Although efforts to improve freight transportation efficiency and reliability have been successful, the U.S. transportation system is now facing challenges that, unless addressed, may jeopardize its reliability. Allowing transportation system reliability to erode would add additional pressure to U.S. companies operating in an increasingly competitive international market and place more burdens on communities seeking to sustain their economic base and quality of life. Improved logistics has thus far been able to address the corrosive effects of the loss of system reliability. Unfortunately, the ability of logistics to provide additional offsetting savings appears to be nearing its limit, as are the savings attributable to deregulation. Unless these challenges are addressed, more discretionary income will be devoted to moving materials and products, businesses will be constrained in their adoption of innovative strategies to maintain global competitiveness, quality of life-as measured by congestion-will suffer, and safety and security could be jeopardized.

In simple, powerful words and vibrant illustrations, Donald Crews evokes the rolling wheels of that childhood favorite: a train. This Caldecott Honor Book features bright colors and bold shapes. Even a child not lucky enough to have counted freight cars will feel he or she has watched a freight train passing after reading Freight Train. Donald Crews used childhood memories of trains seen during his travels to his grandparents' farm in the American South as the inspiration for this timeless favorite. New York magazine's The Strategist chose Freight Train as one of the "Best (Nonobvious) Baby Books to Bring to a Shower." As The Strategist stated: "The Caldecott Honor Book is spare and minimal in both art and text and follows the journey of a freight train and all its cars until it rolls off the page and into the distance. It’s a good way to learn all the different names of train cars, too." Red caboose at the back, orange tank car, green cattle car, purple box car, black tender and a black steam engine . . . freight train.

As the freight train rolls passed him, a young boy delights in looking at all the cars, such as the refrigerator cars, tank cars, and boxcars, being pulled by the strong engine leading the way to its far-off destination. Original.

Trucking Country is a social history of long-haul trucking that explores the contentious politics of free-market capitalism in post-World War II America. Shane Hamilton paints an eye-opening portrait of the rural highways of the American heartland, and in doing so explains why working-class populist voters are drawn to conservative politicians who seemingly don't represent their financial interests. Hamilton challenges the popular notion of "red state" conservatism as a devil's bargain between culturally conservative rural workers and economically conservative demagogues in the Republican Party. The roots of rural conservatism, Hamilton demonstrates, took hold long before the culture wars and free-market fanaticism of the 1990s. As Hamilton shows, truckers helped build an economic order that brought low-priced consumer goods to a greater number of Americans. They piloted the big rigs that linked America's factory farms and agribusiness food processors to suburban supermarkets across the country. Trucking Country is the gripping account of truckers whose support of post-New Deal free enterprise was so virulent that it sparked violent highway blockades in the 1970s. It's the story of "bandit" drivers who inspired country songwriters and Hollywood filmmakers to celebrate the "last American cowboy," and of ordinary blue-collar workers who helped make possible the deregulatory policies of Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan and set the stage for Wal-Mart to become America's most powerful corporation in today's low-price, low-wage economy. Some images inside the book are unavailable due to digital copyright restrictions.

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

The freight train’s pulling from the yard. The locomotive’s working hard. “Safe trip!” calls the station master. Chugga chugga, the train rolls faster. Susanna Leonard Hill's rhythmic text and Ana Martin Larranaga's simple but enticing art will take young readers on an adventurous freight train trip! Kids can lift the10 flaps throughout the book to make their reading experience more fun! This interactive book that's shaped like a freight train is perfect for young children who are going on a train for the first--or the one-hundredth--time!