Who Shot the Passenger Train? Special Issue: April 1959star rating 5Martin ShrubsoleMarch 17, 2010Very informative, and thoughtful. Shows how on the one hand there was opportunistic escaping of costs, and on the other a limited understanding of the value that people were prepared to place on saving time in a big country. Appears to confirm that the Railroads were still coming to grips with knowing what they were or were not good at Ironically in the UK (and elsewhere in Europe) the freight train nearly lost out to the passenger business.
Who Shot the Passenger Train? Special Issue: April 1959star rating 5Norm Van AndenMarch 17, 2010A splendid reissue of a noted Trains issue. I wish they would do the same for the one on Grand Central Station to name but one. It is collections of articles such as these that reawaken the magic and imagination of railroading for the generation that went to the Department Store every December to see the display layouts in Lionel, American Flyer and HO. Railroads were still something that you could take someplace a distance away and getting there was still half the fun. Sadly it also tells the tale of what happened to that era.
Who Shot the Passenger Train? Special Issue: April 1959star rating 5G. KraskeMarch 12, 2010A number of the points in this article do highlight the reasons for the demise of the passenger train. A good resource. However one of his point, namely offering essentially TV dinners instead of dinning cars has finally proved to be a non-starter in AMTRAK's case. They, AMTRAK, tried variation of less expensive versions of dining only to find out they negatively impacted either customer perception or customer decrease in rail travel. Most of his other points are great. An the idea of area to area mail delivery service, as done now via truck or airplane, puts mail contracts back within reach of AMTRAK.
Who Shot the Passenger Train? Special Issue: April 1959star rating 5F. KrallOctober 31, 2009An thorough, authoritative, and well written analysis of how excessive regulation, onerous taxation, railroad hubris, and government favoritism towards airlines and automobiles (in that order) sank the passenger train. Informative and easy to read, I recommend the reprint for anyone interested in (and who can remember!) the golden age of railroad travel.