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Author: James McCommons
Publisher: Chelsea Green Publishing
ISBN: 1603582592
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 306
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Book Description
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.
Author: James McCommons
Publisher: Chelsea Green Publishing
ISBN: 1603582592
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 306
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Book Description
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.
Author: Geoffrey H. Doughty
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 0253060656
Category : Transportation
Languages : en
Pages : 244
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Book Description
Discover the story of Amtrak, America's Railroad, 50 years in the making. In 1971, in an effort to rescue essential freight railroads, the US government founded Amtrak. In the post–World War II era, aviation and highway development had become the focus of government policy in America. As rail passenger services declined in number and in quality, they were simultaneously driving many railroads toward bankruptcy. Amtrak was intended to be the solution. In Amtrak, America's Railroad: Transportation's Orphan and Its Struggle for Survival, Geoffrey H. Doughty, Jeffrey T. Darbee, and Eugene E. Harmon explore the fascinating history of this popular institution and tell a tale of a company hindered by its flawed origin and uneven quality of leadership, subjected to political gamesmanship and favoritism, and mired in a perpetual philosophical debate about whether it is a business or a public service. Featuring interviews with former Amtrak presidents, the authors examine the current problems and issues facing Amtrak and their proposed solutions. Created in the absence of a comprehensive national transportation policy, Amtrak manages to survive despite inherent flaws due to the public's persistent loyalty. Amtrak, America's Railroad is essential reading for those who hope to see another fifty years of America's railroad passenger service, whether they be patrons, commuters, legislators, regulators, and anyone interested in railroads and transportation history.
Author: United States. Congress. House. Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure. Subcommittee on Railroads
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 324
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Book Description
Author: Anthony Perl
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
ISBN: 9780813170480
Category : Transportation
Languages : en
Pages : 366
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Book Description
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.
Author: Petra Todorovich
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781558442221
Category : High speed ground transportation
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
This Policy Focus Report was a product of the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, the Regional Plan Association and their joint venture America 2050. The Lincoln Institute of Land Policy has been engaged in a series of projects with the Regional Plan Association for more than a decade. The partnership spawned the national initiative known as America 2050, which is aimed at meeting the infrastructure, economic development and environmental challenges of the nation, in preparation for a population increase of about 130 million by 2050. A major focus of America 2050 is the emergence of megaregions - large networks of metropolitan areas, where most of the population growth by mid-century will take place. Examples of megaregions are the Northeast Megaregion, from Boston to Washington, or Southern California, from Los Angeles to Tijuana, Mexico. High-speed rail is capable of linking employment centers and population hubs in corridors up to 600 miles in length in 11 U.S. megaregions.This Policy Focus Report was a product of the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, the Regional Plan Association and their joint venture America 2050. The Lincoln Institute of Land Policy has been engaged in a series of projects with the Regional Plan Association for more than a decade. The partnership spawned the national initiative known as America 2050, which is aimed at meeting the infrastructure, economic development and environmental challenges of the nation, in preparation for a population increase of about 130 million by 2050. A major focus of America 2050 is the emergence of megaregions - large networks of metropolitan areas, where most of the population growth by mid-century will take place. Examples of megaregions are the Northeast Megaregion, from Boston to Washington, or Southern California, from Los Angeles to Tijuana, Mexico. High-speed rail is capable of linking employment centers and population hubs in corridors up to 600 miles in length in 11 U.S. megaregions.
Author: David Randall Peterman
Publisher: DIANE Publishing
ISBN: 1437927009
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 31
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Book Description
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.
Author: Jim Cox
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 0786461756
Category : Transportation
Languages : en
Pages : 477
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Book Description
Covering legendary and obscure intercity passenger trains in a dozen Southeastern states, this book details the golden age of train travel. The story begins with the inception of steam locomotives in 1830 in Charleston, South Carolina, continuing through the mid-1930s changeover to diesel and the debut of Amtrak in 1971 to the present. Throughout, the book explores the technological achievements, the romance and the economic impact of traveling on the tracks. Other topics include contemporary museums and excursion trains; the development of commuter rails, monorails, light rails, and other intracity transit trains; the social impact of train travel; and historical rail terminals and facilities. The book is supplemented with more than 160 images and 10 appendices.
Author: Donald M. Itzkoff
Publisher: Praeger
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 184
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Book Description
Author: Elizabeth Pinkston
Publisher: Government Printing Office
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 58
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Book Description
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.
Author: Randal O'Toole
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781944424947
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
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
