Rail travel in the United States is not one of the most developed or sought-after modes of transportation. Domestic air travel across the country is often cheaper than traveling by train
About railway stations
Nineteenth-century railroad companies built grandiose “bourgeois cathedrals” as a sign of their wealth and railroading status.
Passenger transportation
Railroad service in the United States consists mainly of freight, with a well-integrated network of private freight railroads of standard gauge extending into Canada and Mexico.
Deregulation and restructuring
The U.S. railroads are practically the same age as the creation of the first locomotive – they turn 190 years old this year.
Capital investment and technology
American railroad workers are one of the pioneers in the technology of all-welded rails. Nowadays, continuous or “velvet” track dominates the network.
Reorientation and Loads
In addition to optimization and innovation, U.S. railroads have shown a remarkable ability to adapt to changing market conditions.
Refusing to be redundant
The crisis of the railroads of the 1970s, in addition to government control of fares, was the difficulty in rationalizing the nineteenth-century system for twentieth-century conditions.