The passage of the Staggers Rail Act in 1980 led brought a renaissance to the freight rail industry. In the decade following, economists documented the effects of the Act on a variety of important economic metrics including prices, costs, and productivity. Over the preceding years, and with the return of the industry to more stable footing, attention to the industry by economists faded. The lack of attention, however, has not been due to a dearth of ongoing economic and policy issues that continue to confront the industry. In this volume, we begin to rectify this inattention. Rather than retread older analyses or provide yet another look at the consequences of Staggers, we assemble a collection of ten chapters in four sections that collectively provide fresh and up-to-date analyses of the economic issues and policy challenges the industry faces: the first section sets the context through foundational discussion of freight rail; the second section highlights the role of freight rail in an increasingly interrelated economy; the third section examines industry structure and scope in freight rail; and the fourth section assesses current regulatory challenges that confront freight rail. This book will be of great value to researchers, academics, policymakers, and students interested in the fields of freight rail economics and policy, transportation, business history, and regulatory economics.

The lively, insider story of the rise and rise of New Zealand's most successful logistics company. This is the story of a company built on the belief that with passion anything is possible. As they say at Mainfreight, 'Go anywhere as long as it is forward'. Mainfreight was founded in 1977 by the visionary Bruce Plested, who set out to make the company a family, a team, where everyone has a share in the riches and where the word 'management' is banned. The Mainfreight instruction manual is short: Feel the fear but do it anyway. This is a world where budgets are deemed ‘bullshit’. Why spend time preparing figures that are invariably out of date before the ink is dry? Just make more than last year. It's also a world based on generosity: Mainfreight is the backing force behind Books in Homes, and offers tertiary scholarships to the children of all its employees. Did the rise to NZX sharemarket darling all go smoothly? Not for a minute. Initially there would be catastrophic ventures in Australia and America and finally a jaw-dropping moment in Europe when Don Braid and his team made their biggest purchase ever only to see most of the turnover and half the profit walk out the door. This book takes you on a warts-and-all exploration of Mainfreight's journey from small transport company at the bottom of the world to truly successful global logistics company.

"Based on The Railway Series by The Reverend W Awdry"--T. p. verso.

"TRB's National Cooperative Freight Research Program (NCFRP) Report 17: Multimodal Freight Transportation Within the Great Lakes--Saint Lawrence Basin describes the current multimodal freight transportation system within this bi-national region--Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Ontario, and Quebec--and its importance to regional, United States, and Canadian economies. The report also analyzes the system's overall performance and related opportunities and constraints to improving performance and to meet projected freight flows. The report includes an analysis of each mode's capacity and the major commodities each of them moves; the barriers and constraints that impact each mode's ability to move cargo; the performance implications in terms of major commodity supply chains (coal, automotive parts and machinery, containerized consumer goods, grains, and iron ore); and a strategic freight planning process for multimodal transport chain performance going forward."--Publisher's description.

Transportation is the lifeline of any nation, connecting people, supporting the economy, and facilitating the delivery of vital goods and services. The 9/11 attacks and other attacks on surface transportation assets, including the bombings in Madrid, London, Moscow, and Mumbai demonstrate the vulnerability of the open systems to disruption and the

"An Elvis impersonator and an ex-boxer accept a job transporting a mysterious cargo for Mesmo Delivery. Their detour to a sleepy desert town begins as an innocent pit stop then erupts into an ultraviolent showdown that rustles the devil from his sleep" --Publisher description.