This generously illustrated narrative follows the evolution of dozens of separate railroads in the Meridian, Mississippi, area from the destruction of the town s rail facilities in the 1850s through the current era of large-scale consolidation. Presently, there are only seven mega-size rail systems in the United States, three of which serve Meridian, making it an important junction on one of the nation's four major transcontinental routes. The recent creation of a nationally prominent high-speed freight line between Meridian and Shreveport, the "Meridian Speedway," has allowed the Union Pacific, Kansas City Southern, and Norfolk Southern railroads to offer the shortest rail route across the continent for Asia-US-Europe transportation."

While Congress has been interested in high speed rail (HSR) since the 1960s, the provision of $8 billion for intercity passenger rail projects in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, enacted in February 2009, under the Obama administration, has invigorated the prospect of high speed passenger rail transportation in the United States. This book provides an overview of high speed rail in the United States and discusses what high speed rail would encompass, describes congressional initiatives to promote HSR and looks at high speed rail in selected other countries. Also discussed is the rationale for developing HSR, cost estimates and some of the challenges expected in implementing HSR.

The debate on rail privatisation often seems to focus on very narrow issues. Those on both sides of the argument seem to be able to employ a mass of statistics to prove their point. Proponents of privatisation suggest, with some credibility, that all was reasonably well with the privatised railways until the Hatfield disaster. Opponents point to spiralling costs since privatisation. The authors of this monograph examine privatisation in the context of the long history of continual government intervention. The government imposed upon the industry a particular structure - separation of track and wheel. It also wrapped it up in increasing amounts of regulation. After examining the history of government intervention in the railways and the privatisation process, the authors of this monograph then examine the future of railway policy. Should the industry be allowed to evolve its own structure - remerging the ownership of track and wheel if it wishes? What aspects of a railway should be regulated? Who should own the various parts of the infrastructure? This monograph is essential reading for all with an interest in railway policy and the process of privatisation.

Before OPEC took center stage, one state agency in Texas was widely believed to set oil prices for the world. The Texas Railroad Commission (TRC) evolved from its founding in 1891 to a multi-divisional regulatory commission that oversaw not only railroads but also a number of other industries central to the modern American economy: petroleum production, natural gas utilities, and motor carriers. William R. Childs's unprecedented study of the TRC from its founding until the mid-twentieth century focuses on the interplay between business and regulators, between state and national regulatory commissions, and among the three branches of government through a process of ""pragmatic federalism."" Childs demonstrates that the myth of TRC's power was devised by the agency itself as part of building a civil religion of Texas oil. Together, the myth and the civil religion enabled the TRC to convince Texas oil operators to follow production controls and thus stabilized the American oil industry by the 1940s. The result of this fascinating study is a more nuanced understanding of regulation in a federal system, the forces shaping it, and its outcomes.

Rob Shorland-Ball is a former teacher and is also a born story teller and is well aware of the strong local loyalties in East Anglia. Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex are considered to be very different separate and independent areas by their inhabitants When the author worked in Suffolk he explained that he came from Cambridge which he believed was the front door of East Anglia, an elderly Suffolk man to whom he was speaking, paused for a while and then said, with unarguable finality, here in Suffolk if Cambridge exists at all , it is a back door and rarely used. The minor railways illustrated in this book were once busy transport links and made vital contributions to the social and business heritage of the area they served. By the 1950s and 60s, when the author explored them, they were rarely used, so needed to be recorded and their stories told before they were forgotten entirely. To bring this book up to date, the final section is called Destiny because some of the track beds have survived and flourished with new usage as restored heritage railways, footpaths and cycleways and one route as a busy busway.

Profiting from the Plains looks at two inextricably linked historical movements in the United States: the westward expansion of the great Northern Railway and the agricultural development of the northern plains. Claire Strom explores the persistent, idiosyncratic attempts by the Great Northern to boost agricultural production along its rail routes from St. Paul to Seattle between 1878 and 1917. Lacking a federal land grant, the Great Northern could not make money through land sales like other railways. It had to rely on haulage to make a profit, and the greatest potential for increasing haulage lay in farming. The energetic and charismatic owner of the Great Northern Railway, James J. Hill, spearheaded most of the initiatives undertaken by his corporation to boost agricultural production. He tried, often unsuccessfully, to persuade farmers of the profitability of his methods, which were largely based on his personal farming experience. When Hill's initial efforts to increase haulage failed, he shifted his focus to working with outside agencies and institutions, often providing them with the funding to pursue projects he hoped would profit his railroad. At the time, state and federal agencies were also promoting agricultural development through irrigation, conservation, and dryland farming, but their agendas often clashed with those of the Great Northern Railway. Because Hill failed to grasp the extent to which politicians' goals differed from those of the railroad, his use of federal expertise to promote agricultural change often backfired. But despite these obstacles, the railroad magnate ironically remained among the last defenders of the small-scale farmer modeled on Jeffersonian idealism. This fascinating story of railroad politics and development ties into themes of corporate and federal sponsorship, which are increasingly recognized as fundamental to western history. As the first scholarly examination of James J. Hill's agricultural enterprises, Profiting from the Plains makes an important contribution to the biography of the popular and controversial Hill, as well as to western and environmental history.

"Follow the Flag" offers the first authoritative history of the Wabash Railroad Company, a once vital interregional carrier. The corporate saga of the Wabash involved the efforts of strong-willed and creative leaders, but this book provides more than traditional business history. Noted transportation historian H. Roger Grant captures the human side of the Wabash, ranging from the medical doctors who created an effective hospital department to the worker-sponsored social events. And Grant has not ignored the impact the Wabash had on businesses and communities in the "Heart of America." Like most major American carriers, the Wabash grew out of an assortment of small firms, including the first railroad to operate in Illinois, the Northern Cross. Thanks in part to the genius of financier Jay Gould, by the early 1880s what was then known as the Wabash, St. Louis & Pacific Railway reached the principal gateways of Chicago, Des Moines, Detroit, Kansas City, and St. Louis. In the 1890s, the Wabash gained access to Buffalo and direct connections to Boston and New York City. One extension, spearheaded by Gould's eldest son, George, fizzled. In 1904 entry into Pittsburgh caused financial turmoil, ultimately throwing the Wabash into receivership. A subsequent reorganization allowed the Wabash to become an important carrier during the go-go years of the 1920s and permitted the company to take control of a strategic "bridge" property, the Ann Arbor Railroad. The Great Depression forced the company into another receivership, but an effective reorganization during the early days of World War II gave rise to a generally robust road. Its famed Blue Bird streamliner, introduced in 1950 between Chicago and St. Louis, became a widely recognized symbol of the "New Wabash." When "merger madness" swept the railroad industry in the 1960s, the Wabash, along with the Nickel Plate Road, joined the prosperous Norfolk & Western Railway, a merger that worked well for all three carriers. Immortalized in the popular folk song "Wabash Cannonball," the midwestern railroad has left important legacies. Today, forty years after becoming a "fallen flag" carrier, key components of the former Wabash remain busy rail arteries and terminals, attesting to its historic value to American transportation.

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.

George H. and Constance M. Hilton Book Award Celebrated in history and song, the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad Company - the Rock Island Line - was a powerful Midwestern railroad that once traversed thirteen states with its fast freights and Rocket passenger trains but eventually succumbed to government regulation and a changing economy. Gregory Schneider chronicles the Rock Island's painful decline and along the way reveals some of the key problems within the American railroad industry during the post-World War II era. Schneider takes readers back to a time when railroads still clung to a storied past to offer new insight into the devastating impact of economic policymaking during the 1960s and 1970s. Schneider recounts the largest railroad liquidation in American history - as well as one of the most successful reorganizations in American business - to depict the demise and ultimate collapse of Rock Island as part of a broader account of hard times in the railroad industry beginning in the 1970s. Schneider weaves a complex story of how business, politics, government bureaucracy, and individual greed helped to limit the economic possibilities of the railroad industry and catapult the Rock Island Railroad into oblivion. Weakened by a troubled economy, the Rock fell victim to inept management and labor union intransigence; but Schneider also reveals how government regulations and price controls prevented innovation, hindered capital acquisition, and favored other forms of transportation that lie beyond the scope of regulation. Railroads were even hurt by taxation of property and real estate while competitors were able to use government-subsidized highways and airports without having to pay taxes to fund them. Now that America has gone on to witness the collapse of such mammoth firms as Enron and Lehman Brothers, not to mention the bankruptcy and bailout of General Motors, the story of the Rock provides an instructive lesson in how a major American enterprise was allowed to fall victim to forces often beyond its control - while the bailout of the Penn Central, at the expense of smaller lines like Rock Island, helped initiate the era of "too big to fail." For economic historians and railroad buffs alike, Rock Island Requiem is a well-researched and informative work - and a mighty good read.

Profiting from the Plains looks at two inextricably linked historical movements in the United States: the westward expansion of the great Northern Railway and the agricultural development of the northern plains. Claire Strom explores the persistent, idiosyncratic attempts by the Great Northern to boost agricultural production along its rail routes from St. Paul to Seattle between 1878 and 1917. Lacking a federal land grant, the Great Northern could not make money through land sales like other railways. It had to rely on haulage to make a profit, and the greatest potential for increasing haulage lay in farming. The energetic and charismatic owner of the Great Northern Railway, James J. Hill, spearheaded most of the initiatives undertaken by his corporation to boost agricultural production. He tried, often unsuccessfully, to persuade farmers of the profitability of his methods, which were largely based on his personal farming experience. When Hill's initial efforts to increase haulage failed, he shifted his focus to working with outside agencies and institutions, often providing them with the funding to pursue projects he hoped would profit his railroad. At the time, state and federal agencies were also promoting agricultural development through irrigation, conservation, and dryland farming, but their agendas often clashed with those of the Great Northern Railway. Because Hill failed to grasp the extent to which politicians' goals differed from those of the railroad, his use of federal expertise to promote agricultural change often backfired. But despite these obstacles, the railroad magnate ironically remained among the last defenders of the small-scale farmer modeled on Jeffersonian idealism. This fascinating story of railroad politics and development ties into themes of corporate and federal sponsorship, which are increasingly recognized as fundamental to western history. As the first scholarly examination of James J. Hill's agricultural enterprises, Profiting from the Plains makes an important contribution to the biography of the popular and controversial Hill, as well as to western and environmental history.

Presenting an account of the part played by Britain's railways during the Second World War, this book deals with operational matters and the impact of enemy action on railways. It also looks at financial arrangements, the part played by railway workshops in producing equipment for the military, and the wartime experience of the railways' ships.

Using photographs, maps, ephemera and reminiscences, Barry McLoughlin recounts the history of not only the area's main lines but also the miniature railways and the Knott End branch. First published in 1996, this new edition is updated and includes several additional photographs.

Few scenes capture the American experience so eloquently as that of a lonely train chugging across the vastness of the Great Plains, or snaking through tortuous high mountain passes. Although this vision was eclipsed for a time by the rise of air travel and trucking, American railroads have enjoyed a rebirth in recent years as profitable freight carriers. An account of the rise, decline, and rebirth of railroads in the United States, this survey traces their history from the first lines that helped eastern seaports capture western markets to the modern newly-revitalized industry. John Stover describes the growth of the railroads' monopoly, with the consequent need for state and federal regulations; relates the vital part played by the railroads during the Civil War and the two World Wars; and charts the railroads' decline due to the advent of air travel and trucking during the 1950s. The author recounts the remarkable recovery of the railroads, along with other pivotal events of the industry's recent history. During the 1960s declining passenger traffic and excessive federal regulation led to the federally-financed creation of Amtrak to revive passenger service and Conrail to provide freight service on bankrupt northeastern railroads. The real saviour for the railroads, however, proved to be the Staggers Rail Act of 1980, which brought prosperity to rail freight carriers by substantially deregulating the industry. By 1995, renewed railroad freight traffic had reached nearly twice its former peak in 1944.

All about the railroad: old coaches made new, ancient steam engines, historic hotels, stations and campsites along 64 miles of scenic track unlike any other railroad in the USA and the only one ever to penetrate to the heart of a national park. On 17 September 1989, 88 years to the day from the date the first steam engine puffed to the Grand Canyon, a reborn Grand Canyon train made its way from Williams to the Grand Canyon along the same historic route. The resurrection of the Grand Canyon Railway signifies more than steam and thunder, nostalgia and history. It is part of a growing recognition of the need to soften the environmental impact made by four million annual visitors to the Canyon. The railroad uses a clean burning fuel of oil and grey water for engine power and may reduce peak motor traffic in the Canyon park by as much as 4000 vehicles per day.

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.

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.

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.

This long-awaited study, the magnum opus of a leading railroad historian, describes the conception, construction, and early operation of the first narrow gauge railroads in northern California. It is lavishly illustrated by some 600 photographs and drawings, almost three-quarters of which have never before been published. The topic is approached through an unusual lens: the history of the relatively small but extraordinarily inventive contracting and engineering firm of the brothers Thomas and Martin Carter. The Carters were able to reduce the cost and complexity of light railroad construction to the point where local narrow gauge lines could initially compete with the state's notorious railroad monopolies. Pioneering a mobile manufacturing operation that could supply locally funded short lines with rolling stock (which traditionally came from East Coast manufacturers), the Carter Brothers began with a line to serve Salinas Valley wheat farmers, desperate to achieve an independent means for conveying their crops to the wharf in Monterey. The narrow gauge railroad that resulted was an act of political and economic defiance, but ultimately a hopeless assault on the "Octopus"-the Central Pacific and Southern Pacific Railroads. Rallying around the example set in Monterey, a narrow gauge movement in California flourished in the mid-1870s, with the rapid launching of five more companies-the North Pacific Coast, the Santa Cruz Railroad, the Santa Cruz & Felton, the Nevada County Narrow Gauge, and the South Pacific Coast-all of which drew on the Carter Brothers for manufacturing and engineering. Soon, Thomas and Martin Carter were not only selling railroad supplies and engineering to all six short lines, but had won management positions with the strongest, the South Pacific Coast. Until personal and financial disaster overtook them in 1880, the Carters were at the forefront of not just a new business, but a new technology.

Since its creation in 1970, Amtrak has sought to relieve railroad companies of costly passenger operations while continuing US rail service. However, Amtrak has come under fire for its own inability to turn a profit, though passenger rail service is historically unprofitable. Congress has mandated that Amtrak show an ability to cover its own expenses, which the company has said it will do. As train travel becomes more important to the nation in the wake of the 11 September terrorist attacks, Amtrak's problems and viability are definite matters of national security. This book analyses the various issues surrounding Amtrak's past and future and includes a comprehensive bibliography.

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.

Charles P. Brown--"a boomer railroad man"--offers in this exceptional autobiography an unusually vivid portrayal of everyday life as a trainman for some of the country's greatest rail lines.
An itinerant railroad worker, or "boomer," Brown hopscotched across America between 1900 and 1913 seeking employment wherever opportunities arose. His wanderlust led him into a variety of jobs--including fireman, brakeman, switchman--for such railroads as the Santa Fe, Union Pacific, Wabash, and New York Central until he was disabled at age thirty-four in a railroad accident. In this sometimes tragic, frequently funny, behind-the-scenes account of railroading, Brownie reveals the reality of working conditions for the railroad laborer at the turn of the century as he relates his many adventures and misadventures.

Unusually among Welsh narrow-gauge railways, the 2ft 6in gauge Welshpool & Llanfair Light Railway was built to benefit agriculture, not minerals. After several failed attempts to connect the market town at Welshpool with the rural community around Llanfair Caereinion, the 1896 Light Railways Act paved the way for the railway which opened in 1902. Operated by the Cambrian Railways and then by the Great Western Railway it became the only narrow-gauge steam railway catering for goods traffic under the auspices of British Railways. Sadly, it was closed in 1956 but enthusiasts ensured its revival, which started in 1963. Overcoming many obstacles, the railway is now run by a charitable trust and is a leading volunteer-operated tourist attraction in Montgomeryshire.

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.

A first evaluation of the physical impact of railway construction on the British coast The building of railways has had a profound but largely ignored physical impact on Britain's coasts. This book explores the coming of railways to the edge of Britain, the ruthlessness of the companies involved and the transformation of our coasts through the destruction or damage to the environment. In many places today, railways are the first defence against the sea and similarly the embankments of long-closed lines act as sea walls. It is ironic, at a time when climate change is very much favouring rail as a means of transport, that many lines are increasingly exposed to extreme weather and the very actions associated with their construction have exacerbated coastal erosion. With the benefit of hindsight, many coastal railways have been built in locations that would not have been chosen today. As our climate changes and storminess potentially increases, what might be the implications for some of Britain's lines on the edge? Key features: First evaluation of the physical impact of railway construction on the British coast Unique combination of environmental and historical research Timely given the impact of the storms of January and February 2014 Covers the breaching of the South Devon, Cambrian and Cumbrian coastal lines