Download or read book Waiting on a Train written by James McCommons and published by Chelsea Green Publishing. This book was released on 2009-11-06 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the tumultuous year of 2008--when gas prices reached $4 a gallon, Amtrak set ridership records, and a commuter train collided with a freight train in California--journalist James McCommons spent a year on America's trains, talking to the people who ride and work the rails throughout much of the Amtrak system. Organized around these rail journeys, Waiting on a Train is equal parts travel narrative, personal memoir, and investigative journalism. Readers meet the historians, railroad executives, transportation officials, politicians, government regulators, railroad lobbyists, and passenger-rail advocates who are rallying around a simple question: Why has the greatest railroad nation in the world turned its back on the very form of transportation that made modern life and mobility possible? Distrust of railroads in the nineteenth century, overregulation in the twentieth, and heavy government subsidies for airports and roads have left the country with a skeletal intercity passenger-rail system. Amtrak has endured for decades, and yet failed to prosper owing to a lack of political and financial support and an uneasy relationship with the big, remaining railroads. While riding the rails, McCommons explores how the country may move passenger rail forward in America--and what role government should play in creating and funding mass-transportation systems. Against the backdrop of the nation's stimulus program, he explores what it will take to build high-speed trains and transportation networks, and when the promise of rail will be realized in America.
Download or read book Freight and Passenger Rail written by United States. Congress. House. Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure. Subcommittee on Railroads, Pipelines, and Hazardous Materials and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The American Freight Train written by Jim Boyd and published by Motorbooks International. This book was released on 2001 with total page 162 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Photohistory examines the use of trains as freight haulers over the course of one and a half centuries. Depicts and explains the evolution of boxcars, flatcars, hoppers, refrigerator cars, tanks cars, ore jennies, auto-rack transports and more.
Download or read book Guidebook for Implementing Passenger Rail Service on Shared Passenger and Freight Corridors written by Alan J. Bing and published by Transportation Research Board. This book was released on 2010 with total page 181 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This Guidebook will aid states in developing public-private partnerships with private freight railroads to permit operation of passenger services over shared-use rail corridors. The Guidebook should encourage the broad acceptance of improved principles, processes, and methods to support agreements on access, allocation of operation and maintenance costs, capacity allocation, operational issues, future responsibilities for infrastructure improvements, and other fundamental issues that will affect the ultimate success of shared-use passenger and freight agreements between public and private railroad stakeholders.
Download or read book Railroad Facts written by and published by . This book was released on 1934 with total page 100 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Preserving Freight and Passenger Rail Corridors and Service written by David P. Simpson and published by Transportation Research Board. This book was released on 2007 with total page 40 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Efforts to preserve rail corridors or restore rail service to dormant rail alignments across the United States are very uneven. A handful of states have aggressive, well-funded programs to support the preservation or reuse of rail alignments; more states have modest programs to support short line operations on a case-by-case basis, but attach no value to corridor retention per se. In 2005, California completed what is perhaps the nations most comprehensive physical plant inventory of active and abandoned rail corridors; a review driven by interest in passenger rail and nonmotorized corridor interests. A foundation has been set to more fully lever these valuable alignments in this country's most populous state. This synthesis was undertaken to document current practices with respect to rail corridor preservation. State departments of transportation (DOTs), selected metropolitan planning organizations, commuter rail agencies, short line holding companies, and Class I rail carriers were all surveyed for information. Response rates to the survey were moderate, averaging 24%, and overall supporting the notion that preservation of rail alignments is not a high-priority issue in many jurisdictions. A handful of state respondents, however, had a great deal of experience and valuable observations on rail preservation policies and could be said to have become experts on this subject through their dealings with several dozen rail corridors over the past two decades. North Carolina, Ohio, and Pennsylvania DOTs each have serious, well-established rail sections and a history of successful preservation efforts.
Download or read book Romance of the Rails written by Randal O'Toole and published by . This book was released on 2018 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: American transportation has undergone many technological revolutions: from sailing ships to steam ships; from passenger trains and urban rail transit to airplanes and automobiles. Normally, the government has allowed and even encouraged these revolutions, but for some reason the federal government is spending billions of dollars trying to preserve and build obsolete rail transit and passenger train lines, including high-speed trains that cost more but are less than half as fast as flying. O'Toole asks why passenger trains have been singled out -- and whether this policy makes sense. -- adapted from jacket
Download or read book The Past and Future of U S Passenger Rail Service written by Elizabeth Pinkston and published by Government Printing Office. This book was released on 2003 with total page 58 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Introduction: Amtrak's current situation -- A brief history of Amtrak -- Amtrak's role in intercity transportation -- The basic economics of passenger rail -- Policy options for the future of passenger rail -- Appendix. Amtrak's interconnections with freight and commuter railroads.
Download or read book High Speed Rail in the United States written by David Randall Peterman and published by DIANE Publishing. This book was released on 2010-06 with total page 31 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Contents: (1) Intro.; (2) What is High Speed Rail (HSR)?; (3) HSR Options; (4) Components of a HSR System: Conventional HSR; Track; Signal and Commun. Networks; Magnetic Levitation; (5) HSR In: Japan; France; Germany; Spain; China; (6) Background of Intercity Passenger Rail in the U.S.; (7) Previous Efforts in the U.S.; (8) Recent Congress. Initiatives to Promote HSR; (9) Potential Benefits: Alleviating Highway and Airport Congestion; Alleviating Pollution and Reducing Energy Consumption by the Transport. Sector; Promoting Econ. Develop.; Improving Transport. Safety; Providing a Choice of Modes; Making the Transport. System More Reliable; (10) Infrastructure and Operating Costs; (11) Ridership Potential; (12) Funding Consider.
Download or read book Intercity Passenger and Freight Rail written by Susan Fleming and published by DIANE Publishing. This book was released on 2011-06 with total page 72 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Concerns about the weak economy, congestion in the transport. system, and the potentially harmful effects of air emissions generated by the transport. sector have raised awareness of the potential benefits and costs of intercity passenger and freight rail relative to other transport. modes such as highways. This report reviewed: (1) the extent to which transport. policy tools that provide incentives to shift passenger and freight traffic to rail may generate emissions, congestion, and economic development benefits; and (2) how project benefits and costs are assessed for investment in intercity passenger and freight rail and how the strengths and limitations of these assessments impact federal decision making. Charts and tables. A print on demand report.
Download or read book A General Freight and Passenger Post written by James Lewis Cowles and published by . This book was released on 1896 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Intercity Passenger Rail Freight Rail and Track Design and Maintenance written by and published by . This book was released on 2001 with total page 96 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Transportation Research Record contains the following papers: Franchising and refranchising of passenger rail services in Britain (Preston, J); Application of benefit-cost analysis to the proposed California high-speed rail system (Brand, D, Kiefer, MR, Parody, TE and Mehndiratta, SR); Compatibility and constraints between high-speed passenger trains and traditional freight trains (Lopez-Pita, A, Robuste, F); Risk and train control : a framework for analysis (Martland, CD, Zhu, Y, Lahrech, Y and Sussman, JM); Railroads in Greece : history, characteristics, and forecasts (Paravantis, JA and Prevedouros, PD); Impact of new railway technology on grain transportation in Western Canada (Dick, CT and Clayton, AM); Estimation of investment in track and structures needed to handle 129 844-kg (286,000-ib)railcars on short-line railroads (Resor, RR, Zarembski, AM and Patel, PK); Fundamental nonlinear track load-deflection behavior for condition evaluation (Sussman, TR, Ebersohn, W and Selig, ET); Track degradation assessment using gage restraint measurements (Alfelor, RM, Carr, GA and Fateh, M); Evaluation of uniaxial strain transducer for railroad infrastructure (Yun, HB, Lee, H and Maclean, B); Concrete slab track state of the practice (Tayabji, SD and Bilow, D).
Download or read book Intercity Passenger Rail in America written by United States. Congress. House. Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure. Subcommittee on Railroads and published by . This book was released on 2002 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book High speed Passenger Rail written by United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. Subcommittee on Surface Transportation and Merchant Marine Infrastructure, Safety, and Security and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page 72 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Intercity Passenger Rail written by and published by AASHTO. This book was released on 2009 with total page 32 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This report was prepared at the request of AASHTO's Standing Committee on Rail Transportation. It provides for AASHTO's members and others committed to developing a national intercity passenger rail system a summary of the recent favorable actions by Congress and the Obama Administration, a description of the work of the states over the past decade, the views of the essential partners to the states and other commentators, and some guidelines for advancing the effort.
Download or read book Intercity Passenger Rail Transportation written by David Ewing and published by AASHTO. This book was released on 2002 with total page 164 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This report addresses the public benefits and investment needs of intercity passenger rail transportation. AASHTO has published an investment needs report for highways and transit, and intends to publish a report on freight rail investment needs. Cost estimates for intercity passenger rail investment presented in this report were developed independently from those contained in the freight rail report. In combination, these reports provide a complete picture of the benefits of the various surface transportation modes to the U.S. and the value to be realized by both the traveling public and shippers through strategic investments.
Download or read book Shared Use of Railroad Infrastructure with Noncompliant Public Transit Rail Vehicles written by and published by Transportation Research Board. This book was released on 2009 with total page 122 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over the past decade, highway and urban congestion have garnered the attention of commuters as well as government entities. Facility joint-use, by expanding public transit using existing rail corridors, is one approach to solving the constellation of problems occurring as offshoots of congestion. The potential and feasibility of shared use of rail corridors, between light rail vehicles (associated with public transit) and freight railroads, to function compatibly are still being investigated, even as current "near shared-track" operations are evolving.
