Author: Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Railroads
Languages : en
Pages : 824
Book Description
Railway Age
Author: Rock Island Requiem
Author: Gregory L. SchneiderPublisher: University Press of Kansas
ISBN: 0700629629
Category : Transportation
Languages : en
Pages : 400
Book Description
Celebrated in history and song, the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad Company—the Rock Island Line—was a powerful Midwestern railroad that once traversed thirteen states with its fast freights and Rocket passenger trains but eventually succumbed to government regulation and a changing economy. Gregory Schneider chronicles the Rock Island’s painful decline and along the way reveals some of the key problems within the American railroad industry during the post–World War II era. Schneider takes readers back to a time when railroads still clung to a storied past to offer new insight into the devastating impact of economic policymaking during the 1960s and 1970s. Schneider recounts the largest railroad liquidation in American history—as well as one of the most successful reorganizations in American business—to depict the demise and ultimate collapse of Rock Island as part of a broader account of hard times in the railroad industry beginning in the 1970s. Schneider weaves a complex story of how business, politics, government bureaucracy, and individual greed helped to limit the economic possibilities of the railroad industry and catapult the Rock Island Railroad into oblivion. Weakened by a troubled economy, the Rock fell victim to inept management and labor union intransigence; but Schneider also reveals how government regulations and price controls prevented innovation, hindered capital acquisition, and favored other forms of transportation that lie beyond the scope of regulation. Railroads were even hurt by taxation of property and real estate while competitors were able to use government-subsidized highways and airports without having to pay taxes to fund them. Now that America has gone on to witness the collapse of such mammoth firms as Enron and Lehman Brothers, not to mention the bankruptcy and bailout of General Motors, the story of the Rock provides an instructive lesson in how a major American enterprise was allowed to fall victim to forces often beyond its control—while the bailout of the Penn Central, at the expense of smaller lines like Rock Island, helped initiate the era of “too big to fail.” For economic historians and railroad buffs alike, Rock Island Requiem is a well-researche
Books in Print
Author: Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : American literature
Languages : en
Pages : 1988
Book Description
The National Union Catalog, Pre-1956 Imprints
Author: Library of CongressPublisher:
ISBN:
Category : Catalogs, Union
Languages : en
Pages : 714
Book Description
Dictionary Catalog of the Research Libraries of the New York Public Library, 1911-1971
Author: New York Public Library. Research LibrariesPublisher:
ISBN:
Category : Library catalogs
Languages : en
Pages : 566
Book Description
Coal and Coal Trade Journal
Author: Guide to Reprints
Author: Albert James DiazPublisher:
ISBN:
Category : Editions
Languages : en
Pages : 1220
Book Description
The Gilded Age
Author: Mark TwainPublisher:
ISBN:
Category : City and town life
Languages : en
Pages : 380
Book Description
Bowker's Law Books and Serials in Print
Author: Merging Lines
Author: Richard Saunders, Jr.Publisher: Northern Illinois University Press
ISBN: 9780875807355
Category : ConRail
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
Why did American railroads decline from the glory days of the early twentieth century? Why did so many railroad mergers in the 1950s and 1960s, intended as a panacea for the ills of an outdated system, go sour and, in fact, make a bad situation worse? Saunders addresses these and many other issues in this authoritative history of US railroads and their corporate mergers. Beginning with a wide-ranging analysis of the role of railroads in the economic and social fabric of American life, Saunders traces the causes and results of the twentieth century's "merger mania." Mergers, he explains, were expected to save money, to improve service to customers, and to help railroads compete against other modes of transportation, such as the growing airline and trucking industries. Saunders then gives colorful, richly detailed accounts of the mergers and shows the reasons--including corporate greed and the inept blundering of government regulatory agencies--the outcomes fell far short of expectations. Merging Lines explores the impact of shifting political control of railroads as no history has done before. The fates of both workers and railroad companies were dictated by the rise and fall of business and governmental leaders, including Bill Brosnan, Robert R. Young, Alfred Perlman, President John F. Kennedy, and President Lyndon B. Johnson. As power struggles erupted, the original goals of the mergers were thwarted by consumer frustration, violent labor strikes, and organizational collapse. Saunders explores these and other crucial developments in this extensive work, carefully designed for railroad historians and enthusiasts at any level. Encyclopedic in its scope, Merging Lines includes sixty-eight maps, a list of court cases involving railroad mergers, and a wealth of information on American railroads from coast to coast. An extensively revised, updated, and supplemented edition of Saunders's earlier classic, The Railroad Mergers and the Coming of Conrail (1978), it is essential reading for all who are interested in railroad and transportation history.