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."

In this illustrated collection, H. Roger Grant, one of America's leading railroad historians, brings together a rich assortment of personal accounts of train travel in the United States since the dawn of railroading. The twenty-one accounts included here tell of the excitement, the romance, the difficulties, and sometimes the danger of traveling by train. Together they present a lively picture of the great changes that have taken place since the 1830s. Some describe wild rides on high-speed raceways, while others recount arduous trips on rickety branch lines. Rail travel at its most luxurious is recreated--the elegant Pullman sleeping berths, the fine parlor and observation cars--as are some of the more grim journeys of troops, itinerant workers, and prisoners of war in squalid boxcars. Binding these accounts together is an enduring fascination with the rails.

The diesel locomotive sent shock waves through rigid corporate cultures and staid government regulators. For some, the new technology promised to be a source of enormous profits; for others, the railroad industry seemed a threat to their very livelihoods. Evolution of the American Diesel Locomotive introduces the reader to the important technological advances that gave rise to diesel engines, examining not only their impact on locomotive design, but also their impact on the economic and social landscapes. J. Parker Lamb describes the development of these technologies, allowing the reader to fully understand how they were integrated and formed a commercially successful locomotive. Like its companion volume, Perfecting the American Steam Locomotive (IUP, 2003), this book emphasizes the role of the leading engineers whose innovations paved the way for critical breakthroughs. Rail fans will appreciate this authoritative work.

This textbook covers the very wide spectrum of all aspects of railway engineering for all engineering disciplines, in a 'broad brush' way giving a good overall knowledge of what is involved in planning, designing, constructing and maintaining a railway. It covers all types of railway systems including light rail and metro as well as main line. The first edition has proved very popular both with students new to railways and with practicing engineers who need to work in this newly expanding area.In the second edition, the illustrations have been improved and brought up to date, particularly with the introduction of 30 colour pages which include many newly taken photographs. The text has been reviewed for present day accuracy and, where necessary, has been modified or expanded to include reference to recent trends or developments. New topics include automatic train control, level crossings, dot matrix indicators, measures for the mobility impaired, reinforced earth structures, air conditioning, etc. Recent railway experience, both technical and political, has also been reflected in the commentary.

Trespassing is the leading cause of rail-related fatalities in the United States. A large proportion of these trespasser fatalities are from intentional acts (i.e., suicides). With a lack of systematic research and evaluation of the countermeasures that are currently in place as well as those that have been proposed, it is difficult for railroad carriers and communities that seek to select appropriate countermeasures that are likely to be effective at mitigating suicides. This book discusses the current information available on trespasser fatalities and the implementation of countermeasures in use internationally to prevent suicides on the railroad right-of-way. The book presents a discussion of each countermeasure according to various intervention points along the path to complete suicide on the railroad right-of-way.

Positive Train Control (PTC) is a communications and signalling system that has been identified by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) as a technology capable of preventing accidents caused by train operator or dispatcher error. PTC is expected to reduce the number of accidents due to excessive speed, conflicting train movements, and engineer failure to obey wayside signals. The Rail Safety Improvement Act of 2008 (RSIA08) requires implementation of positive train control on railroads which carry passengers or have high-volume freight traffic with toxic or poisonous-by-inhalation hazardous materials. This book provides an overview of the issues and economics for improved rail safety. While PTC promises benefits in terms of safety, its implementation entails substantial costs and presents a variety of other policy-related issues. These include the interoperability of individual railroads' systems, sufficient radio spectrum to support PTC, and the possibility that PTC could be a barrier to market entry.

This peer-reviewed 3-volume set comprises the contributions to the 11th International Conference on Bearing Capacity of Roads, Railways and Airfields (2022). In 3 volumes it unveils state-of-the-art information and research on the latest policies, traffic loading measurements, in-situ measurements and condition surveys, functional testing, deflection measurement evaluation, structural performance prediction for pavements and tracks, new construction and rehabilitation design systems, frost affected areas, drainage and environmental effects, reinforcement, traditional and recycled materials, full scale testing and on case histories of road, railways and airfields. This edited work is intended for a global audience of road, railway and airfield engineers, researchers and consultants, as well as building and maintenance companies looking to further upgrade their practices in the field.

The Rail Safety Improvement Act of 2008 (RSIA08) requires implementation of positive train control (PTC) on railroads which carry passengers or have high-volume freight traffic with toxic- or poisonous-by-inhalation hazardous materials. Chapters 1 and 2 discuss passenger railroads' PTC progress and FRA's steps to assist them, and how passenger railroads and FRA plan to approach the 2018 and 2020 deadlines. Chapter 3 reports on the FRA's passenger equipment safety standards using a performance-based approach to adopt new and modified requirements governing the construction of conventional and high-speed passenger rail equipment. Chapter 4 examines key characteristics of FRA's and FTA's rail safety oversight programs and strengths and limitations of FRA's and FTA's rail safety oversight programs. Crashes at highway-rail grade crossings are one of the leading causes of railroad-related deaths. Chapter 5 examines the focus of FRA's grade-crossing-safety research, how states select and implement grade-crossing projects and what data are available from FRA to inform their decisions, and the challenges states reported in implementing and assessing projects and the extent to which FHWA assesses the program's effectiveness. When a train is not moving but its engines are running, it can present risks and disruptions for the surrounding community as reported in chapter 6. Railroad bridges carry heavy and potentially dangerous loads over busy roadways and important waterways. Many of these bridges are a century old or more. However, unlike road bridges, which are the responsibility of public entities, railroad bridges are the responsibility of the private railroad companies that own or operate them. Congress has acted in recent years to improve oversight of railroad bridge safety, but incidents have prompted concerns about whether enough is being done to protect the public as discussed in chapter 7. Train derailments or collisions are often well-publicized events and receive significant attention from policymakers seeking to reduce their reoccurrence. Less attention has been devoted to trespassing, although it is a much greater cause of rail-related fatalities than derailments and collisions combined. As reported in chapter 8, over three-fifths of deaths in rail incidents have been pedestrian trespassers, and vehicle-train accidents at railroad grade crossings account for nearly one-third Congress created the Railroad Rehabilitation and Improvement Financing (RRIF) program to offer long-term, low-cost loans to railroad operators, with particular attention to small freight railroads, to help them finance improvements to infrastructure and investments in equipment. This program is the focus of chapter 9. Chapter 10 examines how WMATA spent its capital funds from fiscal years 2011 through 2017, how WMATA's new capital planning process addresses weaknesses it identified in the prior process, and WMATA's progress toward its track preventive maintenance program's goals and how the program aligns with leading program management practices.

In Pennsylvania Railroad, William Sipes provides a detailed history of the railroad in Pennsylvania, its construction, its management, and its various lines and their stations, starting with the first experimental track laid down in 1809 in Delaware County and continuing as the railroad expanded westward across the state. Sipes discusses the attractions and history of the railroad's destinations, including landmarks in Philadelphia, Lancaster, Altoona, Pittsburgh, New York, and New Jersey, among others. Published in 1875, the book explores the world of transportation in the nineteenth century, taking its readers along a journey through the state of Pennsylvania and following the trajectory of the famous Pennsylvania Railroad's history and development.

A standard track gauge - the distance between the two rails - enables connecting railway lines to exchange traffic. But despite the benefits of standardization, early North American railways used six different gauges extensively, and even today breaks of gauges at national borders and within such countries as India and Australia are expensive burdens on commerce. In "Tracks across Continents, Paths through History", Douglas J. Puffert offers a global history of railway track gauges, examining early choices and the dynamic process of diversity and standardization that resulted. Drawing on the economic theory of path dependence, and grounded in economic, technical, and institutional realities, this innovative volume traces how early historical events, and even idiosyncratic personalities, have affected choices of gauges ever since, despite changing technology and understandings of which gauges are optimal. Puffert also uses this history to develop new insights in the theory of path dependence. "Tracks across Continents, Paths through History" will be essential reading for anyone interested in how history and economics inform each other.

This book presents a look at one of the first major railway disasters in Britain, the fall of the Dee bridge in May 1847, which occurred just outside Chester with the loss of five lives. The main line from Holyhead to Chester had only been opened six months before, and the chief engineer Robert Stephenson was slated nationally (almost being accused of manslaughter) as his cast-iron bridge had failed so catastrophically. Luckily, only a local train was passing and so few lives were lost. Full of detailed technical insight and illustrated with a wealth of contemporary material, this informative book will be of great use for engineering students and historians, as the Dee bridge is an often cited case study of bridge failure along with the Tay and Tacoma Narrows bridges. It will also appeal to interested locals, and railway enthusiasts.

No enterprise is so seductive as a railroad for the influence it exerts, the power it gives, and the hope of gain it offers.--"Poor's Manual of Railroads" (1900)

At its peak, the railroad was the Internet of its day in its transformative impact on American life and law. A harbinger and promoter of economic empire, it was also the icon of a technological revolution that accelerated national expansion and in the process transformed our legal system. James W. Ely Jr., in the first comprehensive legal history of the rail industry, shows that the two institutions-the railroad and American law-had a profound influence on each other.

Ely chronicles how "America's first big business" impelled the creation of a vast array of new laws in a country where long-distance internal transport had previously been limited to canals and turnpikes. Railroads, the first major industry to experience extensive regulation, brought about significant legal innovations governing interstate commerce, eminent domain, private property, labor relations, and much more. Much of this development was originally designed to serve the interests of the railroads themselves but gradually came to contest and control the industry's power and exploitative tendencies.

As Ely reveals, despite its great promise and potential as an engine of prosperity and uniter of far-flung regions, the railroad was not universally admired. Railroads uprooted people, threatened local autonomy, and posed dangers to employees and the public alike--situations with unprecedented legal ramifications. Ely explores the complex and sometimes contradictory ways in which those ramifications played out, as railroads crossed state lines and knitted together a diverse nation with thousands of miles of iron rail.

Epic in its scope, "Railroads and American Law" makes a complex subject accessible to a wide range of readers, from legal historians to railroad buffs, and shows the many ways in which a powerful industry brought change and innovation to America.

This book describes and illustrates all the rolling stock commonly used by any American railroad, including the 150 different types of locomotive. The renowned Peterson Identification System pinpoints the key field marks that distinguish one railroad car from another. The guide also lists the 840 different American railroads.

In late nineteenth and early twentieth century Britain, there was widespread fascination with the technological transformations wrought by modernity. Films, newspapers and literature told astonishing stories about technology, such as locomotives breaking speed records and moving images seemingly springing into life onscreen. And, whether in films about train travel, or in newspaper articles about movie theatres on trains, stories about the convergence of the railway and cinema were especially prominent. Together, the two technologies radically transformed how people interacted with the world around them, and became crucial to how British media reflected the nation's modernity and changing role within the empire. Rebecca Harrison draws on archival sources and an extensive corpus of films to trace the intertwined histories of the train and the screen for the first time. In doing so, she presents a new and illuminating material and cultural history of the period, and demonstrates the myriad ways railways and cinema coalesced to transform the population's everyday life. With examples taken from more than 240 newsreels and 40 feature-length films, From Steam to Screen is essential reading for students and researchers working on film studies and British history at the turn of the century and beyond.

From the mid-nineteenth century onwards, railways became increasingly important in the lives of a growing number of Indians. While allowing millions to collectively experience the endemic discomforts of third-class travel, the public opportunities for proximity and contact created by railways simultaneously compelled colonial society to confront questions about exclusion, difference, and community. It was not only passengers, however, who were affected by the transformations that railways wrought. Even without boarding a train, one could see railway tracks and embankments reshaping familiar landscapes, realise that train schedules represented new temporal structures, fear that spreading railway links increased the reach of contagion, and participate in new forms of popular politics focused around railway spaces. Tracks of Change explores how railway technology, travel, and infrastructure became increasingly woven into everyday life in colonial India, how people negotiated with the growing presence of railways, and how this process has shaped India's history.

The dynamic behaviour of bridges strongly affects the infrastructure system of high-speed railways, and is a crucial factor in safety issues and passenger comfort. Dynamics of High-Speed Railway Bridges covers the latest research in this field, including:

a " Recently developed dynamic analysis techniques;

a " Train excitations;

a " Design issues for high-speed railway bridges

a " Fatigue conduct of viaducts and large span bridges;

a " Bridge dynamic behaviour;

a " Case studies.

Dynamics of High-Speed Railway Bridges will be invaluable to professionals, scientists, public institutions and students involved in the design, construction and maintenance of high-speed railway bridges.

This beautifully written, meticulously detailed, highly engaging book is a rare treat. It evokes a vanished world of railways that achieved extraordinary things logistically while using what is by modern standards distinctly old-fashioned technology. Lifelong railwayman Terry Collins takes the reader on a journey into the heart of what working on the railways between 1962 and 1996 was like, from the days of steam, to the dawn of the modern railway age. The book is also a real eye-opener about many of the behind-the-scenes incidents the public never hears about. 'Never a Dull Moment' is an absolutely unforgettable book As Terry himself says: 'I really enjoyed working on the railways. We had our tragedies, sadly, but we also dealt with many other challenging incidents, including some bizarre ones, and when we won, against the odds, and got the trains and people moving again, it was a great feeling! I say "we" because this book is also very much about the many people in the signal boxes, Traffic Control, stations, yards and on the track, that I worked with, some of them "larger than life" characters, but almost without exception, determined to win. And we did!'