Waiting on a Train

Waiting on a Train PDF Author: James McCommons
Publisher: Chelsea Green Publishing
ISBN: 1603582592
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 306

Get Book Here

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.

Waiting on a Train

Waiting on a Train PDF Author: James McCommons
Publisher: Chelsea Green Publishing
ISBN: 1603582592
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 306

Get Book Here

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.

New Departures

New Departures PDF Author: Anthony Perl
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
ISBN: 9780813170480
Category : Transportation
Languages : en
Pages : 366

Get Book Here

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.

Guidebook for Implementing Passenger Rail Service on Shared Passenger and Freight Corridors

Guidebook for Implementing Passenger Rail Service on Shared Passenger and Freight Corridors PDF Author: Alan J. Bing
Publisher: Transportation Research Board
ISBN: 0309154707
Category : Railroads
Languages : en
Pages : 181

Get Book Here

Book Description
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.

The American Passenger Train

The American Passenger Train PDF Author: Mike Schafer
Publisher: Motorbooks International
ISBN: 9780760308967
Category : Transportation
Languages : en
Pages : 156

Get Book Here

Book Description
From the Santa Fe "Super Chief" to modern Amtrak high-speed intercity services, this sprawling photographic history rambles through two centuries of passenger trains and presents a wealth of archival imagery and period color photos. 200 illustrations, 150 in color.

U.S. Passenger Rail Technologies

U.S. Passenger Rail Technologies PDF Author: United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment
Publisher: DIANE Publishing
ISBN: 1428923845
Category : High speed ground transportation
Languages : en
Pages : 109

Get Book Here

Book Description


Passenger Rail

Passenger Rail PDF Author: United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. Subcommittee on Surface Transportation and Merchant Marine Infrastructure, Safety, and Security
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Federal aid to transportation
Languages : en
Pages : 56

Get Book Here

Book Description


American Passenger Trains

American Passenger Trains PDF Author: Patrick Dorin
Publisher: Enthusiast Books
ISBN: 9781583882320
Category : Transportation
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Get Book Here

Book Description
Passenger Trains played an important role in the growth of traveling across America or to the nearest city—the height of its service after WWII until the start up of Amtrak. This book provides railroad hobbyists, historians, museum operators, and transportation instructors and planners with information about the types of train services and operations in various corridors, such as Chicago – Milwaukee; the overnight and daytime long distance service; transcontinental trains, and the various types of local trains on both main lines and branch lines. The book reviews the types of sleeping car, coach, parlor car, food and beverage services available at that time. The equipment and service such as vista dome coaches, dining and lounge cars with many types of meals and beverages, sleeping accommodations and coach seats including reclining and leg rests were drawing cards for passenger traffic. This historic review, including train schedules and advertisements, provides information on train consists which is valuable for creating model railroad layout size trains.

All Aboard!

All Aboard! PDF Author: Karl Zimmermann
Publisher: Boyds Mills Press
ISBN: 9781590783252
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 56

Get Book Here

Book Description
A colorful history of passenger trains all across the world.

Passenger rail security enhanced federal leadership needed to prioritize and guide security efforts : report to congressional requesters.

Passenger rail security enhanced federal leadership needed to prioritize and guide security efforts : report to congressional requesters. PDF Author:
Publisher: DIANE Publishing
ISBN: 1428933883
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 100

Get Book Here

Book Description


The Benefits of Intercity Passenger Rail

The Benefits of Intercity Passenger Rail PDF Author: United States. Congress. House. Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure. Subcommittee on Railroads, Pipelines, and Hazardous Materials
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Electronic government information
Languages : en
Pages : 184

Get Book Here

Book Description