaboard Air Line Railway (Indiana University Press)."

A history of the Pennsylvania Railroad and its predecessor companies in Indiana. Few corporate institutions had such widespread impact upon Indiana's people or their way of life the "Pennsy" once operated one-fourth of the state's rail mileage. Highlights of its story include coverage of its famous passenger trains, its impact upon the state's economy, the railroad's contributions to Allied victory in World War II, and the post-war decline which led to its merger into Penn Central. Illustrations recreate images of its speedy passenger trains and heavy-tonnage freights, as well as advertising and other promotional materials dating back to the 1840s."

When the American Railway Union went on strike against the Pullman Palace Car Company in 1894, it set into motion a chain of events whose repercussions are still felt today. The strike pitted America's largest industrial union against twenty-four railroads, paralyzed rail traffic in half the country, and in the end was broken up by federal troops and suppressed by the courts, with union leader Eugene Debs incarcerated. But behind the Pullman case lay a conflict of ideologies at a watershed time in our nation's history.

David Ray Papke reexamines the events and personalities surrounding the 1894 strike, related proceedings in the Chicago trial courts, and the 1895 Supreme Court decision, In re Debs, which set important standards for labor injunctions. He shows how the Court, by upholding Debs's contempt citation, dealt fatal blows to broad-based unionism in the nation's most important industry and to any hope for a more evenhanded form of judicial involvement in labor disputes-thus setting the stage for labor law in decades to come.

The Pullman case was a defining moment in the often violent confrontation between capital and labor. It matched wealthy industrialist George Pullman against Debs and gave a stage to Debs's fledgling attorney Clarence Darrow. Throughout the trial, capital and labor tried to convince the public of the justice of their cause: Debs decrying the company's treatment of workers and Pullman raising fears of radical unionists. Papke provides an analytically concise and highly readable account of these proceedings, offering insight into the strengths and weaknesses of the law at the peak of industrial capitalism, showcasing Debs's passionate commitment to workers' rights, and providing a window on America during a period of rapid industrialization and social transformation.

Papke shows that the law was far from neutral in defending corporate interests and suggests what the Pullman case, by raising questions about both the legitimacy of giant corporations and the revolutionary style of industrial unions, can teach us about law and legal institutions in our own time. His book captures the passions of industrial America and tells an important story at the intersection of legal and cultural history.

On November 1, 1918, as the Great War in Europe was entering its final hours, a five-car elevated train was heading for the Flatbush section of Brooklyn with hundreds of homeward-bound commuters aboard. As the train rumbled down a shor hill between Prospect Park and Ebbets Field in the very heart of Brooklyn, the unthinkable happened: the motorman lost control and the train left the tracks as it curved into a tunnel at the foot of the hill. The ensuing disaster, known ever since as the Malbone Street Wreck, took the lives of almost a hundred people and stands as the worst mass-transit accident in U.S. History. Unlike the Titanic disaster, however, the Malbone Street Wreck has received scant attention from scholars and historians over the years. As is so often the case, popular accounts of the tragedy have managed to enshrine as dogma thinkgs that are absolutely untrue. Now, Fordham University Press is proud to present Brian J. Cudahy's long-awaited account of the Malbone Street Wreck, a book that recounts the events leading up to the disaster, describes the faithful trip from its beginning to end, and reviews efforts conducted after the tragedy to fix blame and establish liability. Could the Malbone Stret Wreck have been avoided? Clearly yes, is Cudahy's answer. Had any number of factors not combined in precisely the way that they did, the five-car train might have well continued its journey to Brighton Beach in a completely uneventful manner. But they did happen exactly as they happened, and that is why The Malbone Street Wreck makes such arresting reading. Could another Malbone Street Wreck happen at some future time in New York, or on any other U.S. Mass Transit System? Transit professionals will have to answer this question after they read Cudahy's account of how and why November 1, 1918 has become such an important day in transportation history.

On November 1, 1918, as the Great War in Europe was entering its final hours, a five-car elevated train was heading for the Flatbush section of Brooklyn with hundreds of homeward-bound commuters aboard. As the train rumbled down a shor hill between Prospect Park and Ebbets Field in the very heart of Brooklyn, the unthinkable happened: the motorman lost control and the train left the tracks as it curved into a tunnel at the foot of the hill. The ensuing disaster, known ever since as the Malbone Street Wreck, took the lives of almost a hundred people and stands as the worst mass-transit accident in U.S. History. Unlike the Titanic disaster, however, the Malbone Street Wreck has received scant attention from scholars and historians over the years. As is so often the case, popular accounts of the tragedy have managed to enshrine as dogma thinkgs that are absolutely untrue. Now, Fordham University Press is proud to present Brian J. Cudahy's long-awaited account of the Malbone Street Wreck, a book that recounts the events leading up to the disaster, describes the faithful trip from its beginning to end, and reviews efforts conducted after the tragedy to fix blame and establish liability. Could the Malbone Stret Wreck have been avoided? Clearly yes, is Cudahy's answer. Had any number of factors not combined in precisely the way that they did, the five-car train might have well continued its journey to Brighton Beach in a completely uneventful manner. But they did happen exactly as they happened, and that is why The Malbone Street Wreck makes such arresting reading. Could another Malbone Street Wreck happen at some future time in New York, or on any other U.S. Mass Transit System? Transit professionals will have to answer this question after they read Cudahy's account of how and why November 1, 1918 has become such an important day in transportation history.

Exploring the social, economic, and legal impact of the growth of the railroads, Sarah Gordon has written a richly informed narrative history of an American icon-with surprising conclusions. Where the railroads and their entrepreneurs are ordinarily celebrated for drawing together the vast geographical reaches of the union, Ms. Gordon finds that this accomplishment was achieved at high cost. Conflicts of interest-at local, state, and regional levels-characterized railroad growth at every stage. Despite the stated aims of government and the railroad corporations to promote settlement and commerce, Ms. Gordon explains, the states lost control and lost the economic benefits of the roads that ran through them. Smaller towns withered as people and money flowed to larger cities. By 1900 the union that had emerged reflected the worst fears of railroad critics. The South and West had been settled, but wealth had become so concentrated in cities that rural life had lost its attraction. Drawing from a wide variety of sources, including literature, diaries, and memoirs, Sarah Gordon has constructed an absorbing story of apparent triumph and real loss.

Originally published by UNC Press in 1952, The Railroads of the Confederacy tells the story of the first use of railroads on a major scale in a major war. Robert Black presents a complex and fascinating tale, with the railroads of the American South playing the part of tragic hero in the Civil War: at first vigorous though immature; then overloaded, driven unmercifully, starved for iron; and eventually worn out--struggling on to inevitable destruction in the wake of Sherman's army, carrying the Confederacy down with them. With maps of all the Confederate railroads and contemporary photographs and facsimiles of such documents as railroad tickets, timetables, and soldiers' passes, the book will captivate railroad enthusiasts as well as readers interested in the Civil War. |The only comprehensive history of the South's use of railroads during the Civil War.

In this first comparative study of Chinese and Zimbabwean railway experiences, Gao examines the role played by technological progress in generating significant social change. His principal concern is with indigenous people whose efforts to meet this technological advance has been neglected or underestimated. Gao shows how different cultural traditions, political situations, and individual interests create an attractive variety of local responses to the challenges and opportunities afforded by technology. He not only describes the final consequences of railway development, but emphasizes the dynamic process by which indigenous people first derived, then gradually lost, most of the gains from modern transport advances. In addition, Gao explores a number of permanent impacts of railways on the two areas, including demographic and structural changes, and divisions of race and class. An intriguing study for researchers and students of imperialism, and Chinese and African history.