"Do not think of the Pennsylvania Railroad as a business enterprise," "Forbes" magazine informed its readers in May 1936. "Think of it as a nation." At the end of the nineteenth century, the Pennsylvania Railroad was the largest privately owned business corporation in the world. In 1914, the PRR employed more than two hundred thousand people--more than double the number of soldiers in the United States Army. As the self-proclaimed "Standard Railroad of the World," this colossal corporate body underwrote American industrial expansion and shaped the economic, political, and social environment of the United States. In turn, the PRR was fundamentally shaped by the American landscape, adapting to geography as well as shifts in competitive economics and public policy. Albert J. Churella's masterful account, certain to become the authoritative history of the Pennsylvania Railroad, illuminates broad themes in American history, from the development of managerial practices and labor relations to the relationship between business and government to advances in technology and transportation.Churella situates exhaustive archival research on the Pennsylvania Railroad within the social, economic, and technological changes of nineteenth- and twentieth-century America, chronicling the epic history of the PRR intertwined with that of a developing nation. This first volume opens with the development of the Main Line of Public Works, devised by Pennsylvanians in the 1820s to compete with the Erie Canal. Though a public rather than a private enterprise, the Main Line foreshadowed the establishment of the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1846. Over the next decades, as the nation weathered the Civil War, industrial expansion, and labor unrest, the PRR expanded despite competition with rival railroads and disputes with such figures as Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller. The dawn of the twentieth century brought a measure of stability to the railroad industry, enabling the creation of such architectural monuments as Pennsylvania Station in New York City. The volume closes at the threshold of American involvement in World War I, as the strategies that PRR executives had perfected in previous decades proved less effective at guiding the company through increasingly tumultuous economic and political waters.

The North British Locomotive Company came into existence in 1903 as an amalgamation of three established Glasgow locomotive manufacturers: Dubs & Co., Sharp Stewart and Neilson Reid. Each of these companies enjoyed an excellent reputation for its products both at home and abroad. The amalgamation that formed NBL created the largest locomotive builder in the British Empire, building on the worldwide renown of its predecessors and exporting its products all over the world to places as diverse as Palestine, New Zealand, South Africa and Canada. Its locomotive output was as varied as its clients, with steam locomotives of every gauge, and ranging from tiny tank engines to massive Beyer-Garratts. Moving with the times, North British entered the market for diesel and electric traction after the Second World War and its lack of success in this field ultimately brought the company to its knees. Here, Colin Alexander and Alon Siton present a lavishly illustrated exploration of one of Britain's greatest locomotive companies, including the products of its three Victorian constituents and official works photographs, images of locos in service and some of the many preserved Dubs, Sharp Stewart, Neilson and North British locomotives on heritage railways and in museums around the world.

Empire's Tracks boldly reframes the history of the transcontinental railroad from the perspectives of the Cheyenne, Lakota, and Pawnee Native American tribes, and the Chinese migrants who toiled on its path. In this meticulously researched book, Manu Karuka situates the railroad within the violent global histories of colonialism and capitalism. Through an examination of legislative, military, and business records, Karuka deftly explains the imperial foundations of U.S. political economy. Tracing the shared paths of Indigenous and Asian American histories, this multisited interdisciplinary study connects military occupation to exclusionary border policies, a linked chain spanning the heart of U.S. imperialism. This highly original and beautifully wrought book unveils how the transcontinental railroad laid the tracks of the U.S. Empire.

How can policy makers and senior officials in railway organizations support the movement of more cargo by rail rather than by road? This report highlights specific interventions and investments that are critical.

Nothing so changed nineteenth-century America as did the railroad. Growing up together, the iron horse and the young nation developed a fast friendship. "Railroad Crossing" is the story of what happened to that friendship, particularly in California, and it illuminates the chaos that was industrial America from the middle of the nineteenth century through the first decade of the twentieth.
Americans clamored for the progress and prosperity that railroads would surely bring, and no railroad was more crucial for California than the transcontinental line linking East to West. With Gold Rush prosperity fading, Californians looked to the railroad as the state's new savior. But social upheaval and economic disruption came down the tracks along with growth and opportunity.
Analyzing the changes wrought by the railroad, William Deverell reveals the contradictory roles that technology and industrial capitalism played in the lives of Americans. That contrast was especially apparent in California, where the gigantic corporate "Octopus"--the Southern Pacific Railroad--held near-monopoly status. The state's largest employer and biggest corporation, the S.P. was a key provider of jobs and transportation--and wielder of tremendous political and financial clout.
Deverell's lively study is peopled by a rich and disparate cast: railroad barons, newspaper editors, novelists, union activists, feminists, farmers, and the railroad workers themselves. Together, their lives reflect the many tensions--political, social, and economic--that accompanied the industrial transition of turn-of-the-century America.

America's founders envisioned a federal government of limited and enumerated powers. What they could not envision, of course, was the vast and complex infrastructure that the growing nation would demand-a demand that became ever clearer as the power and importance of railroads emerged. The requirements of a nationwide rail network, it also became clear, far exceeded the resources of state and local government and private industry. The consequences, as seen in this book, amounted to state building from the ground up. In Railroads and American Political Development Zachary Callen tells the story of the federal government's role in developing a national rail system-and the rail system's role in expanding the power of the federal government. The book reveals how state building, so often attributed to an aggressive national government, can also result from local governments making demands on the national state-a dynamic that can still be seen at work every time the US Congress takes up a transportation bill. Though many states invested in their local railroads, and many quite successfully, others were less willing or less capable-so rail development necessarily became a federal concern. Railroads and American Political Development shows how this led to the Land Grant Act of 1850, a crucial piece of legislation in the building of both the nation's infrastructure and the American state. Chronicling how this previously local issue migrated to the federal state, and how federal action then altered American rail planning, the book offers a new perspective on the exact nature of federalism. In the case of rail development, we see how state governments factor into the American state building process, and how, in turn, the separation of powers at the federal level shaped that process. The result is a fresh view of the development of the American rail system, as well as a clearer picture of the pressures and political logic that have altered and expanded the reach of American federalism.

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.

Aaron W. Marrs challenges the accepted understanding of economic and industrial growth in antebellum America with this original study of the history of the railroad in the Old South.

Drawing from both familiar and overlooked sources, such as the personal diaries of Southern travelers, papers and letters from civil engineers, corporate records, and contemporary newspaper accounts, Marrs skillfully expands on the conventional business histories that have characterized scholarship in this field. He situates railroads in the fullness of antebellum life, examining how slavery, technology, labor, social convention, and the environment shaped their evolution.

Far from seeing the Old South as backward and premodern, Marrs finds evidence of urban life, industry, and entrepreneurship throughout the region. But these signs of progress existed alongside efforts to preserve traditional ways of life. Railroads exemplified Southerners' pursuit of progress on their own terms: developing modern transportation while retaining a conservative social order.

"Railroads in the Old South" demonstrates that a simple approach to the Old South fails to do justice to its complexity and contradictions.

Aimed at the enthusiast rather than the professional, this accessible and readable guide provides an introduction to all the different components of today's railways and how they work together to keep the railway in Britain operating smoothly. It covers a wide range of topics such as the franchising system, the role of the different TOCs, passenger and freight, other operators on the network, who owns the railway infrastructure and how that is managed, the role of government, Network Rail and statutory organisations, regional bodies involved in the railways, the rolling stock leasing companies, how ticketing and timetabling is managed, what happens in the event of an accident, together with details of how the workforce is run and managed. All those interested in Britain's railways today will find this book an invaluable single volume to what the various components of the railways do and how they are integrated to make the system work as a whole.

New sources of crude oil from North Dakota, Texas, and western Canada have induced new routes for shipping crude oil to U.S. and Canadian refineries. While pipelines have traditionally been the preferred method of moving crude overland, they either are not available or have insufficient capacity to move all the crude from these locations. While rail has picked up some of this cargo, barges, and to a lesser extent tankers, also are moving increasing amounts of crude in domestic trade. This book discusses the Waterborne and rail transport of United States crude oil.

To provide efficient goods movement on the U.S. transportation network, the United States will need to undertake new approaches. An approach advanced by industry groups as a potential path forward for the continued economic prosperity and competitiveness of the United States is a focus on corridor level thinking. A corridor approach can help focus the Nation's assets and resources on key transportation infrastructure that supports national economic activity. The European Union (EU) adopted the corridor approach in the mid-1990s and has continually evolved its freight corridor program with the admission of new member states, increased freight volumes, and the changing demands, including environmental sustainability, placed on the transportation network. The EU views this corridor approach as strategically important to its global economic competitiveness. Given EU's experience with this concept, the scanning study was designed to engage the European Commission and key member states in the policy, funding, and programmatic implications of integrating corridors into their transportation planning. This book discusses the understanding of the policy and program structure of national and international freight corridor programs in the EU.

The goal of this book is to provide transportation and land use planning practitioners in the public and private sectors with the tools and resources to properly assess the impacts of land use decisions on freight movements, as well as the impacts of freight development and growth on land use planning goals. The book identifies freight-related land use issues, key considerations, and available resources. Throughout the handbook, examples and case studies from a range of urban and rural areas across the country are used to demonstrate the effectiveness of these techniques.

From the early 1800s and for nearly 170 years, steam locomotives were built in Great Britain and Ireland, by a variety of firms, large and small. James Lowe spent many years accumulating a considerable archive of material on the History of the locomotive building industry, from its early beginnings at the dawn of railways, until the end of steam locomotive construction in the 1960s. British Steam Locomotive Builders was first published in 1975 and has not been in print for some years. This useful and well researched book is a must for any serious railway historian or locomotive enthusiast, 704 pages with reference to 350 builders, 541 illustrations and 47 diagrams. The material in this book has been carefully selected to cover all the leading former steam locomotive manufacturers in the British Isles.

A gripping, groundbreaking biography of the combative man whose genius and force of will created modern capitalism.
Founder of a dynasty, builder of the original Grand Central, creator of an impossibly vast fortune, Cornelius "Commodore" Vanderbilt is an American icon. Humbly born on Staten Island during George Washington's presidency, he rose from boatman to builder of the nation's largest fleet of steamships to lord of a railroad empire. Lincoln consulted him on steamship strategy during the Civil War; Jay Gould was first his uneasy ally and then sworn enemy; and Victoria Woodhull, the first woman to run for president of the United States, was his spiritual counselor. We see Vanderbilt help to launch the transportation revolution, propel the Gold Rush, reshape Manhattan, and invent the modern corporation--in fact, as T. J. Stiles elegantly argues, Vanderbilt did more than perhaps any other individual to create the economic world we live in today.
In "The First Tycoon," Stiles offers the first complete, authoritative biography of this titan, and the first comprehensive account of the Commodore's personal life. It is a sweeping, fast-moving epic, and a complex portrait of the great man. Vanderbilt, Stiles shows, embraced the philosophy of the Jacksonian Democrats and withstood attacks by his conservative enemies for being too competitive. He was a visionary who pioneered business models. He was an unschooled fistfighter who came to command the respect of New York's social elite. And he was a father who struggled with a gambling-addicted son, a husband who was loving yet abusive, and, finally, an old man who was obsessed with contacting the dead.
"The First Tycoon" is the exhilarating story of a man and a nation maturing together: the powerful account of a man whose life was as epic and complex as American history itself.

"From the Hardcover edition."

The largest enterprise in the capitalist world between 1920 and 1945, the Deutsche Reichsbahn (German National Railway) was at the center of events in a period of great turmoil in Germany. In this, the second volume of his comprehensive history of the Reichsbahn, Alfred Mierzejewski offers the first complete account of the national railway under Hitler's regime. Mierzejewski uses sources that include Nazi Party membership records and Reichsbahn internal memoranda to explore the railway's operations, finances, and political and social roles from 1933 to 1945. He examines the Reichsbahn's role in German rearmament, its own lack of preparations for war, and its participation in Germany's military operations. He shows that despite successfully resisting Nazi efforts to politicize its internal functions, the Reichsbahn cooperated with the government's anti-Semitic policies. Indeed, the railway played a crucial role in the Holocaust by supporting the construction and operation of the Nazi death camps and by transporting Jews and other victims to them.

Railways have always been at the heart of British politics, from their early beginnings in the 1830s through to the present day. And the sharpest debates have been on the issue of ownership and accountability. The book charts the railways under nationalisation (1948-1993) and outlines rail privatisation in both the UK and other European countries. Paul Salveson gives credit to recent achievements but attacks the fragmentation, increased costs and higher fares that have become a feature of Britain's privatised railways. Arguing against the return to a centralised 'British Rail', Salveson instead suggests a new model which goes with the flow of current plans to devolve rail responsibilities within the English regions. The author was the originator of the highly successful community rail movement, and he argues for more direct involvement of local communities in their railways. He outlines recent examples of local social enterprises bringing thriving services back to semi-abandoned stations, and shows how Britain's heritage railway sector has been a successful model for not-for-profit rail enterprise. Combining historical analysis with personal experience and political theory, Salveson's research suggests an alternative ownership system for the rail networks and a possible future for Britain's transport system. The book also includes a foreword by Maria Eagle, the shadow secretary of state for transport.

Pressure is building for greater passenger use of freight rail-road rights of way. Freight rail-road rights of way are owned by private, for-profit corporations, and the routes potentially most useful for passenger service are typically the busiest with freight traffic. In many cases, states or commuter rail authorities have reached agreement with freight rail-roads to share either their track or right of way. However, unlike Amtrak, which has eminent domain power over freight facilities and can appeal to a federal agency to determine the terms of its access to freight track, other would-be passenger rail operators do not have any statutory leverage when negotiating with freight rail-roads. This likely increases the price public authorities pay for access and leaves them with no apparent recourse when freight rail-roads reject their offers.

Passenger rail systems are vital components of the nation's transportation infrastructure, encompassing rail transit and intercity rail. In the U.S., passenger rail systems provide approximately 14 million passenger trips each weekday, and commuters rely on these systems to provide efficient, reliable, and safe transportation. Terrorist attacks on passenger rail systems around the world, such as the March 2010 Moscow, Russia subway bombings and the July 2006 passenger train bombing in Mumbai, India, highlight the vulnerability of these systems. This book examines the latest technologies being implemented in passenger rail security and safety efforts including explosives detection and advanced imaging technologies.