Rail transportation in the United States consists primarily of
freight shipments, with a well integrated network of
standard gauge
A standard-gauge railway is a railway with a track gauge of . The standard gauge is also called Stephenson gauge (after George Stephenson), International gauge, UIC gauge, uniform gauge, normal gauge and European gauge in Europe, and SGR in E ...
private freight railroads extending into Canada and Mexico.
Passenger service is mainly
mass transit
Public transport (also known as public transportation, public transit, mass transit, or simply transit) is a system of transport for passengers by group travel systems available for use by the general public unlike private transport, typical ...
and
commuter rail
Commuter rail, or suburban rail, is a passenger rail transport service that primarily operates within a metropolitan area, connecting commuters to a central city from adjacent suburbs or commuter towns. Generally commuter rail systems are con ...
in major cities. Intercity passenger service, once a large and vital part of the nation's passenger transportation network, plays a limited role as compared to transportation patterns in many other countries. The United States has the
largest rail transport network size of any country in the world.
The nation's earliest railroads were built in the 1820s and 1830s,
primarily in New England and the Mid-Atlantic region. The
Baltimore and Ohio Railroad
The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad was the first common carrier railroad and the oldest railroad in the United States, with its first section opening in 1830. Merchants from Baltimore, which had benefited to some extent from the construction of ...
, chartered in 1827, was the nation's first common carrier railroad. By 1850, an extensive railroad network had begun to take shape in the rapidly industrializing
Northeastern United States
The Northeastern United States, also referred to as the Northeast, the East Coast, or the American Northeast, is a geographic region of the United States. It is located on the Atlantic coast of North America, with Canada to its north, the Southe ...
and the Midwest, while relatively fewer railroads were constructed in the primarily agricultural
Southern United States
The Southern United States (sometimes Dixie, also referred to as the Southern States, the American South, the Southland, or simply the South) is a geographic and cultural region of the United States of America. It is between the Atlantic Ocean ...
. During and after the
American Civil War
The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by Names of the American Civil War, other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union (American Civil War), Union ("the North") and t ...
, the
first transcontinental railroad
North America's first transcontinental railroad (known originally as the "Pacific Railroad" and later as the " Overland Route") was a continuous railroad line constructed between 1863 and 1869 that connected the existing eastern U.S. rail netwo ...
was built to connect
California
California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...
with the rest of the national network in
Iowa
Iowa () is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States, bordered by the Mississippi River to the east and the Missouri River and Big Sioux River to the west. It is bordered by six states: Wiscon ...
.
Railroads continued to expand throughout the rest of the 1800s, eventually reaching nearly every corner of the nation. The nation's railroads were temporarily
nationalized
Nationalization (nationalisation in British English) is the process of transforming privately-owned assets into public assets by bringing them under the public ownership of a national government or state. Nationalization usually refers to p ...
between 1917 and 1920 by the
United States Railroad Administration
The United States Railroad Administration (USRA) was the name of the nationalized railroad system of the United States between December 28, 1917, and March 1, 1920. It was the largest American experiment with nationalization, and was undertaken a ...
, as a result of U.S. entry into
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...
. Railroad mileage in the nation peaked at this time. Railroads were affected deeply by the
Great Depression in the United States
In the History of the United States, United States, the Great Depression began with the Wall Street Crash of 1929, Wall Street Crash of October 1929 and then spread worldwide. The nadir came in 1931–1933, and recovery came in 1940. The stock m ...
, with some lines being abandoned during this time. A major increase in traffic during
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...
brought a temporary reprieve, but after the war railroads faced intense competition from
automobiles
A car or automobile is a motor vehicle with wheels. Most definitions of ''cars'' say that they run primarily on roads, seat one to eight people, have four wheels, and mainly transport people instead of goods.
The year 1886 is regarded ...
and
aircraft
An aircraft is a vehicle that is able to flight, fly by gaining support from the Atmosphere of Earth, air. It counters the force of gravity by using either Buoyancy, static lift or by using the Lift (force), dynamic lift of an airfoil, or in ...
and began a long decline. Passenger service was especially hard hit, with the federal government creating
Amtrak
The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, doing business as Amtrak () , is the national passenger railroad company of the United States. It operates inter-city rail service in 46 of the 48 contiguous U.S. States and nine cities in Canada. ...
in 1971 to take over responsibility for intercity passenger travel. Numerous railroad companies went bankrupt starting in the 1960s, most notably
Penn Central Transportation Company
The Penn Central Transportation Company, commonly abbreviated to Penn Central, was an American class I railroad that operated from 1968 to 1976. Penn Central combined three traditional corporate rivals (the Pennsylvania, New York Central and th ...
in 1971, in the largest bankruptcy in the nation's history at the time. Once again, the federal government intervened, forming
Conrail
Conrail , formally the Consolidated Rail Corporation, was the primary Class I railroad in the Northeastern United States between 1976 and 1999. The trade name Conrail is a portmanteau based on the company's legal name. It continues to do bus ...
in 1976 to assume control of bankrupt railroads in the Northeast.
Railroads' fortunes began to change following the passage of the
Staggers Rail Act
The Staggers Rail Act of 1980 is a United States federal law that deregulated the American railroad industry to a significant extent, and it replaced the regulatory structure that had existed since the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887.
Backgroun ...
in 1980, which
deregulated railroad companies, who had previously faced much stronger regulation than competing modes of transportation. With innovations such as
trailer-on-flatcar and
intermodal freight transport
Intermodal freight transport involves the transportation of freight in an intermodal container or vehicle, using multiple modes of transportation (e.g., rail, ship, aircraft, and truck), without any handling of the freight itself when changing ...
, railroad traffic began to increase. Following the Staggers Act, many railroads merged, forming major systems such as
CSX
CSX Transportation , known colloquially as simply CSX, is a Class I freight railroad operating in the Eastern United States and the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec. The railroad operates approximately 21,000 route miles () of trac ...
and
Norfolk Southern
The Norfolk Southern Railway is a Class I freight railroad in the United States formed in 1982 with the merger of Norfolk and Western Railway and Southern Railway. With headquarters in Atlanta, the company operates 19,420 route miles (31, ...
in the Eastern United States, and
BNSF Railway
BNSF Railway is one of the largest freight railroads in North America. One of seven North American Class I railroads, BNSF has 35,000 employees, of track in 28 states, and nearly 8,000 locomotives. It has three transcontinental routes that ...
in the Western United States, while
Union Pacific Railroad
The Union Pacific Railroad , legally Union Pacific Railroad Company and often called simply Union Pacific, is a freight-hauling railroad that operates 8,300 locomotives over routes in 23 U.S. states west of Chicago and New Orleans. Union Paci ...
purchased a number of competitors as well. Another result of the Staggers Act was the rise of
shortline railroads, which formed to operate lines that major railroads abandoned or sold off. Hundreds of these companies were formed by the end of the century. Freight railroads invested in modernization and capacity improvements as they entered the 21st century, and intermodal transport continued to grow, while traditional traffic such as coal fell.
History
To 1850
Between 1762 and 1764 a
gravity railroad
A gravity railroad (American English) or gravity railway (British English) is a railroad on a slope that allows cars carrying minerals or passengers to coast down the slope by the force of gravity alone. The speed of the cars is controlled by a b ...
(
mechanized tramway) (
Montresor's Tramway) was built by British Army engineers up the steep riverside terrain near the
Niagara River
The Niagara River () is a river that flows north from Lake Erie to Lake Ontario. It forms part of the border between the province of Ontario in Canada (on the west) and the state of New York in the United States (on the east). There are diffe ...
waterfall's
escarpment
An escarpment is a steep slope or long cliff that forms as a result of faulting or erosion and separates two relatively level areas having different elevations.
The terms ''scarp'' and ''scarp face'' are often used interchangeably with ''esca ...
at the
Niagara Portage (which the local
Senecas called ''"Crawl on All Fours."'') in
Lewiston, New York
Lewiston is a town in Niagara County, New York, United States. The population was 15,944 at the 2020 census. The town and its contained village are named after Morgan Lewis, a governor of New York.
The Town of Lewiston is on the western bord ...
.
[Text online of placement commemorating historic railroad.]
accessdate=2017-03-01
![FWPNW026HobokenNJSA0266](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6d/FWPNW026HobokenNJSA0266.jpg)
In the 1820s–1840s, Americans closely watched
the development of railways in Great Britain. The main competition came from canals, many of which were in operation under state ownership, and from privately owned steamboats plying the nation's vast river system. In 1829, Massachusetts prepared an elaborate plan. Government support, most especially the detailing of officers from the
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
, colors =
, anniversaries = 16 June (Organization Day)
, battles =
, battles_label = Wars
, website =
, commander1 = ...
– the nation's only repository of civil engineering expertise – was crucial in assisting private enterprise in building nearly all the country's railroads. Army Engineer officers surveyed and selected routes, planned, designed, and constructed rights-of-way, track, and structures, and introduced the Army's system of reports and accountability to the railroad companies. More than one in ten of the 1,058 graduates from the
U.S. Military Academy at West Point between 1802 and 1866 became corporate presidents, chief engineers, treasurers, superintendents and general managers of railroad companies.
Among the Army officers who thus assisted the building and managing of the first American railroads were
Stephen Harriman Long,
George Washington Whistler, and
Herman Haupt.
State governments granted charters that created the business corporation and gave a limited right of
eminent domain
Eminent domain (United States, Philippines), land acquisition (India, Malaysia, Singapore), compulsory purchase/acquisition (Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, United Kingdom), resumption (Hong Kong, Uganda), resumption/compulsory acquisition (Austr ...
, allowing the railroad to buy needed land, even if the owner objected.
![Canton Viaduct, Southern view, west side](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4f/Canton_Viaduct%2C_Southern_view%2C_west_side.JPG)
The
Baltimore and Ohio Railroad
The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad was the first common carrier railroad and the oldest railroad in the United States, with its first section opening in 1830. Merchants from Baltimore, which had benefited to some extent from the construction of ...
(B&O) was chartered in 1827 to build a steam railroad west from
Baltimore
Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic, and the 30th most populous city in the United States with a population of 585,708 in 2020. Baltimore was ...
, Maryland, to a point on the
Ohio River
The Ohio River is a long river in the United States. It is located at the boundary of the Midwestern and Southern United States, flowing southwesterly from western Pennsylvania to its mouth on the Mississippi River at the southern tip of ...
. It began scheduled freight service over its first section on May 24, 1830. The first railroad to carry passengers, and, by accident, the first tourist railroad, began operating 1827. It was the
Lehigh Coal & Navigation Company
The Lehigh Coal & Navigation Company was a mining and transportation company headquartered in Mauch Chunk, Pennsylvania, now known as Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania. The company operated from 1818 until its dissolution in 1964 and played an early and i ...
, initially a gravity road feeding anthracite coal downhill to the
Lehigh Canal and using mule-power to return nine miles up the mountain; but, by the summer of 1829, as documented by newspapers, it regularly carried passengers. Later renamed the
Summit Hill & Mauch Chunk Railroad
The Mauch Chunk and Summit Railroad was a coal-hauling railroad in the mountains of Pennsylvania that operated between 1828 and 1932. It was the first operational railway, in the United States, of any substantial length to carry paying passenger ...
, it added a steam powered cable-return track for true two-way operation by 1843, and ran as a
common carrier
A common carrier in common law countries (corresponding to a public carrier in some civil law systems,Encyclopædia Britannica CD 2000 "Civil-law public carrier" from "carriage of goods" usually called simply a ''carrier'') is a person or compan ...
and tourist road from the 1890s to 1937. Lasting 111 years, the SH&MC is described by some to be the world's first
roller coaster
A roller coaster, or rollercoaster, is a type of amusement ride that employs a form of elevated railroad track designed with tight turns, steep slopes, and sometimes inversions. Passengers ride along the track in open cars, and the rides are ...
.
The first purpose-built common carrier railroad in the northeast was the
Mohawk & Hudson Railroad; incorporated in 1826, it began operating in August 1831. Soon, a second passenger line, the
Saratoga & Schenectady Railroad, started service in June 1832.
In 1835 the B&O completed a branch from Baltimore southward to Washington, D.C.
The
Boston & Providence Railroad was incorporated in 1831 to build a railroad between
Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
, Massachusetts and
Providence
Providence often refers to:
* Providentia, the divine personification of foresight in ancient Roman religion
* Divine providence, divinely ordained events and outcomes in Christianity
* Providence, Rhode Island, the capital of Rhode Island in the ...
, Rhode Island; the road was completed in 1835 with the completion of the
Canton Viaduct in
Canton, Massachusetts
Canton is a town in Norfolk County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 24,370 at the 2020 census. Canton is part of Greater Boston, about 15 miles (24 kilometers) southwest of downtown Boston.
History
The area that would beco ...
.
Numerous short lines were built, especially in the south, to provide connections to the river systems and the river boats common to the era. In Louisiana, the
Pontchartrain Rail-Road
Pontchartrain Rail-Road was the first railway in New Orleans, Louisiana. Chartered in 1830, the railroad began carrying people and goods between the Mississippi River front and Lake Pontchartrain on 23 April 1831. It closed more than 100 years ...
, a route connecting the
Mississippi River
The Mississippi River is the List of longest rivers of the United States (by main stem), second-longest river and chief river of the second-largest Drainage system (geomorphology), drainage system in North America, second only to the Hudson B ...
with
Lake Pontchartrain
Lake Pontchartrain ( ) is an estuary located in southeastern Louisiana in the United States. It covers an area of with an average depth of . Some shipping channels are kept deeper through dredging. It is roughly oval in shape, about from w ...
at New Orleans was completed in 1831 and provided over a century of operation. Completed in 1830, the
Tuscumbia, Courtland & Decatur Railroad became the first railroad constructed west of the
Appalachian Mountains
The Appalachian Mountains, often called the Appalachians, (french: Appalaches), are a system of mountains in eastern to northeastern North America. The Appalachians first formed roughly 480 million years ago during the Ordovician Period. The ...
; it connected the two Alabama cities of
Decatur and
Tuscumbia.
Soon, other roads that would themselves be purchased or merged into larger entities, formed. The
Camden & Amboy Railroad (C&A), the first railroad built in
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delawa ...
, completed its route between its namesake cities in 1834. The C&A ran successfully for decades connecting
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
to the
Delaware Valley
The Delaware Valley is a metropolitan region on the East Coast of the United States that comprises and surrounds Philadelphia, the sixth most populous city in the nation and 68th largest city in the world as of 2020. The toponym Delaware Val ...
, and would eventually become part of the
Pennsylvania Railroad
The Pennsylvania Railroad (reporting mark PRR), legal name The Pennsylvania Railroad Company also known as the "Pennsy", was an American Class I railroad that was established in 1846 and headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was named ...
.
1851–1900
By 1850, over of railroad lines had been built.
The B&O's westward route reached the Ohio River in 1852, the first eastern seaboard railroad to do so.
Railroad companies in the North and Midwest constructed networks that linked nearly every major city by 1860.
Transcontinental railroad
![East west shaking hands by russell](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/aa/East_west_shaking_hands_by_russell.jpg)
The First Transcontinental Railroad in the U.S. was built across North America in the 1860s, linking the railroad network of the eastern U.S. with California on the
Pacific
The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the contine ...
coast. Finished on May 10, 1869, at the
Golden spike
The golden spike (also known as The Last Spike) is the ceremonial 17.6- karat gold final spike driven by Leland Stanford to join the rails of the first transcontinental railroad across the United States connecting the Central Pacific Railroad ...
event at
Promontory Summit, Utah
Promontory is an area of high ground in Box Elder County, Utah, United States, 32 mi (51 km) west of Brigham City and 66 mi (106 km) northwest of Salt Lake City. Rising to an elevation of 4,902 feet (1,494 m) above s ...
, it created a nationwide mechanized transportation network that revolutionized the population and economy of the
American West
The Western United States (also called the American West, the Far West, and the West) is the region comprising the westernmost states of the United States. As American settlement in the U.S. expanded westward, the meaning of the term ''the Wes ...
, catalyzing the transition from the
wagon train
''Wagon Train'' is an American Western series that aired 8 seasons: first on the NBC television network (1957–1962), and then on ABC (1962–1965). ''Wagon Train'' debuted on September 18, 1957, and became number one in the Nielsen ratings ...
s of previous decades to a modern transportation system. It achieved the status of first transcontinental railroad by connecting myriad eastern U.S. railroads to the Pacific Ocean. However it was not the world's longest railroad, as
Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by to ...
's
Grand Trunk Railway
The Grand Trunk Railway (; french: Grand Tronc) was a railway system that operated in the Canadian provinces of Quebec and Ontario and in the American states of Connecticut, Maine, Michigan, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Vermont. The rail ...
(GTR) had, by 1867, already accumulated more than of track by connecting
Portland, Maine
Portland is the largest city in the U.S. state of Maine and the seat of Cumberland County. Portland's population was 68,408 in April 2020. The Greater Portland metropolitan area is home to over half a million people, the 104th-largest metropo ...
, and the three northern
New England
New England is a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York to the west and by the Canadian provinces ...
states with the
Canadian Atlantic provinces, and west as far as
Port Huron, Michigan
Port Huron is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan and the county seat of St. Clair County. The population was 30,184 at the 2010 census. The city is adjacent to Port Huron Township but is administered separately.
Located along the St. Clair ...
, through
Sarnia, Ontario
Sarnia is a city in Lambton County, Ontario, Canada. It had a 2021 population of 72,047, and is the largest city on Lake Huron. Sarnia is located on the eastern bank of the junction between the Upper and Lower Great Lakes where Lake Huron f ...
.
Authorized by the
Pacific Railway Act of 1862 and heavily backed by the
federal government
A federation (also known as a federal state) is a political entity characterized by a union of partially self-governing provinces, states, or other regions under a central federal government ( federalism). In a federation, the self-gover ...
, the first transcontinental railroad was the culmination of a decades-long movement to build such a line and was one of the crowning achievements of the presidency of
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln ( ; February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was an American lawyer, politician, and statesman who served as the 16th president of the United States from 1861 until his assassination in 1865. Lincoln led the nation throu ...
, completed four years after his death. The building of the railroad required enormous feats of engineering and
labor
Labour or labor may refer to:
* Childbirth, the delivery of a baby
* Labour (human activity), or work
** Manual labour, physical work
** Wage labour, a socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer
** Organized labour and the la ...
in the crossing of the
Great Plains
The Great Plains (french: Grandes Plaines), sometimes simply "the Plains", is a broad expanse of flatland in North America. It is located west of the Mississippi River and east of the Rocky Mountains, much of it covered in prairie, steppe, a ...
and the
Rocky Mountains
The Rocky Mountains, also known as the Rockies, are a major mountain range and the largest mountain system in North America. The Rocky Mountains stretch in straight-line distance from the northernmost part of western Canada, to New Mexico ...
by the
Union Pacific Railroad
The Union Pacific Railroad , legally Union Pacific Railroad Company and often called simply Union Pacific, is a freight-hauling railroad that operates 8,300 locomotives over routes in 23 U.S. states west of Chicago and New Orleans. Union Paci ...
(UP) and
Central Pacific Railroad
The Central Pacific Railroad (CPRR) was a rail company chartered by U.S. Congress in 1862 to build a railroad eastwards from Sacramento, California, to complete the western part of the " First transcontinental railroad" in North America. Incor ...
, the two federally chartered enterprises that built the line westward and eastward respectively. The building of the railroad was motivated in part to bind the
Union together during the strife of the
American Civil War
The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by Names of the American Civil War, other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union (American Civil War), Union ("the North") and t ...
. It substantially accelerated the populating of the West by
homesteaders, leading to rapid
cultivation of new farm lands. The Central Pacific and the
Southern Pacific Railroad
The Southern Pacific (or Espee from the railroad initials- SP) was an American Class I railroad network that existed from 1865 to 1996 and operated largely in the Western United States. The system was operated by various companies under the ...
combined operations in 1870 and formally merged in 1885; the Union Pacific originally bought the Southern Pacific in 1901 and was forced to divest it in 1913, but took it over again in 1996.
Much of the original
roadbed is still in use today and owned by UP, which is descended from both of the original railroads.
Rail gauge selection
![44](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/65/44._Cape_Horn%2C_C.P.R.R.jpg)
Many Canadian and U.S. railroads originally used various broad gauges, but most were converted to by 1886, when the conversion of much of the southern rail network from gauge took place. This and the standardization of couplings and air brakes enabled the pooling and interchange of
locomotive
A locomotive or engine is a rail transport vehicle that provides the motive power for a train. If a locomotive is capable of carrying a payload, it is usually rather referred to as a multiple unit, motor coach, railcar or power car; the ...
s and rolling stock.
Impact of railroads on the economy
![Railroad1860](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5a/Railroad1860.jpg)
The railroad had its largest impact on the American transportation system during the second half of the 19th century. The standard historical interpretation holds that the railroads were central to the development of a national market in the United States and served as a model of how to organize, finance and manage a large corporation, along with allowing growth of the American population outside of the eastern regions.
=Take-off Thesis
=
In 1944, American economic historian
Leland Jenks (having conducted an analysis based on
Joseph Schumpeter
Joseph Alois Schumpeter (; February 8, 1883 – January 8, 1950) was an Austrian-born political economist. He served briefly as Finance Minister of German-Austria in 1919. In 1932, he emigrated to the United States to become a professor at H ...
's theory of innovation) similarly claims that railroads had a direct impact on the growth of the United States' real income and an indirect impact on its economic expansion. In his Rostovian Take-off Thesis,
Walt W. Rostow
Walt Whitman Rostow (October 7, 1916 – February 13, 2003) was an American economist, professor and political theorist who served as National Security Advisor to President of the United States Lyndon B. Johnson from 1966 to 1969.
Rostow worked ...
systematically developed the Jenks model that railroads were crucial to American economic growth. According to Rostow, railroads were responsible for the "take-off" of American industrialization in the period of 1843–1860. This "take-off" in economic growth occurred because the railroad helped to decrease transportation costs, transport new products and goods to commercial markets, and generally widen the market.
[Walt W. Rostow, ''The Stages of Economic Growth: A Non-Communist Manifesto'' (1960) pp. 55.] Furthermore, the development of railroads stimulated the growth of the modern coal, iron, and engineering industries, all of which were essential for wider economic growth.
According to Rostow's Take-off Thesis, railroads generated new investment, which simultaneously helped develop financial markets in the United States.
Contemporary American economic historians have challenged this conventional view. The respective findings of
Robert Fogel and Albert Fishlow do not support Rostow's claim that railroads stimulated widespread industrialization by increasing demand for coal, iron, and machinery. Drawing upon historical data, Robert Fogel found that the impact of railroads on the iron and steel industries was minimal: from 1840 to 1860, railroad production used less than five percent of the total pig iron produced. In addition, Fogel argues, only six percent of total coal production from 1840 to 1860 was consumed by railroads through consumption of iron products. Like Fogel, Fishlow showed that most railroads used very little coal during this time period because they were able to burn wood instead.
[Fishlow, Albert (1965). American Railroads and the Transformation of the Ante-Bellum Economy Cambridge: Harvard University Press. pp. 14–157.] Fishlow also found that iron used by railroads was only 20% of net consumption in the 1850s.
=Fogel and "essential" issue
=
Fogel concludes that railroads were important but not "essential" to late 19th-century growth in the U.S. in the sense that a possible alternative existed even if it was never tried. Fogel focuses on the "social saving" created by railroads, which he defines as the difference between the actual level of national income in 1890 and the theoretical level of national income if transportation somehow existed in the most efficient way possible to the absence of the railroad.
[Robert W. Fogel, "A Quantitative Approach to the Study of Railroads in American Economic Growth: A Report of Some Preliminary Findings." ''Journal of Economic History'' (1962) 22, no. 2. pp. 20–21.] He found that without the railroad, America's gross national product (GNP) would have been 7.2% less in 1890. While the largest contribution to GNP growth was made by any single innovation before 1900, this percentage only represents 2–3 years of GNP growth.
Fogel makes several key assumptions and decisions in his analysis. First, his calculations comprise transportation between the primary markets of the
Midwest
The Midwestern United States, also referred to as the Midwest or the American Midwest, is one of four Census Bureau Region, census regions of the United States Census Bureau (also known as "Region 2"). It occupies the northern central part of ...
and the secondary markets of the
East
East or Orient is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from west and is the direction from which the Sun rises on the Earth.
Etymology
As in other languages, the word is formed from the fac ...
and
South
South is one of the cardinal directions or compass points. The direction is the opposite of north and is perpendicular to both east and west.
Etymology
The word ''south'' comes from Old English ''sūþ'', from earlier Proto-Germanic ''*sunþa ...
(interregional) and transportation between cities and rural areas (intraregional). Second, he chooses to focus on the shipment of four agricultural commodities: wheat,
corn
Maize ( ; ''Zea mays'' subsp. ''mays'', from es, maíz after tnq, mahiz), also known as corn (North American and Australian English), is a cereal grain first domesticated by indigenous peoples in southern Mexico about 10,000 years ago. The ...
, beef, and pork. Third, Fogel's social saving calculation accounts for costs not included in water rates (which include the cargo losses in transit, transshipment costs, extra wagon haulage, time lost because of slower speed, and because canals froze in the winter, and capital costs). One criticism of Fogel's analysis is that it does not account for the externalities or "spill-over" effects of the railroads, which (if included) may have increased his estimate for social savings
efinition needed Railroads provided much of the demand for technological advances in a number of areas, including heat dynamics, combustion engineering, thermodynamics, metallurgy, civil engineering, machining, and metal fabrication. Furthermore, Fogel does not discuss the role railroads played in the development of the financial system or in attracting foreign capital, which otherwise might not have been available.
=Albert Fishlow
=
Fishlow estimates that the railroad's social savings—or what he terms "direct benefits"—were higher than those calculated by Fogel. Fishlow's research may indicate that the development of railroads significantly influenced real income in the United States. Instead of Fogel's term "social saving", Fishlow uses the term "direct benefits" to describe the difference between the actual level of national income in 1859 and the theoretical level of income using the least expensive, but existing alternative means.
Fishlow calculated the social savings in 1859 at 4 percent of GNP and in 1890 at 15 percent of GNP—higher than Fogel's estimate of 7.2% in 1890.
Monopolies, antitrust law, and regulation
Industrialists such as
Cornelius Vanderbilt
Cornelius Vanderbilt (May 27, 1794 – January 4, 1877), nicknamed "the Commodore", was an American business magnate who built his wealth in railroads and shipping. After working with his father's business, Vanderbilt worked his way into lead ...
and
Jay Gould
Jason Gould (; May 27, 1836 – December 2, 1892) was an American railroad magnate and financial speculator who is generally identified as one of the robber barons of the Gilded Age. His sharp and often unscrupulous business practices made him ...
became wealthy through railroad ownerships, as large railroad companies such as the
New York Central
The New York Central Railroad was a railroad primarily operating in the Great Lakes and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The railroad primarily connected greater New York and Boston in the east with Chicago and St. Louis in the Mid ...
,
Grand Trunk Railway
The Grand Trunk Railway (; french: Grand Tronc) was a railway system that operated in the Canadian provinces of Quebec and Ontario and in the American states of Connecticut, Maine, Michigan, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Vermont. The rail ...
and the
Southern Pacific
The Southern Pacific (or Espee from the railroad initials- SP) was an American Class I railroad network that existed from 1865 to 1996 and operated largely in the Western United States. The system was operated by various companies under the ...
spanned several states. In response to
monopolistic
A monopoly (from Greek el, μόνος, mónos, single, alone, label=none and el, πωλεῖν, pōleîn, to sell, label=none), as described by Irving Fisher, is a market with the "absence of competition", creating a situation where a spec ...
practices (such as
price fixing
Price fixing is an anticompetitive agreement between participants on the same side in a market to buy or sell a product, service, or commodity only at a fixed price, or maintain the market conditions such that the price is maintained at a given ...
) and other excesses of some railroads and their owners,
Congress
A congress is a formal meeting of the representatives of different countries, constituent states, organizations, trade unions, political parties, or other groups. The term originated in Late Middle English to denote an encounter (meeting of a ...
created the
Interstate Commerce Commission
The Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) was a regulatory agency in the United States created by the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887. The agency's original purpose was to regulate railroads (and later trucking) to ensure fair rates, to eliminat ...
(ICC) in 1887. The ICC indirectly controlled the business activities of the railroads through issuance of extensive
regulations
Regulation is the management of complex systems according to a set of rules and trends. In systems theory, these types of rules exist in various fields of biology and society, but the term has slightly different meanings according to context. For ...
. Congress also enacted
antitrust legislation
In the United States, antitrust law is a collection of mostly federal laws that regulate the conduct and organization of businesses to promote competition and prevent unjustified monopolies. The three main U.S. antitrust statutes are the Sherman ...
to prevent railroad monopolies, beginning with the
Sherman Antitrust Act
The Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 (, ) is a United States antitrust law which prescribes the rule of free competition among those engaged in commerce. It was passed by Congress and is named for Senator John Sherman, its principal author.
Th ...
in 1890.
1901–1970
The principal mainline railroads concentrated their efforts on moving freight and passengers over long distances. But many had suburban services near large cities, which might also be served by
Streetcar
A tram (called a streetcar or trolley in North America) is a rail vehicle that travels on tramway tracks on public urban streets; some include segments on segregated right-of-way. The tramlines or networks operated as public transport are ...
and
Interurban
The Interurban (or radial railway in Europe and Canada) is a type of electric railway, with streetcar-like electric self-propelled rail cars which run within and between cities or towns. They were very prevalent in North America between 1900 a ...
lines. The Interurban was a concept which relied almost exclusively on passenger traffic for revenue. Unable to survive the
Great Depression
The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...
, the failure of most Interurbans by that time left many cities without suburban passenger railroads, although the largest cities such as New York City, Chicago,
Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
and
Philadelphia
Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...
continued to have suburban service. The major railroads passenger flagship services included multi-day journeys on luxury trains resembling hotels, which were unable to compete with airlines in the 1950s. Rural communities were served by slow trains no more than twice a day. They survived until the 1960s because the same train hauled the
Railway Post Office
In Canada and the United States, a railway post office, commonly abbreviated as RPO, was a railroad car that was normally operated in passenger service as a means to sort mail en route, in order to speed delivery. The RPO was staffed by highly tr ...
cars, paid for by the
US Post Office
The United States Postal Service (USPS), also known as the Post Office, U.S. Mail, or Postal Service, is an independent agency of the executive branch of the United States federal government responsible for providing postal service in the U. ...
. RPOs were withdrawn when mail sorting was mechanized.
![Santa Fe stopped at Cajon Siding, March 1943](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/98/Santa_Fe_stopped_at_Cajon_Siding%2C_March_1943.jpg)
As early as the 1930s, automobile travel had begun to cut into the rail passenger market, somewhat reducing
economies of scale
In microeconomics, economies of scale are the cost advantages that enterprises obtain due to their scale of operation, and are typically measured by the amount of output produced per unit of time. A decrease in cost per unit of output enables ...
, but it was the development of the
Interstate Highway System
The Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways, commonly known as the Interstate Highway System, is a network of controlled-access highways that forms part of the National Highway System in the United States. Th ...
and of
commercial aviation
Commercial aviation is the part of civil aviation that involves operating aircraft for remuneration or hire, as opposed to private aviation.
Definition
Commercial aviation is not a rigorously defined category. All commercial air transport and ae ...
in the 1950s and 1960s, as well as increasingly restrictive regulation, that dealt the most damaging blows to rail transportation, both passenger and freight.
General Motors
The General Motors Company (GM) is an American Multinational corporation, multinational Automotive industry, automotive manufacturing company headquartered in Detroit, Michigan, United States. It is the largest automaker in the United States and ...
and others were convicted of running the streetcar industry into the ground purposefully in what is referred to as the
Great American Streetcar Scandal
The General Motors streetcar conspiracy refers to the convictions of General Motors (GM) and related companies that were involved in the monopolizing of the sale of buses and supplies to National City Lines (NCL) and subsidiaries, as well as to ...
. There was little point in operating passenger trains to advertise freight service when those who made decisions about freight shipping traveled by car and by air, and when the railroads' chief competitors for that market were interstate trucking companies.
Soon, the only things keeping most passenger trains running were legal obligations. Meanwhile, companies who were interested in using railroads for profitable freight traffic were looking for ways to get out of those legal obligations, and it looked like intercity passenger rail service would soon become extinct in the United States beyond a few highly populated corridors. The final blow for passenger trains in the U.S. came with the loss of
railroad post office
In Canada and the United States, a railway post office, commonly abbreviated as RPO, was a railroad car that was normally operated in passenger service as a means to sort mail en route, in order to speed delivery. The RPO was staffed by highly tr ...
s in the 1960s. On May 1, 1971, the federally funded
Amtrak
The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, doing business as Amtrak () , is the national passenger railroad company of the United States. It operates inter-city rail service in 46 of the 48 contiguous U.S. States and nine cities in Canada. ...
took over (with a few exceptions) all intercity passenger rail service in the continental United States. The
Rio Grande
The Rio Grande ( and ), known in Mexico as the Río Bravo del Norte or simply the Río Bravo, is one of the principal rivers (along with the Colorado River) in the southwestern United States and in northern Mexico.
The length of the Rio G ...
, with its
Denver
Denver () is a consolidated city and county, the capital, and most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Its population was 715,522 at the 2020 census, a 19.22% increase since 2010. It is the 19th-most populous city in the Unit ...
-
Ogden ''
Rio Grande Zephyr
The ''Rio Grande Zephyr'' was a passenger train operated by Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad (D&RGW or Rio Grande) between Denver, Colorado and Ogden, Utah from 1970 until 1983. In operation after the creation of publicly-funded Amtrak, th ...
'' and the Southern with its Washington, D.C.–
''Southern Crescent'' chose to stay out of Amtrak, and the
Rock Island, with two intrastate
Illinois
Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolita ...
trains, was too far gone to be included into Amtrak.
Freight transportation continued to labor under regulations developed when rail transport had a monopoly on intercity traffic, and railroads only competed with one another. An entire generation of rail managers had been trained to operate under this regulatory regime.
Labor unions
A trade union (labor union in American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers intent on "maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment", ch. I such as attaining better wages and benefits ( ...
and their work rules were likewise a formidable barrier to change. Overregulation, management and unions formed an "iron triangle" of stagnation, frustrating the efforts of leaders such as the
New York Central
The New York Central Railroad was a railroad primarily operating in the Great Lakes and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The railroad primarily connected greater New York and Boston in the east with Chicago and St. Louis in the Mid ...
's
Alfred E. Perlman
Alfred Edward Perlman (November 22, 1902—April 30, 1983) was a railroad executive, having served as president of the Penn Central Transportation Company and its predecessor, the New York Central Railroad.
Early career
Perlman graduated from ...
. In particular, the dense rail network in the Northeastern U.S. was in need of radical pruning and consolidation. A spectacularly unsuccessful beginning was the 1968 formation and subsequent bankruptcy of the
Penn Central
The Penn Central Transportation Company, commonly abbreviated to Penn Central, was an American Railroad classes, class I railroad that operated from 1968 to 1976. Penn Central combined three traditional corporate rivals (the Pennsylvania Railroad ...
, barely two years later.
1970–present
![BNSF 5350 20040808 Prairie du Chien WI](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/86/BNSF_5350_20040808_Prairie_du_Chien_WI.jpg)
Historically, on routes where a single railroad has had an undisputed monopoly, passenger service was as spartan and as expensive as the market and ICC regulation would bear, since such railroads had no need to advertise their freight services. However, on routes where two or three railroads were in direct competition with each other for freight business, such railroads would spare no expense to make their passenger trains as fast, luxurious, and affordable as possible, as it was considered to be the most effective way of advertising their profitable freight services.
The
National Association of Railroad Passengers (NARP) was formed in 1967 to lobby for the continuation of passenger trains. Its lobbying efforts were hampered somewhat by
Democratic opposition to any sort of
rail subsidies
Many countries offer subsidies to their railways because of the social and economic benefits that it brings. The economic benefits can greatly assist in funding the rail network. Those countries usually also fund or subsidize road construction, and ...
to the privately owned railroads, and
Republican
Republican can refer to:
Political ideology
* An advocate of a republic, a type of government that is not a monarchy or dictatorship, and is usually associated with the rule of law.
** Republicanism, the ideology in support of republics or agains ...
opposition to
nationalization
Nationalization (nationalisation in British English) is the process of transforming privately-owned assets into public assets by bringing them under the public ownership of a national government or state. Nationalization usually refers to pri ...
of the railroad industry. The proponents were aided by the fact that few in the federal government wanted to be held responsible for the seemingly inevitable extinction of the passenger train, which most regarded as tantamount to political suicide. The urgent need to solve the passenger train disaster was heightened by the bankruptcy filing of the
Penn Central
The Penn Central Transportation Company, commonly abbreviated to Penn Central, was an American Railroad classes, class I railroad that operated from 1968 to 1976. Penn Central combined three traditional corporate rivals (the Pennsylvania Railroad ...
, the dominant railroad in the
Northeastern United States
The Northeastern United States, also referred to as the Northeast, the East Coast, or the American Northeast, is a geographic region of the United States. It is located on the Atlantic coast of North America, with Canada to its north, the Southe ...
, on June 21, 1970.
Under the
Rail Passenger Service Act
The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, doing business as Amtrak () , is the national passenger railroad company of the United States. It operates inter-city rail service in 46 of the 48 contiguous U.S. States and nine cities in Canada. ...
of 1970, Congress created the
National Railroad Passenger Corporation
The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, doing business as Amtrak () , is the national passenger railroad company of the United States. It operates inter-city rail service in 46 of the 48 contiguous U.S. States and nine cities in Canada. ...
(NRPC) to subsidize and oversee the operation of intercity passenger trains. The Act provided that
* Any railroad operating intercity passenger service could contract with the NRPC, thereby joining the national system.
* Participating railroads bought into the new corporation using a formula based on their recent intercity passenger losses. The purchase price could be satisfied either by cash or rolling stock; in exchange, the railroads received Amtrak common stock.
* Any participating railroad was freed of the obligation to operate intercity passenger service after May 1971, except for those services chosen by the
U.S. Department of Transportation
The United States Department of Transportation (USDOT or DOT) is one of the executive departments of the U.S. federal government. It is headed by the secretary of transportation, who reports directly to the President of the United States and ...
as part of a "basic system" of service and paid for by NRPC using its federal funds.
* Railroads who chose not to join the Amtrak system were required to continue operating their existing passenger service until 1975 and thenceforth had to pursue the customary ICC approval process for any discontinuance or alteration to the service.
The original working brand name for NRPC was ''Railpax'', which eventually became ''
Amtrak
The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, doing business as Amtrak () , is the national passenger railroad company of the United States. It operates inter-city rail service in 46 of the 48 contiguous U.S. States and nine cities in Canada. ...
''. At the time, many Washington insiders viewed the corporation as a face-saving way to give passenger trains the one "last hurrah" demanded by the public, but expected that the NRPC would quietly disappear in a few years as public interest waned. However, while Amtrak's political and financial support have often been shaky, popular and political support for Amtrak has allowed it to survive into the 21st century.
Similarly, to preserve a declining freight rail industry, Congress passed the Regional Rail Reorganization Act of 1973 (sometimes called the "3R Act"). The act was an attempt to salvage viable freight operations from the bankrupt
Penn Central
The Penn Central Transportation Company, commonly abbreviated to Penn Central, was an American Railroad classes, class I railroad that operated from 1968 to 1976. Penn Central combined three traditional corporate rivals (the Pennsylvania Railroad ...
and other lines in the northeast,
mid-Atlantic and Midwestern regions. The law created the
Consolidated Rail Corporation
Conrail , formally the Consolidated Rail Corporation, was the primary Class I railroad in the Northeastern United States between 1976 and 1999. The trade name Conrail is a portmanteau based on the company's legal name. It continues to do busi ...
(Conrail), a government-owned corporation, which began operations in 1976. Another law, the
Railroad Revitalization and Regulatory Reform Act
The Railroad Revitalization and Regulatory Reform Act of 1976, often called the "4R Act," is a United States federal law that established the basic outlines of regulatory reform in the railroad industry and provided transitional operating funds fo ...
of 1976 (the "4R Act"), provided more specifics for the Conrail acquisitions and set the stage for more comprehensive deregulation of the railroad industry. Portions of the
Penn Central
The Penn Central Transportation Company, commonly abbreviated to Penn Central, was an American Railroad classes, class I railroad that operated from 1968 to 1976. Penn Central combined three traditional corporate rivals (the Pennsylvania Railroad ...
,
Erie Lackawanna
The Erie Lackawanna Railway , known as the Erie Lackawanna Railroad until 1968, was formed from the 1960 merger of the Erie Railroad and the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad. The official motto of the line was "The Friendly Service Route" ...
,
Reading Railroad
The Reading Company ( ) was a Philadelphia-headquartered railroad that provided passenger and commercial rail transport in eastern Pennsylvania and neighboring states that operated from 1924 until its 1976 acquisition by Conrail.
Commonly calle ...
,
Ann Arbor Railroad,
Central Railroad of New Jersey
The Central Railroad of New Jersey, also known as the Jersey Central or Jersey Central Lines , was a Class I railroad with origins in the 1830s. It was absorbed into Conrail in April 1976 along with several other prominent bankrupt railroads of ...
,
Lehigh Valley
The Lehigh Valley (), known colloquially as The Valley, is a geographic region formed by the Lehigh River in Lehigh County and Northampton County in eastern Pennsylvania. It is a component valley of the Great Appalachian Valley bound to the no ...
, and
Lehigh and Hudson River
The Lehigh and Hudson River Railway (L&HR) was the smallest of the six railroads that were merged into Conrail in 1976. It was a bridge line running northeast–southwest across northwestern New Jersey, connecting the line to the Poughkeepsie B ...
were merged into Conrail. On December 31, 1996 the
Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway
The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway , often referred to as the Santa Fe or AT&SF, was one of the larger railroads in the United States. The railroad was chartered in February 1859 to serve the cities of Atchison, Kansas, Atchison and Top ...
merged
Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) are business transactions in which the ownership of companies, other business organizations, or their operating units are transferred to or consolidated with another company or business organization. As an aspect ...
with the
Burlington Northern Railroad
The Burlington Northern Railroad was a United States-based railroad company formed from a Mergers and acquisitions, merger of four major U.S. railroads. Burlington Northern operated between 1970 and 1996.
Its historical lineage begins in the e ...
, creating the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway.
The freight industry continued its decline until Congress passed the
Staggers Rail Act
The Staggers Rail Act of 1980 is a United States federal law that deregulated the American railroad industry to a significant extent, and it replaced the regulatory structure that had existed since the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887.
Backgroun ...
in 1980, which largely deregulated the rail industry. Since then, U.S. freight railroads have reorganized, discontinued their lightly used routes and returned to profitability.
Freight railroads
Freight railroad
Rail freight transport is the use of railroads and trains to transport cargo as opposed to human passengers.
A freight train, cargo train, or goods train is a group of freight cars (US) or goods wagons ( International Union of Railways) haule ...
s play an important role in the U.S. economy, especially for moving imports and exports using containers, and for shipments of coal and oil. According to the British news magazine ''
The Economist
''The Economist'' is a British weekly newspaper printed in demitab format and published digitally. It focuses on current affairs, international business, politics, technology, and culture. Based in London, the newspaper is owned by The Econo ...
,'' "They are universally recognised in the industry as the best in the world."
Productivity rose 172% between 1981 and 2000, while rates decreased by 55% (after accounting for inflation). Rail's share of the American freight market rose to 43%, the highest for any rich country.
U.S. railroads still play a major role in the nation's freight shipping. They carried 750 billion ton-miles by 1975 which doubled to 1.5 trillion ton-miles in 2005.
[U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics. Washington, D.C. (2000]
"Ton-Miles of Freight by Mode: 1975–2025."
''The Changing Face of Transportation.'' Report No. BTS00-007. In the 1950s, the U.S. and Europe moved roughly the same percentage of freight by rail; by 2000, the share of U.S. rail freight was 38% while in Europe only 8% of freight traveled by rail. In 2000, while U.S. trains moved 2,390 billion ton-kilometers of freight, the 15-nation
European Union
The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been des ...
moved only 304 billion ton-kilometers of freight. In terms of ton-miles, railroads annually move more than 25% of the United States' freight and connect businesses with each other across the country and with markets overseas.
In 2018, US rail freight had a
transport energy efficiency of 473 tons.miles per gallon of fuel.
![Class1rr](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8b/Class1rr.png)
U.S. freight railroads are separated into three classes, set by the
Surface Transportation Board
The Surface Transportation Board (STB) of the United States is a federal, bipartisan, independent adjudicatory board. The STB was established on January 1, 1996, to assume some of the regulatory functions that had been administered by the Intersta ...
, based on annual revenues:
*
Class I for freight railroads with annual operating revenues above $346.8 million in 2006 dollars. In 1900, there were 132 Class I railroads. Today, as the result of mergers, bankruptcies, and major changes in the regulatory definition of "Class I", there are only seven railroads operating in the United States that meet the criteria for Class I. , U.S. freight railroads operated 139,679 route-miles (224,792 km) of
standard gauge
A standard-gauge railway is a railway with a track gauge of . The standard gauge is also called Stephenson gauge (after George Stephenson), International gauge, UIC gauge, uniform gauge, normal gauge and European gauge in Europe, and SGR in E ...
in the U.S. Although Amtrak qualifies for Class I status under the revenue criteria, it is not considered a Class I railroad because it is not a freight railroad.
*
Class II for freight railroads with revenues between $27.8 million and $346.7 million in 2000 dollars
*
Class III for all other freight revenues.
In 2013, the U.S. moved more oil out of North Dakota by rail than by the Trans-Alaska pipeline.
This trend—tenfold in two years and 40-fold in five years—is forecast to increase.
Classes of freight railroads
There are four different classes of freight railroads:
Class I, regional, local line haul, and switching & terminal.
Class I railroads
In the United States, railroad carriers are designated as Class I, II, or III, according to annual revenue criteria originally set by the Surface Transportation Board in 1992. With annual adjustments for inflation, the 2019 thresholds were US$5 ...
are defined as those with revenue of at least $346.8 million in 2006. They comprise just one percent of the number of
freight railroad
Rail freight transport is the use of railroads and trains to transport cargo as opposed to human passengers.
A freight train, cargo train, or goods train is a group of freight cars (US) or goods wagons ( International Union of Railways) haule ...
s, but account for 67 percent of the industry's mileage, 90 percent of its employees, and 93 percent of its freight revenue.
A
regional railroad In the United States, a regional railroad is a railroad company that is not Class I, but still has a substantial amount of traffic or trackage (and is thus not a short line). The Association of American Railroads (AAR) has defined the lower bound ...
is a line haul railroad with at least and/or revenue between $40 million and the Class I threshold. There were 33 regional railroads in 2006. Most have between 75 and 500 employees.
Local line haul railroads operate less than and earn less than $40 million per year (most earn less than $5 million per year). In 2006, there were 323 local line haul railroads. They generally perform point-to-point service over short distances.
Switching and terminal (S&T) carriers are railroads that primarily provide switching and/or terminal services, regardless of revenue. They perform pick up and delivery services within a certain area.
Traffic and public benefits
![Railyard behind the Cincinnati Union Terminal (11259266795)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a2/Railyard_behind_the_Cincinnati_Union_Terminal_%2811259266795%29.jpg)
U.S. freight railroads operate in a highly competitive marketplace. According to a 2010
FRA
A friar is a member of one of the mendicant orders founded in the twelfth or thirteenth century; the term distinguishes the mendicants' itinerant apostolic character, exercised broadly under the jurisdiction of a superior general, from the ol ...
report, within the U.S., railroads carried 39.5% of freight by ton-mile, followed by trucks (28.6%), oil pipelines (19.6%), barges (12%) and air (0.3%).
However, railroads' revenue share has been slowly falling for decades, a reflection of the intensity of the competition they face and of the large rate reductions railroads have passed through to their customers over the years.
In 2011, North American railroads operated 1,471,736 freight cars and 31,875 locomotives, with 215,985 employees. They originated 39.53 million carloads (averaging 63 tons each) and generated $81.7 billion in freight revenue of present 2014. The average haul was 917 miles. The largest (Class 1) U.S. railroads carried 10.17 million intermodal containers and 1.72 million piggyback trailers. Intermodal traffic was 6.2% of tonnage originated and 12.6% of revenue. The largest commodities were coal, chemicals, farm products, nonmetallic minerals and intermodal. Other major commodities carried include lumber, automobiles, and waste materials. Coal alone was 43.3% of tonnage and 24.7% of revenue. Coal accounted for roughly half of U.S. electricity generation and was a major export. As
natural gas
Natural gas (also called fossil gas or simply gas) is a naturally occurring mixture of gaseous hydrocarbons consisting primarily of methane in addition to various smaller amounts of other higher alkanes. Low levels of trace gases like carbo ...
became cheaper than coal, coal supplies dropped 11% in 2015 but coal rail freight dropped by up to 40%, allowing an increase in car transport by rail, some in tri-level railcars. US coal consumption dwindled from over 1,100 million tons in 2008 to 687 million tons in 2018.
The fastest growing rail traffic segment is currently
intermodal. Intermodal is the movement of
shipping containers
A shipping container is a container with strength suitable to withstand shipment, storage, and handling. Shipping containers range from large reusable steel boxes used for intermodal shipments to the ubiquitous corrugated boxes. In the context of ...
or truck trailers by rail and at least one other mode of transportation, usually trucks or ocean-going vessels. Intermodal combines the door-to-door convenience of trucks with the long-haul economy of railroads. Rail intermodal has tripled in the last 25 years. It plays a critical role in making logistics far more efficient for retailers and others. The efficiency of intermodal provides the U.S. with a huge competitive advantage in the global economy. A major factor in making U.S. rail intermodal freight competitive is the use of
double-stack rail transport
Double-stack rail transport is a form of intermodal freight transport in which railroad cars carry two layers of intermodal containers. Invented in the United States in 1984, it is now being used for nearly seventy percent of United States inter ...
, where shipping containers are loaded two-high on special freight cars, potential doubling the number of containers one train can carry, with corresponding reductions in operating costs.
Freight rail working with passenger rail
Prior to Amtrak's creation in 1970, intercity passenger rail service in the U.S. was provided by the same companies that provided freight service. When Amtrak was formed, in return for government permission to exit the passenger rail business, freight railroads donated passenger equipment to Amtrak and helped it get started with a capital infusion of some $200 million.
The vast majority of the 22,000 or so miles over which
Amtrak
The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, doing business as Amtrak () , is the national passenger railroad company of the United States. It operates inter-city rail service in 46 of the 48 contiguous U.S. States and nine cities in Canada. ...
operates are actually owned by freight railroads. By law, freight railroads must grant Amtrak access to their track upon request. In return, Amtrak pays fees to freight railroads to cover the incremental costs of Amtrak's use of freight railroad tracks.
Passenger railroads
![North America Passenger Trains](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a7/North_America_Passenger_Trains.png)
The sole long-distance intercity
passenger railroad in the continental U.S. is
Amtrak
The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, doing business as Amtrak () , is the national passenger railroad company of the United States. It operates inter-city rail service in 46 of the 48 contiguous U.S. States and nine cities in Canada. ...
, and multiple current commuter rail systems provide regional intercity services such as New York-New Haven, Stockton-San Jose and West Palm Beach-Miami. In Alaska, intercity service is provided by
Alaska Railroad
Alaska ( ; russian: Аляска, Alyaska; ale, Alax̂sxax̂; ; ems, Alas'kaaq; Yup'ik: ''Alaskaq''; tli, Anáaski) is a state located in the Western United States on the northwest extremity of North America. A semi-exclave of the U.S., ...
instead of Amtrak.
Commuter rail
Commuter rail, or suburban rail, is a passenger rail transport service that primarily operates within a metropolitan area, connecting commuters to a central city from adjacent suburbs or commuter towns. Generally commuter rail systems are con ...
systems exist in more than a dozen metropolitan areas, but these systems are not extensively interconnected, so commuter rail cannot be used alone to traverse the country.
Commuter systems have been proposed in approximately two dozen other cities, but interplays between various local-government administrative bottlenecks and ripple effects from the
2007–2012 global financial crisis
7 (seven) is the natural number following 6 and preceding 8. It is the only prime number preceding a cube.
As an early prime number in the series of positive integers, the number seven has greatly symbolic associations in religion, mythology, ...
have generally pushed such projects farther and farther into the future, or have even sometimes mothballed them entirely.
The most culturally notable and physically evident exception to the general lack of significant passenger rail transport in the U.S. is the
Northeast Corridor
The Northeast Corridor (NEC) is an electrified railroad line in the Northeast megalopolis of the United States. Owned primarily by Amtrak, it runs from Boston through Providence, New Haven, Stamford, New York City, Philadelphia, Wilmington, a ...
between
Washington
Washington commonly refers to:
* Washington (state), United States
* Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States
** A metonym for the federal government of the United States
** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered o ...
,
Baltimore
Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic, and the 30th most populous city in the United States with a population of 585,708 in 2020. Baltimore was ...
,
Philadelphia
Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...
, New York City, and
Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
, with significant branches in
Connecticut
Connecticut () is the southernmost state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. Its cap ...
and
. The corridor handles frequent passenger service that is both Amtrak and commuter. New York City itself is noteworthy for high usage of passenger rail transport, both
subway and commuter rail (
Long Island Rail Road
The Long Island Rail Road , often abbreviated as the LIRR, is a commuter rail system in the southeastern part of the U.S. state of New York (state), New York, stretching from Manhattan to the eastern tip of Suffolk County, New York, Suffolk Co ...
,
Metro-North Railroad
Metro-North Railroad , trading as MTA Metro-North Railroad, is a suburban commuter rail service run by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), a New York State public benefit corporations, public authority of the U.S. state of New Yor ...
,
New Jersey Transit
New Jersey Transit Corporation, branded as NJ Transit, and often shortened to NJT, is a state-owned public transportation system that serves the U.S. state of New Jersey, along with portions of New York State and Pennsylvania. It operates bu ...
). The subway system is used by one third of all U.S.
mass transit
Public transport (also known as public transportation, public transit, mass transit, or simply transit) is a system of transport for passengers by group travel systems available for use by the general public unlike private transport, typical ...
users. Chicago also sees high rail ridership, with a local
elevated system, one of the world's last
interurban lines, and fourth most-ridden commuter rail system in the United States:
Metra
Metra is the commuter rail system in the Chicago metropolitan area serving the city of Chicago and its surrounding suburbs via the Union Pacific Railroad, BNSF Railway, and other railroads. The system operates 242 stations on 11 rail lines. I ...
. Other major cities with substantial rail infrastructure include
Philadelphia
Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...
's
SEPTA
The Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA) is a regional public transportation authority that operates bus, rapid transit, commuter rail, light rail, and electric trolleybus services for nearly 4 million people in five coun ...
,
Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
's
MBTA
The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (abbreviated MBTA and known colloquially as "the T") is the public agency responsible for operating most public transportation services in Greater Boston, Massachusetts. The MBTA transit network in ...
, and Washington, D.C.'s network of commuter rail and rapid transit.
Denver
Denver () is a consolidated city and county, the capital, and most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Its population was 715,522 at the 2020 census, a 19.22% increase since 2010. It is the 19th-most populous city in the Unit ...
, Colorado constructed a
new electrified commuter rail system in the 2000s to complement the city's light rail system. The commuter rail systems of
San Diego
San Diego ( , ; ) is a city on the Pacific Ocean coast of Southern California located immediately adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a 2020 population of 1,386,932, it is the List of United States cities by population, eigh ...
and Los Angeles,
Coaster
Coaster (stylized as COASTER) is a commuter rail service in the central and northern coastal regions of San Diego County, California, United States operated by the North County Transit District (NCTD). The commuter rail line features eight s ...
and
Metrolink, connect in
Oceanside, California
Oceanside is a city on the South Coast (California), South Coast of California, located in San Diego County, California, San Diego County. The city had a population of 167,086 at the 2010 United States Census, 2010 census. The city is a popular ...
. The
San Francisco Bay Area
The San Francisco Bay Area, often referred to as simply the Bay Area, is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun Bay estuaries in Northern California. The Bay Area is defined by the Association of Bay Area Go ...
additionally hosts several local passenger rail operators, the largest of which are
Caltrain
Caltrain (reporting mark JPBX) is a California commuter rail line serving the San Francisco Peninsula and Santa Clara Valley (Silicon Valley). The southern terminus is in San Jose at Tamien station with weekday rush hour service running as far ...
, the
Altamont Corridor Express
The Altamont Corridor Express (also known as ACE, formerly Altamont Commuter Express) is a commuter rail service in California, connecting Stockton and San Jose during peak hours only. ACE is named for the Altamont Pass, through which it runs ...
,
Sonoma–Marin Area Rail Transit
Sonoma–Marin Area Rail Transit (SMART) is a rail line and bicycle-pedestrian pathway project in Sonoma and Marin counties of the U.S. state of California. When completed, the entire system will serve a corridor between Cloverdale in north ...
, and
Bay Area Rapid Transit
Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) is a rapid transit system serving the San Francisco Bay Area in California. BART serves 50 stations along six routes on of rapid transit lines, including a spur line in eastern Contra Costa County which uses ...
.
Privately run inter-city passenger rail operations have also been restarted since 2018 in south Florida, with additional routes under development. Brightline is a
higher-speed rail
Higher-speed rail (HrSR), also known as high-performance rail, higher-performance rail, semi-high-speed rail or almost-high-speed rail, is the jargon used to describe Inter-city rail, inter-city passenger rail services that have top speeds of m ...
train, run by All Aboard Florida. It began service in January 2018 between
Fort Lauderdale
A fortification is a military construction or building designed for the defense of territories in warfare, and is also used to establish rule in a region during peacetime. The term is derived from Latin ''fortis'' ("strong") and ''facere'' ...
and
West Palm Beach
West or Occident is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sunset, Sun sets on the Earth.
Etymology
The word "west" is a Germanic languages, German ...
; its service was extended to Miami in May 2018, with an extension to
Orlando International Airport
Orlando International Airport is a major public airport located 6 miles (10 km) southeast of Downtown Orlando, Florida. In 2021, it handled 19,618,838 passengers, making it the busiest airport in the state and seventh busiest airport i ...
planned by 2022. Brightline has also proposed a further extension of its service from Orlando to
Tampa
Tampa () is a city on the Gulf Coast of the U.S. state of Florida. The city's borders include the north shore of Tampa Bay and the east shore of Old Tampa Bay. Tampa is the largest city in the Tampa Bay area and the seat of Hillsborough County ...
via
Walt Disney World
The Walt Disney World Resort, also called Walt Disney World or Disney World, is an entertainment resort complex in Bay Lake and Lake Buena Vista, Florida, United States, near the cities of Orlando and Kissimmee. Opened on October 1, 1971, th ...
, and a
high-speed rail service from
Victorville, California
Victorville is a city in Victor Valley in San Bernardino County, California. Its population as of the 2020 census was 134,810.
History
In 1858, Aaron G. Lane came to what is now known as Victorville and founded a waystation called "Lane's Cro ...
to
Las Vegas
Las Vegas (; Spanish for "The Meadows"), often known simply as Vegas, is the 25th-most populous city in the United States, the most populous city in the state of Nevada, and the county seat of Clark County. The city anchors the Las Vegas ...
. In addition, the
Texas Central Railway
Texas Central or Texas Central Partners, LLC, is a private railroad company that is proposing a high-speed rail line between Dallas/Fort Worth and Houston. It plans to use technology based on that used by the Central Japan Railway Company an ...
is currently developing plans for a proposed greenfield
high-speed rail
High-speed rail (HSR) is a type of rail system that runs significantly faster than traditional rail, using an integrated system of specialised rolling stock and dedicated tracks. While there is no single standard that applies worldwide, lines ...
line using Japanese
Shinkansen
The , colloquially known in English as the bullet train, is a network of high-speed railway lines in Japan. Initially, it was built to connect distant Japanese regions with Tokyo, the capital, to aid economic growth and development. Beyond l ...
trains between
Dallas
Dallas () is the List of municipalities in Texas, third largest city in Texas and the largest city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the List of metropolitan statistical areas, fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States at 7.5 ...
and
Houston
Houston (; ) is the most populous city in Texas, the most populous city in the Southern United States, the fourth-most populous city in the United States, and the sixth-most populous city in North America, with a population of 2,304,580 in ...
, which is expected to begin construction in 2020 and open in early 2026.
Car types
The basic design of a
passenger car
A car or automobile is a motor vehicle with wheels. Most definitions of ''cars'' say that they run primarily on roads, seat one to eight people, have four wheels, and mainly transport people instead of goods.
The year 1886 is regarded as ...
was standardized by 1870. By 1900, the main car types were: baggage, coach, combine, diner,
dome car
A dome car is a type of railway passenger car that has a glass dome on the top of the car where passengers can ride and see in all directions around the train. It also can include features of a coach, lounge car, dining car, sleeping car or obse ...
, lounge, observation, private, Pullman, railroad post office (RPO) and sleeper.
19th century: First passenger cars and early development
![Chicago and Alton Railroad Pullman car interior c 1900](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/98/Chicago_and_Alton_Railroad_Pullman_car_interior_c_1900.png)
The first passenger cars resembled
stagecoach
A stagecoach is a four-wheeled public transport coach used to carry paying passengers and light packages on journeys long enough to need a change of horses. It is strongly sprung and generally drawn by four horses although some versions are draw ...
es. They were short, often less than long, tall and rode on a single pair of axles.
American mail cars first appeared in the 1860s and at first followed English design. They had a hook that would catch the mailbag in its crook.
As locomotive technology progressed in the mid-19th century, trains grew in length and weight. Passenger cars grew along with them, first getting longer with the addition of a second truck (one at each end), and wider as their suspensions improved. Cars built for European use featured side door compartments, while American car design favored a single pair of doors at one end of the car in the car's vestibule; compartmentized cars on American railroads featured a long hallway with doors from the hall to the compartments.
One possible reason for this difference in design principles between American and European carbuilding practice could be the average distance between stations on the two continents. While most European railroads connected towns and villages that were still very closely spaced, American railroads had to travel over much greater distances to reach their destinations. Building passenger cars with a long passageway through the length of the car allowed the passengers easy access to the restroom, among other things, on longer journeys.
Dining cars first appeared in the late 1870s and into the 1880s. Until this time, the common practice was to stop for meals at restaurants along the way (which led to the rise of
Fred Harvey's chain of
Harvey House
The Fred Harvey Company was the owner of the Harvey House chain of restaurants, hotels and other hospitality industry businesses alongside railroads in the Western United States. It was founded in 1876 by Fred Harvey to cater to the growing n ...
restaurants in America). At first, the dining car was simply a place to serve meals that were picked up en route, but they soon evolved to include galleys in which the meals were prepared.
1900–1950: Lighter materials, new car types
![Pioneer Zephyr, observation end](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fb/Pioneer_Zephyr%2C_observation_end.jpg)
By the 1920s, passenger cars on the larger
standard gauge
A standard-gauge railway is a railway with a track gauge of . The standard gauge is also called Stephenson gauge (after George Stephenson), International gauge, UIC gauge, uniform gauge, normal gauge and European gauge in Europe, and SGR in E ...
railroads were normally between long. The cars of this time were still quite ornate, many of them being built by experienced coach makers and skilled carpenters.
With the 1930s came the widespread use of
stainless steel
Stainless steel is an alloy of iron that is resistant to rusting and corrosion. It contains at least 11% chromium and may contain elements such as carbon, other nonmetals and metals to obtain other desired properties. Stainless steel's corros ...
for car bodies. The typical passenger car was now much lighter than its "heavyweight" wood cousins of old. The new "lightweight" and
streamlined
Streamlines, streaklines and pathlines are field lines in a fluid flow.
They differ only when the flow changes with time, that is, when the flow is not steady.
Considering a velocity vector field in three-dimensional space in the framework of ...
cars carried passengers in speed and comfort to an extent that had not been experienced to date. Aluminum and
Cor-ten
Weathering steel, often referred to by the genericised trademark COR-TEN steel and sometimes written without the hyphen as corten steel, is a group of steel alloys which were developed to eliminate the need for painting, and form a stable ru ...
were also used in lightweight car construction, but stainless steel was the preferred material for car bodies. It is not the lightest of materials, nor is it the least expensive, but stainless steel cars could be, and often were, left unpainted except for the car's
reporting mark
A reporting mark is a code used to identify owners or lessees of rolling stock and other equipment used on certain rail transport networks. The code typically reflects the name or identifying number of the owner, lessee, or operator of the equip ...
s that were required by law.
By the end of the 1930s, railroads and car builders were debuting car body and interior styles that could only be dreamed of before. In 1937, the Pullman Company delivered the first cars equipped with
roomette
A roomette is a type of sleeping car compartment in a railroad passenger train. The term was first used in North America, and was later carried over into Australia and New Zealand. Roomette rooms are relatively small, and were originally gener ...
s—that is, the car's interior was sectioned off into compartments, much like the coaches that were still in widespread use across Europe. Pullman's roomettes, however, were designed with the single traveler in mind. The roomette featured a large picture window, a privacy door, a single fold-away bed, a sink and small toilet. The roomette's floor space was barely larger than the space taken up by the bed, but it allowed the traveler to ride in luxury compared to the multilevel semiprivate berths of old.
Now that passenger cars were lighter, they were able to carry heavier loads, but the size of the average passenger load that rode in them didn't increase to match the cars' new capacities. The average passenger car couldn't get any wider or longer due to side clearances along the railroad lines, but they generally could get taller because they were still shorter than many freight cars and locomotives. As a result, the railroads soon began building and buying
dome
A dome () is an architectural element similar to the hollow upper half of a sphere. There is significant overlap with the term cupola, which may also refer to a dome or a structure on top of a dome. The precise definition of a dome has been a m ...
and
bilevel cars to carry more passengers.
1950–present: High-technology advancements
![Tri-rail Bombardier BiLevel Coach](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0d/Tri-rail_Bombardier_BiLevel_Coach.jpg)
Carbody styles have generally remained consistent since the middle of the 20th century. While new car types have not made much of an impact, the existing car types have been further enhanced with new technology.
Starting in the 1950s, the passenger travel market declined in North America, though there was growth in
commuter rail
Commuter rail, or suburban rail, is a passenger rail transport service that primarily operates within a metropolitan area, connecting commuters to a central city from adjacent suburbs or commuter towns. Generally commuter rail systems are con ...
. The higher clearances in North America enabled bi-level commuter coaches that could hold more passengers. These cars started to become common in the United States in the 1960s.
While intercity passenger rail travel declined in the United States during the 1950s, ridership continued to increase in Europe during that time. With the increase came newer technology on existing and new equipment. The Spanish company
Talgo
Talgo (officially Patentes Talgo, SAU) is a Spanish manufacturer of intercity, standard, and high-speed passenger trains.
Corporate history
TALGO, an abbreviation of Tren Articulado Ligero Goicoechea Oriol (English: ''Lightweight articulated tra ...
began experimenting in the 1940s with technology that would enable the axles to steer into a curve, allowing the train to move around the curve at a higher speed. The steering axles evolved into mechanisms that would also tilt the passenger car as it entered a curve to counter the
centrifugal force
In Newtonian mechanics, the centrifugal force is an inertial force (also called a "fictitious" or "pseudo" force) that appears to act on all objects when viewed in a rotating frame of reference. It is directed away from an axis which is paralle ...
experienced by the train, further increasing speeds on existing track. Today, tilting passenger trains are commonplace. Talgo's trains are used on some short and medium distance routes such as
Amtrak Cascades
The Amtrak ''Cascades'' is a passenger train corridor in the Pacific Northwest, operated by Amtrak in partnership with the U.S. states of Washington and Oregon. It is named after the Cascade mountain range that the route parallels. The corr ...
from
Eugene, Oregon
Eugene ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Oregon. It is located at the southern end of the Willamette Valley, near the confluence of the McKenzie and Willamette rivers, about east of the Oregon Coast.
As of the 2020 United States Census, Eu ...
, to
Vancouver, British Columbia
Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the ...
.
In August 2016, the Department of Transportation approved the largest loan in the department's history, $2.45 billion to upgrade the passenger train service in the Northeast region. The $2.45 billion will be used to purchase 28 new train sets for the high-speed Acela train between Washington through Philadelphia, New York and into Boston. The money will also be used build new stations and platforms. The money will also be used to rehabilitate railroad tracks and upgrade four stations, including Washington's Union Station and Baltimore's Penn Station.
High-speed rail
![High Speed Railroad Map of the United States 2013](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ec/High_Speed_Railroad_Map_of_the_United_States_2013.svg)
As of 2022, the only operating high speed rail service in the United States is Amtrak's
Acela
The ''Acela'' ( ; originally the ''Acela Express'' until September 2019) is Amtrak's flagship service along the Northeast Corridor (NEC) in the Northeastern United States between Washington, D.C. and Boston via 13 intermediate stops, includin ...
, between Washington, DC, and
Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
. It currently has a maximum speed of , and only in some sections between Boston and Providence, RI, soon to be after introduction of new
Avelia Liberty
Avelia Liberty, also known as the Acela II, is a high-speed passenger train built for the North American market by French manufacturer Alstom and assembled in the United States. Amtrak has ordered 28 trainsets for use on its flagship '' Acela' ...
trains, eventually to be upgraded to over some sections. The state of California is constructing its own HSR system,
California High-Speed Rail
California High-Speed Rail (also known as CAHSR or CHSR) is a publicly funded high-speed rail system currently under construction in California in the United States. Planning for the project began in 1996, when the California Legislature and Gover ...
, constructed to standards in some places. The first section in the
Central Valley is due to open around 2027.
Rolling stock reporting marks
Every piece of railroad
rolling stock
The term rolling stock in the rail transport industry refers to railway vehicles, including both powered and unpowered vehicles: for example, locomotives, freight and passenger cars (or coaches), and non-revenue cars. Passenger vehicles can b ...
operating in North American interchange service is required to carry a standardized set of
reporting mark
A reporting mark is a code used to identify owners or lessees of rolling stock and other equipment used on certain rail transport networks. The code typically reflects the name or identifying number of the owner, lessee, or operator of the equip ...
s. The marks are made up of a two- to four-letter code identifying the owner of the equipment accompanied by an identification number and statistics on the equipment's capacity and tare (unloaded) weight. Marks whose codes end in X (such as TTGX) are used on equipment owned by entities that are not
common carrier
A common carrier in common law countries (corresponding to a public carrier in some civil law systems,Encyclopædia Britannica CD 2000 "Civil-law public carrier" from "carriage of goods" usually called simply a ''carrier'') is a person or compan ...
railroads themselves. Marks whose codes end in U are used on
container
A container is any receptacle or enclosure for holding a product used in storage, packaging, and transportation, including shipping.
Things kept inside of a container are protected on several sides by being inside of its structure. The term ...
s that are carried in
intermodal transport
Intermodal transport (or intermodal transportation) involves the use of more than one mode of transport for a journey. It may refer to:
* Intermodal passenger transport
* Intermodal freight transport
See also
* Intermodal transportation center
...
, and marks whose codes end in Z are used on
trailers that are carried in intermodal transport, per
ISO standard 6346). Most freight cars carry
automatic equipment identification
Automatic equipment identification (AEI) is an electronic recognition system in use with the North American railroad industry. Consisting of passive tags mounted on each side of rolling stock and active trackside readers, AEI uses RF technology t ...
RFID
Radio-frequency identification (RFID) uses electromagnetic fields to automatically identify and track tags attached to objects. An RFID system consists of a tiny radio transponder, a radio receiver and transmitter. When triggered by an electromag ...
transponders.
Typically, railroads operating in the United States reserve one- to four-digit identification numbers for powered equipment such as
diesel locomotive
A diesel locomotive is a type of railway locomotive in which the prime mover is a diesel engine. Several types of diesel locomotives have been developed, differing mainly in the means by which mechanical power is conveyed to the driving whee ...
s and six-digit identification numbers for unpowered equipment. There is no hard and fast rule for how equipment is numbered; each railroad maintains its own numbering policy for its equipment.
List of major United States railroads
*
Amtrak
The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, doing business as Amtrak () , is the national passenger railroad company of the United States. It operates inter-city rail service in 46 of the 48 contiguous U.S. States and nine cities in Canada. ...
*
BNSF Railway
BNSF Railway is one of the largest freight railroads in North America. One of seven North American Class I railroads, BNSF has 35,000 employees, of track in 28 states, and nearly 8,000 locomotives. It has three transcontinental routes that ...
*
Canadian National Railway
The Canadian National Railway Company (french: Compagnie des chemins de fer nationaux du Canada) is a Canadian Class I freight railway headquartered in Montreal, Quebec, which serves Canada and the Midwestern and Southern United States.
CN i ...
*
Canadian Pacific Railway
The Canadian Pacific Railway (french: Chemin de fer Canadien Pacifique) , also known simply as CPR or Canadian Pacific and formerly as CP Rail (1968–1996), is a Canadian Class I railway incorporated in 1881. The railway is owned by Canadi ...
*
CSX Transportation
CSX Transportation , known colloquially as simply CSX, is a Class I freight railroad operating in the Eastern United States and the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec. The railroad operates approximately 21,000 route miles () of track. ...
*
Kansas City Southern Railway
The Kansas City Southern Railway Company is an American Class I railroad. Founded in 1887, it operates in 10 midwestern and southeastern U.S. states: Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and ...
*
Norfolk Southern Railway
The Norfolk Southern Railway is a Class I freight railroad in the United States formed in 1982 with the merger of Norfolk and Western Railway and Southern Railway. With headquarters in Atlanta, the company operates 19,420 route miles (31 ...
*
Union Pacific Railroad
The Union Pacific Railroad , legally Union Pacific Railroad Company and often called simply Union Pacific, is a freight-hauling railroad that operates 8,300 locomotives over routes in 23 U.S. states west of Chicago and New Orleans. Union Paci ...
Rail links with adjacent countries
*
Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...
– yes – Same gauge (
none via Alaska)
*
Mexico
Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...
– yes – Same gauge
Regulation
Federal regulation of railroads is mainly through the
United States Department of Transportation
The United States Department of Transportation (USDOT or DOT) is one of the executive departments of the U.S. federal government. It is headed by the secretary of transportation, who reports directly to the President of the United States and ...
, especially the
Federal Railroad Administration
The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) is an agency in the United States Department of Transportation (DOT). The agency was created by the Department of Transportation Act of 1966. The purpose of the FRA is to promulgate and enforce rail saf ...
which regulates safety, and the
Surface Transportation Board
The Surface Transportation Board (STB) of the United States is a federal, bipartisan, independent adjudicatory board. The STB was established on January 1, 1996, to assume some of the regulatory functions that had been administered by the Intersta ...
which regulates rates, service, the construction, acquisition and abandonment of rail lines, carrier mergers and interchange of traffic among carriers.
Railroads are also regulated by the individual states, for example through the
Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities
The Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities is one of two Public Utilities Commissions of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, in the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs. There are currently three members of the commission. I ...
.
See also
*
Timeline of United States railway history
The Timeline of U.S.A Railway History depends upon the definition of a railway, as follows: A means of conveyance of passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, also known as tracks.
1795-1829
* 1795–96 & 1799–1804 or '05 &md ...
*
Railroad electrification in the United States
Railroad electrification in the United States began at the turn of the 20th century and comprised many different systems in many different geographical areas, few of which were connected. Despite this situation, these systems shared a small number ...
*
List of rail transit systems in the United States
*
Oldest railroads in North America
This is a list of the earliest railroads in North America, including various railroad-like precursors to the general modern form of a company or government agency operating locomotive-drawn trains on metal tracks.
Railroad-like entities (1700 ...
*
History of rail transport in the United States
History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbrella term comprising past events as well ...
*
Transportation in the United States
Transportation in the United States is facilitated by road, air, rail, and waterways. The vast majority of passenger travel occurs by automobile for shorter distances, and airplane (or railroad, in some regions) for longer distances. In desc ...
*
Federal Employers Liability Act
The Federal Employers' Liability Act (FELA), 45 U.S.C. § 51 et seq. (1908), is a United States federal law that protects and compensates railroaders injured on the job.
Background
In the years between 1889 and 1920, railroad use in the U.S. exp ...
(protects and compensates railroad employees)
*
Nationalized Industries in the United States
*
Railroad car
A railroad car, railcar (American and Canadian English), railway wagon, railway carriage, railway truck, railwagon, railcarriage or railtruck (British English and UIC), also called a train car, train wagon, train carriage or train truck, is a ...
– general overview of all car types in use
Notes
References
Citations
Sources
* U.S.
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...
(May 17, 2005),
The World Fact Book: United States'. Retrieved May 26, 2005.
Further reading
![Thirty St Station](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cb/Thirty_St_Station.jpg)
*
Fite, Gilbert C., and Jim E. Reese. ''An Economic History of the United States''. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Company (1959).
*
Hubbard, Freeman H., ''Encyclopedia of North American railroading: 150 years of railroading in the United States and Canada.'' (1981)
* Gallamore, Robert E. and John R. Meyer
''American Railroads: Decline and Renaissance in the Twentieth Century'' (Harvard University Press, 2014).
* Harris, Seymour E. ''American Economic History''. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc (1961).
* Hughes, Jonathan. ''American Economic History''. Glenview, IL: Scott, Foresman and Company (1983).
* Jenks, Leland H. "Railroads as an Economic Force in American Development," ''The Journal of Economic History'', Vol. 4, No. 1 (May 1944), 1–20
in JSTOR* Kemmerer, Donald L., and C. Clyde Jones. ''American Economic History''. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc. (1969).
* Krooss, Herman E. ''American Economic Development''. Edgewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, Inc. (1955).
* Martin, Albro.''Railroads Triumphant: The Growth, Rejection, and Rebirth of a Vital American Force'' (1992)
* Meyer, Balthasar H
''History of Transportation in the United States before 1860''(1917)
* Nock, O.S., ed. ''Encyclopedia of Railways'' (London, 1977), worldwide coverage, heavily illustrated
* Porter, Glenn, ed. ''Encyclopedia of American Economic History''. Vol. I. New York, NY: Charles Scribner's Sons (1980).
* Riley, C. J. ''The Encyclopedia of Trains & Locomotives'' (2002)
* Stover, John F., ''The Routledge Historical Atlas of the American Railroads'' (2001)
*
* Taylor, George Rogers, and Irene D. Neu. ''The American Railroad Network, 1861 – 1890''. New York, NY: Arno Press (1981).
*
* Weatherford, Brian A. et al. technical_reports/TR603/ ''The State of U.S. Railroads A Review of Capacity and Performance Data''
PDFfrom
RAND
The RAND Corporation (from the phrase "research and development") is an American nonprofit global policy think tank created in 1948 by Douglas Aircraft Company to offer research and analysis to the United States Armed Forces. It is financed ...
, 2008,
* Wright, Chester Whitney. ''Economic History of the United States''. Edited by William Homer Spencer. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc. (1949).
Video
* ''Railroads in U.S. History (1830–2010)'' (2010), set of 4 DVDs, directed by Ron Meyer; #1, "Railroads come to America (1830–1840);" #2, "The First Great Railroad Boom (1841– 1860)"; #3, "A New Era in American Railroading (1861–1870)," #4, "The Second Great Railroad Boom (1871–2010)
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External links
by Richard Jensen, Montana State University
– Archives Center, National Museum of American History
– Aaron W. Marrs
Future rail transport map released by the FRAUSA by Rail guide book
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