State railroads through the eyes of a Russian traveler. US railroads All about American railroads

US railroads Railways of the United States of America is an extensive network of railways, which includes about seven transcontinental highways crossing the country from east to west and connecting the largest urban agglomerations of the Atlantic (New York, Philadelphia, Boston) and Pacific (Seattle, Portland, San Francisco , Los Angeles) coasts; approximately ten meridional highways connecting areas of the South and Southwest of the United States with areas adjacent to the Canadian border; about ten highways crossing the territory of the country in its eastern part diagonally from northeast to southwest. The operational length of the network (2002) is slightly more than 230 thousand km (including about 160 thousand km owned by Class I railways) and has a steady downward trend. The network density is 22.6 km/1000 km2, the track width is 1435 mm. The number of personnel of all railways is approx. 185 thousand people, including on class I railways - a little more than 157 thousand people. Railway construction in the country began in 1827. From the very beginning of the railway. transport was formed in the private sector of the economy. By 1917, the length of the network exceeded 400 thousand km; number of private companies - approx. 1500, total number of industry personnel - approx. 1.8 million people In 1930, the share of railways in the freight turnover of all types of transport in the country reached 70%. There is practically no new railway construction being carried out. The US railway system is one of the most efficient and technologically advanced in the world. The redundancy of the network made it possible to optimize its configuration over time and decommission unprofitable lines. The share of double-track and multi-track lines is approx. 10%. The network is dominated by diesel traction. Length of electrified railways d. slightly more than 0.5% of the operational length, ch. arr. in suburban areas major cities and in the Northeast Corridor (Washington-New York-Boston). The industry is developing as a whole as a single complex, taking into account the needs of the economy and the transport strategy of the country. The activities of railways are regulated by numerous laws, in particular, labor legislation and legislation on safety on railways are worked out in detail. In the 80-90s. 20th century thanks to the adoption of the Staggers Railway Law. companies were able to independently set negotiated tariffs depending on the demand for transportation and the level of competition from other modes of transport, as well as close and sell unprofitable, inactive lines. The federal body, the Surface Transportation Council (until 1996, the Interstate Transport Commission), retains only antimonopoly functions in the area of ​​pricing. Taking into account inflation, tariffs have decreased by 57% since 1980, labor productivity has increased by 2.7 times. Safety conditions on the railways have improved significantly: the number of transport accidents per year has decreased by 67%, and occupational injuries have decreased by 71%. A large number of new regional and local railways have appeared. companies, often operating on infrastructure “rejected” by Class I railways. In 2001, the total length of the railway. lines on which regional and local companies carried out transportation amounted to 72.4 thousand km. Development of transport policy, including railway policy. transport, in the USA the Department of Transport is involved, within the framework of which railway issues are dealt with. transport is carried out by the following main structural divisions: Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) of the USA, which is developing the industry regulatory and legal framework for the railway. transport based on federal transport legislation, responsible for ensuring safe work on the railway. transport, managing n.-i. and design programs and projects, as well as overseeing the work of one of the world's largest Transportation Equipment Testing Center in Pueblo, PC. Colorado; Federal Administration of Suburban and Urban Transportation, which oversees at the federal level all types of public urban and suburban passenger transportation; The Surface Transport Council (SNT), which acts as a federal agency that, among other things, carries out economic regulation in relation to railways, and also resolves issues of unification and economic relations between railways among themselves and with other modes of transport, reduction of railways. -d. network and new construction, regulations for inter-road exchange of wagons; The Office of the General Safety Inspector, which is an independent body, including monitoring the activities of the FRA to ensure the safe operation of the railway. transport. Almost all railways US companies (and North America in general) are members of the Association of American Railroads (AARA), which, together with the FRA, represents the general interests of railroads in government bodies (for example, in the US Congress). The Association acts as a coordinator of research and development. and design programs and oversees the Pueblo Vehicle Test Center. In the USA (2001), there are actually two classifications of railways: the traditionally used - SNT, and the relatively recently introduced - AAR. According to the SNT classification, all railways, shunting and station companies are divided into 3 classes depending on annual transportation income, adjusted for inflation. Yield standards change periodically. In 2001, they corresponded to the following amounts: Class I - from 266.7 million US dollars (before 1992 - 92 million dollars); Class II - from 21.3 million to 266.7 million dollars; Class III - less than $21.3 million. Regardless of income, the Passenger Transportation Corporation (AMTRAK) is classified in Class I. The specificity of the AAR classification is that all railways. companies that do not belong to class I are classified according to two criteria: profitability and network length. Income ranging from 40 million to 256.4 million dollars and a network length of at least 563 km allow us to classify the railway as regional. All other railroads, as well as shunting and station companies, are classified as local. AMTRAK Corporation is conditionally classified in the lowest category in this classification. Of the total number of 573 railways. Only 8 companies are classified as class I, but they dominate the market for railway transportation services. transport. This concerns their share in the total length of railways and in the total number of personnel in the industry, participation in the total freight turnover and total revenues from freight transportation. Railway share transport in total freight turnover transport system USA amounted to 41.7% in 2001. Its participation in the volume of transportation (from domestic producers) of coal is 67%, grain - 26.4%. In 2001, the railway US transport carried a freight turnover of 2274 billion tons km, of which 2193 billion tons km accounted for Class I railways. Over the past 20 years (1981-2001), freight turnover has grown throughout the country by more than 68%, and in the eastern regions it has grown by only 20%, and in the western regions by more than 90%. With an average network freight density in terms of gross freight turnover of 23 million t-km/km, the length of sections with a freight intensity of up to 5 million t-km/km is 30%, from 5 to 20 million t-km/km - 25%. Along with this, there are lines on which the freight load is 120-130 million tkm/km. On the network approximately 63% of its length is covered with rails weighing 64.5-68.9 kg per linear meter. Approx. 95% of the sleepers laid on the track are creosote-impregnated hardwood sleepers. The locomotive fleet of Class I railways, amounting to 19,745 diesel locomotives, in the 1990s. updated by 33%; more than 40% of the fleet consists of diesel locomotives built before 1980. A restrained policy is being pursued to replenish the fleets with locomotives of higher power, aimed at increasing operational efficiency and improving diagnostic systems for the technical condition of locomotives. Railways are actively purchasing powerful diesel locomotives with AC electric transmission, amounting to approx. 14% of the park. As a result, the average power of one section over the past 20 years has increased by 41% from 2326 to 3271 hp. With. US railroads operate approximately 1,315,000 freight cars, of which more than half are owned by railroads and the rest by shippers and railcar companies. The average age of a freight car is 20.9 years. In the 1990s. the carriage fleet has been updated by 25%. It was assumed that in the next 10-12 years the park will be completely renovated. However, in 2001, demand for freight cars fell to 34,260 units. compared to 70,000 units. in the end 90s The decrease in demand for new cars is a consequence of the slow development of the US economy, the increased use of heavy-duty cars and the increase in the efficiency of their operation in the transportation process. Major US railroads are also focusing on reducing their car fleets. The average carrying capacity of a freight car is 84.5 tons, the average static load is 58.1 tons. The largest share in the railcar fleet is occupied by hoppers (41%) and tanks (18%). A distinctive feature of US railways is the record average train weight, ensured by the high carrying capacity of the cars, powerful traction and good track condition. In 2000, the average train weight (net) was 2726 tons, the average train weight (gross) was 5553 tons, the average train composition was 68.5 cars. The largest railway systems in the USA are (2001) the combined railways Union Pacific/Southern Pacific (operational length 54.2 thousand km) and Burlington Northern/Santa Fe (53.2 thousand km). The process of merging railways is driven by the desire to improve their economic position (by reducing the management staff, closing parallel and unprofitable lines) and competitiveness in relation to other modes of transport. US rail transport is rather one-sidedly focused on freight transportation. Unprofitable but socially necessary long-distance passenger transportation is carried out by the specialized corporation AMTRAK, created in 1971 on the basis of the Law on Railway Passenger Transportation and supported by government funding (subsidies). The corporation is the only one in the country that operates long-distance railways. passenger transportation, operating 265 trains per day on a range of 36.5 thousand km (approximately 20% of the total length of the class I railway network), connecting more than 500 stations. At the same time, AMTRAK directly owns only the specialized high-speed highway of the Northeast Corridor (Washington-New York-Boston) with a length of 1195 km, and otherwise uses the technical infrastructure of freight railways on a contractual basis. companies. The volume of long-distance transportation performed by the corporation per year is approx. 23.4 million passengers, passenger turnover - approx. 9.0 billion passenger-km In addition, AMTRAK carries approximately 51 million commuter passengers. Suburban railways Passenger transportation in the United States is carried out by 19 companies. The total length of the lines on which commuter trains run is 14 thousand km, incl. own lines these companies, as well as lines leased from AMTRAK and freight companies. Volume of local and suburban railways transportation in the country as a whole is 3150 million passengers, passenger turnover is 13.3 billion passenger-km. From the end 1990s In the USA, interest in railways, supported by government and public organizations, is being revived. passenger transportation, which is associated with congestion on roads and worsening environmental problems. Several states are planning to organize high-speed rail systems. transportation Since 2001, AMTRAK Corporation has introduced regular operation of the new Aisla high-speed train with a design speed of 240 km/h in the Northeast Corridor. The corporation proposes to the states the creation of a new high-speed regional transportation system, Aisla Regional, in their sponsored railways. corridors. On US railways, special attention is paid to the introduction of modern information technologies. Under the auspices of the AARR, an improved automatic train traffic control system is being gradually introduced, providing, with varying degrees of automation, optimal control of train flows on the railways it controls. training grounds. Train traffic control is carried out from enlarged road control centers. Based on the use of high-performance computing (in particular, microcomputers) devices and data transmission facilities, it has become possible, for example, to control railway traffic from a single center in Omaha, Nebraska. networks with a length of about 60 thousand km. A network-wide implementation of a high-precision radio engineering system for automatically reading information from rolling stock, developed by the American corporation Amtech, is underway. US freight railroads have at their disposal automated road customer interaction centers that promptly service customer requests regarding the status and progress of shipments, cargo redirection, etc. US railroads yesterday and today The Entertaining Past of US Railways If you mention US railways, your memory will inevitably bring to mind a picture of the wild, wild West, the romance of travel and ultra-modern trains. However, the railway is not only an important component of American cinema, but also a serious part of the transport links of this huge country. The beginning is always difficult, which is why, despite the development of land transport, ordinary people were in no hurry to use the services of trains. Although the development and construction, which began with the light hand of John Stevens in 1815, does not stop to this day, steam locomotives in the early 19th century caused some fears and, simply put, religious superstitions among Americans. The conclusion of the railroad charter and the creation of the first two steam locomotives spoke of the irreversible process of introducing the railroad into the lives of ordinary Americans. After a clear experiment that proved that a steam locomotive can cover a distance in 16 hours that a steamship takes three days to cover, the fate of the railroad was sealed. From that moment on, US railroads only increased their length. The Pennsylvania Railroad opened in 1846, and almost twenty years later the popularity of this mode of transportation began to skyrocket. Railroad networks The Civil War showed that the future belonged to this type of transport and gave it considerable authority. The transportation of weapons, people, and food brought military operations to a new level. By this time, the length of US railroads was about 254,000 miles and their growth continued steadily. Smarter and more dexterous businessmen began to buy strategically important lands along which railway lines were laid for next to nothing. Huge amounts of money accumulated in the hands of such companies. People who invested money in US railway transport increased their wealth many times over. In 1869, the transcontinental railroads of the United States were born, or rather the first of them, which connected the Pacific coast with Central and Western America. The success of the enterprise led to the emergence of three more transcontinental lines in 1882 - 1883 and 1893. Over time, railroads in America began to lose their popularity. On the one hand, due to the transfer of this infrastructure into the hands of the state after the First World War, on the other, due to technological progress, which is actively gaining momentum. What is happening today with US railway transport Progress gave birth to the railway, and it is gradually bringing it into oblivion. At the beginning of the twentieth century, virtually all transportation in America was carried out this way. Powerful infrastructure connected the huge country into a single whole and influenced not only the economy, but also demography and ethnography. However, this did not save the industry from decline. Today, train tickets in America are not much different from air tickets in price. Now US rail transport is chosen by romantics and people who have nowhere to rush. Traveling by train is convenient if you want to get the most out of your experience. Railway companies even launched a number of steam locomotives as excursion exhibits. National carriers such as Amtrak, National Rail pass, West Rail pass and others offer tourist rail travel, business high-speed transportation and other services. A special railway map has been published, which covers the transport network of the entire country. However, the “golden age” of the US railroad will never return. Rail travel is extremely unpopular in the US . Relatively few passengers choose the train as their means of travel, as fares are often in line with airfare. Additionally, given the large size of the United States, train travel can be very time consuming. The state railway company Amtrak has been subsidized for many years, and the development of railway communication is observed only in the transportation of goods. At the same time, a number of directions can be convenient and interesting for tourists: the “Northern Corridor” between the cities of Washington - Philadelphia - New York - Boston, the "California Corridor" from San Diego to San Francisco via Los Angeles and the longest line from Atlantic coast to Pacific coast along the route New York - Washington - Memphis - Dallas - Albuquerque - Phoenix - Los Angeles. Train travel is very expensive. For example, the cheapest ticket from New York to Washington (less than 500 km) will cost $70. Travel from New York to Chicago will cost $120-150. Moreover, we're talking about about seating in a common carriage. Travel in a compartment will cost 1.5-2 times more. Tickets are sold both on the company’s website with payment by credit card, and directly at the box office. Since August 2005, it has become possible in Russia to purchase train tickets within the United States. The distributor of tickets was the agency CGTT Voyages. It opened the sale of tickets to a number of destinations in the Northeast Corridor of the United States, including routes between Washington, New York, Boston, Philadelphia and some other cities. At the same time, prices for a number of trains when sold in Russia are lower than locally. In addition, you can purchase travel tickets– both national and regional. Tourist Passes Amtrak offers 15- and 30-day unlimited rail passes. These tickets can be purchased by any non-US resident tourist. A ticket can be reserved through the company's official website and obtained at any US railway ticket office upon presentation of a passport. You can purchase a ticket, both regional and covering the entire country: National Rail pass (all over the country without restrictions) Cost for an adult $999. North East rail pass (northeast USA) Cost per adult $300, includes the east coast of the USA and the cities of Washington, New York, Boston, Buffalo (Niagara Falls). West Rail pass (western USA) Cost per adult $329/$359 (15 days, 30 days). East Rail pass (East USA) Cost per adult $329/$369 (15 days, 30 days). During " high season"The cost of travel tickets increases by 25-30%. Children under 15 years old pay 50% of the cost. The basic fare includes travel in a seated carriage. For an additional fee, you can travel in a compartment. More detailed information on the official Amtrak website Railroads in America are not as widespread as in Europe. Even Russia has a much richer passenger network than the United States. True, this was not always the case. Just some thirty-five years ago, all of America was covered with a dense network of passenger lines. And in the Great Lakes and East Coast regions, trains traveled almost as frequently as in Europe. The sixties and seventies saw the rapid growth of passenger aviation. Americans switched to a faster mode of transport. Speed ​​is a serious advantage over the vast distances of North America. In addition, in those same years, the welfare of the US population increased significantly, and many people acquired personal cars. The number of railway passengers began to fall sharply. At the time, US railroads were operated by a variety of private passenger companies, most of which operated one or two routes. The crisis led to the collapse of a significant part of companies and the closure of lines. The US government took action to save the industry. It consolidated most of the remaining lines under the government-owned Amtrak. Amtrak began operations in 1971 with an unenviable legacy. The route network has been reduced several times, and the number of flights on the remaining lines has also dropped significantly. The company supported itself on multimillion-dollar government subsidies, simultaneously absorbing the remaining private lines. Now there are very few of them left. USA: railways (part 1)The reduction of the network and flights was stopped. Over the past thirty years they have remained virtually unchanged. And in the coming years there is a significant rise in railway transport in America. Nowadays it is more or less convenient to travel by rail only in three areas. First, there is the Great Lakes region, with Chicago as the main hub. Secondly, the so-called Northeast Corridor (Boston - New York - Philadelphia - Washington - Richmond). Thirdly, California. In addition, some areas along the Canadian border (Buffalo - Albany in the East and Seattle - Portland in the West), as well as Florida and a couple of other areas along the East Coast, have relatively heavy traffic (three to five flights per day). Otherwise, the situation is similar to the Wild West of the last century. Huge areas do not have passenger lines at all, and where they exist, there are one or two trains a day. The east of the country is connected to the West by four lines, three of which the train runs once a day, and one every two days. Phoenix and Las Vegas do not have trains at all, in Houston and Cincinnati they appear every other day, and in Dallas, Denver, Atlanta, Minneapolis, Salt Lake City - once a day. In general, if you are not on the East Coast or near the Great Lakes, then the train will suit you only in those few cases when the route and time of the only train coincides with your plans. The situation is approximately the same in Alaska, where there is its own railway company. The only line, Seward - Anchorage - Fairbanks, has one or two trains per day. In the Arctic winter, routes become weekly, and then trains turn into minibuses- to stop you need to vote on the platform. Most recently, on October 1, they broke a record there by organizing a train of 32 cars. Four of these thirty-two were baggage cars and five were dining cars. USA: railroads (part 1) A similar approach is in the rest of the United States. Long-distance trains have been turned into hotels with lounges and restaurants. In general, the American style is felt in everything. Most of the carriages are huge two-story colossuses, leaving a feeling of indestructible power. This feeling is further enhanced by the unpainted iron bodies of the carriages. The same impression is created by the locomotives, which most closely resemble typical American automobile tractors. European style is found only on modern East Coast trains. High-speed trains, modeled on Europe and Japan, are gradually being introduced there. On relatively short distances along the Atlantic coast, these trains successfully compete with airlines. Trains are especially convenient in cases where you need to travel immediately and it is no longer possible to purchase a cheap air ticket. One of the priority directions for the development of railways in America is their integration with airlines, which in the American open spaces, by definition, are the most important transport. Here, Americans are also inspired by the example of Europe, where most of the largest airports have their own railway stations. So far, there are almost no such services in America, but in the near future, passengers at a number of airports will have the opportunity to board both commuter and long-distance trains right at the airport terminal. All this, together with the introduction of new high-speed lines, will attract many new customers to America's railroads in the near future. In the USA, where almost every family has a personal car, and incomes allow the use of air transport, rail transport cannot be the first, however, it has its own percentage of transportation. If in Russia the railway is a highly developed industry in the cargo and passenger segment, then in the USA, railway transport mainly transports cargo. Our road is just being modernized to meet the standards of a market economy, new trains are appearing, satellite monitoring is being introduced, demonopolization is taking place, the USA has had all this for a long time, including a high level of competition. Let's look a little into history to understand what stage of development the US railroad is at today. Just three decades ago, the United States had a fairly extensive network of passenger transportation, but rapid motorization and the popularization of passenger aviation over time relegated railway transport to the background in passenger transportation. At that time, there were many private companies operating in the market, which, due to the outbreak of the crisis, went bankrupt and closed their lines. Most of these companies operated only 2-3 lines. The US government began saving the industry by creating Amtrak from the most profitable lines. It started operating in 1971 and is still operating successfully. Today, America is characterized by uneven coverage of the passenger rail network. It is most developed on the east coast; the capital of the US railroad is Chicago. You can quite comfortably move along the corridor Boston - New York - Philadelphia - Washington - Richmond, along the border with Canada, as well as in Florida. Among the states in another part of America, only California can be distinguished. And, for example, in Las Vegas and Phoenix passenger trains no at all, there are also many places where they go every other day. In general, crossing America by train is quite problematic, although there are a total of four lines between the West and the East. Priority is given to freight trains, as they are highly profitable. Passenger cars on American trains are double-decker, which fits well with the typical American style. Although in those regions where the railway network is developed (New York, Chicago), they follow global trends and install modern high-speed boom-type trains on the lines. There are two types of trains in the United States: short-haul trains, which operate primarily during the day and consist primarily of coach cars, and long distance. In double-decker carriages, the first floor is always space for luggage and disabled people, the second is a platform with comfortable seats, like on an airplane. There are carriages with bedrooms of different levels of comfort. Passenger transportation in the USA, although not as popular as traveling by personal vehicle or airplane, nevertheless has its client and continues to exist. Mainline diesel locomotives With hydraulic transmission: Diesel locomotive ML4000CC Diesel locomotive ML4000CC The Krauss-Maffei company built a batch of mainline freight diesel locomotives with a power of 4000 hp. with hydraulic transmission for US railways. The locomotive is equipped with two 16-cylinder V-shaped diesel engines from Maybach, type MD-870, with a power of 2000 hp. each, with a cylinder diameter of 185 mm and a piston stroke of 200 mm. Diesel locomotives: Diesel locomotives D443 and D343 Diesel locomotives D443 and D343 Diesel locomotives D443 and D343 from Fiat with a power of 2000 and 1500 hp, respectively. with electric transmission are intended for non-electrified sections of Italian railways. Diesel locomotives are equipped with standard components and parts (bogies, traction motors, gears, compressors, filters, refrigerator elements, driver's cabins and their equipment, etc.). The fundamental difference between the diesel locomotives of these series is that the D443 locomotives are equipped with low-speed diesel engines with a power of 2000 hp. with a maximum speed of 1000 per minute, and D343 - high-speed diesel engines with a power of 1500 hp. at 1500 rpm. Diesel locomotives: Diesel locomotive GP40 Diesel locomotive GP40 Diesel locomotive GP40- 4-axle diesel electric locomotive produced by General Electric between November 1965 and December 1971. The 16-cylinder diesel engine installed on the locomotive develops a power of 3,000 horsepower. Diesel locomotives: Diesel locomotive GP30 Diesel locomotive GP30 Diesel locomotive GP30 with electric direct current transmission with a power of 2250 hp, it was produced by General Motorors between July 1961 and November 1963. DURING this time, 948 units were built. The diesel locomotive is equipped with a two-stroke diesel engine type 567D3 with a thrust capacity of 2250 hp. at 835 rpm with direct-flow blowing and charge air cooling. The diesel engine has a turbocharger, which is driven at low speeds directly from the crankshaft through a gear transmission, and at high speeds - from a gas turbine running on exhaust gases. Diesel locomotives: Diesel locomotive SD45 Diesel locomotive SD45 with electric AC-DC transmission, was produced by General Motors from December 1965 to December 1971. During this period, 1260 units were produced. The diesel locomotive is equipped with a 12-cylinder diesel engine 645E3 with a power of 3600 hp. Diesel locomotives of this and some other series use diesel type 645. Like diesel type 567, diesel 645 is designated in accordance with the cylinder displacement. Diesel Locomotives: GP28 Diesel Locomotive GP28 Diesel Locomotive The GP28 locomotive is a 4-axle locomotive manufactured by General Electric, powered by a 16-cylinder 567D1 diesel engine producing 1,800 horsepower (1.3 mW), and produced between March 1964 and November 1965. The GP28 locomotive is a basic, non-turbocharged version of the GP35 locomotive. Diesel locomotives: Diesel locomotive G12 Diesel locomotive G12 Diesel locomotive G12 thrust power 1310 hp. with direct current electrical transmission. The diesel locomotive is equipped with a 12-cylinder two-stroke diesel engine 567C with a power of 1425 hp. The diesel engine is started from the main generator. Diesel locomotives: Diesel locomotive GT16 Diesel locomotive GT16 Diesel locomotive GT16 traction power 2400 hp. with DC electrical transmission is being built for delivery to Australia. The diesel locomotive is equipped with a 16-cylinder diesel model 576E3 with a power of 2600 hp. with turbocharging and charge air cooling. In design and main dimensions, the 576E3 diesel engine is similar to the 576C diesel model, which develops a power of 1950 hp. Diesel locomotives: Diesel freight locomotive DD40X Centennial Diesel freight locomotive DD40X Centennial Mainline diesel locomotive DD40X Centennial with a power of 6600 hp. with electrical transmission of alternating-direct current is intended for freight transportation. The DD40X was built by General Motors, a division of La Grange, for use on the Pacific Union railroad. The institutional structure of the United States initially predetermined the absence in the country of single economic entities, the owner of which is the state itself. US railroads were built and developed under the jurisdiction of individual states. The construction of railways in the USA began in 1827, that is, 10 years earlier than in Russia. Today, the length of American railways is more than 220 thousand km, compared to 87 thousand km of the length of Russian main railways. The gauge of US railways is 1435 mm, which corresponds to the gauge of European railways. In Russia, the track width is 1520 mm. The number of personnel of US railways is about 180 thousand workers versus 1200 thousand people working on Russian railways. The last ratio allows us to think about the efficiency of using labor resources in the domestic railway industry. At the same time, the shares of railway transport in the freight turnover of both countries are approximately equal and have been in the range of 40-45% in recent years. Railroads in the USA are private. The railway market has about 600 companies, but more than 60% of all freight traffic is handled by the 8 largest companies. Railway companies have the right to independently set tariffs depending on the demand for various types of transportation and competition from other modes of transport. The process of determining the level of railroad tariffs is subject to oversight and antitrust regulation by a federal body - the Surface Transportation Board, which until 1996 was called the Interstate Transportation Commission. The results of the council's activities include regular reductions in tariff levels and the establishment of fair tariffs for seven transcontinental routes crossing US territory. The issue of railroad privatization is not relevant for the United States. A pressing issue is the effective functioning and coordination of railway systems belonging to different owners. The American railway management system is based on the principle that it is inappropriate to divide a single railway into companies for transportation and infrastructure management. Reducing costs and improving service for shippers and consignees on US railroads is primarily due to competition with road transport. In the USA, a program for managing a fleet of freight cars on private railways has been developed. It has gained popularity since the 80s of the 20th century, when the leading carriers in North America organized relevant divisions in their structures and staffed them with specialists in the field of railway operation, marketing and information technology. The main goal was to reduce empty mileage and fees for using wagons, as well as increase the efficiency of wagon use. Regulation and management of a fleet of private operators has acquired the greatest relevance in the organization and implementation of international cargo transportation: transit between Eastern and West coasts, between Canada and Mexico. US private railway companies, in which shareholders make fundamental decisions, pay special attention to the management of transport infrastructure. Currently, the average annual investment in infrastructure here is approximately US$5 billion - 19% of the total operating costs of large class 1 railways, versus US$6.2 billion - 24% of rolling stock costs for a total investment of US$27 billion US dollars. The share of infrastructure costs has recently increased from 14% 30 years ago to 17% 20 years ago and, as stated above, to 19% today, demonstrating significant progress made through the understanding of the need to continually increase railway capacity and for the development of steadily growing volumes of transportation. The obvious desire to ensure the proper condition of track facilities and public areas is confirmed by the steady increase in investment in the industry. Indeed, of the total capital investment of $5 billion, 77% was in infrastructure versus 23% in rolling stock. It follows from all this that in order to maintain and increase investment in infrastructure, investors must be interested in the results of their investments and understand the importance and significance of this infrastructure to ensure further growth in traffic volumes

A small percentage of the population uses trains in the United States, and many trains and railroads in the United States are not in the best condition. Why did it happen? Because politicians decided that it was all stupidity to travel by train. What are cars and planes for then?

By the way, about airplanes. I'm planning to fly home in the summer, but my direct flight from Houston to Moscow has been cancelled. I am now, as they say, “actively searching” for sites with good offers(so that the price would be up to $1300 round trip and the flight would not take at least a day). So far I have found the airline tickets website aviapoisk.kz with good prices, and a couple more. Where do you buy tickets? Help, good people, whoever can! Maybe with money 😀

Well, now let's get back to the trains.

Rail transportation in the United States is carried out by Amtrak, which carries about 30 million passengers a year (of which 11 million are on the Washington-Boston line). There is also a minor company, Alaska Railroad, which operates only in Alaska.

On the Washington-Boston line high-speed train"Acela Express", capable of accelerating to 240 km/h, however average speed about 110 km/h (since there are three different sections with different voltages on the railway section). This is 50 km/h less than our Russian Sapsan. Railroads in the United States have been poorly funded over the past decades.

Why are railroads unpopular in the USA?

Passenger traffic is usually measured in passenger kilometers. For comparison: in Europe, passengers travel more than 1,000 passenger-kilometers per year by rail, while in the United States - only 80!

Here is a map of US railroad tracks:

Railways in the USA are almost 3 times longer than in Russia, but 80% of them have not been used since 1960.

Causes:

1. Outside the most populated cities, population density is low, making transportation unprofitable;
2. Trains are forced to be delayed because... they depend on cargo transported by the same trains, and passengers do not like delays;
3. Traveling by plane to the USA is affordable and convenient, airlines are afraid of competition with high-speed trains and are lowering their prices, people travel by plane 20 times more often than by train;
4. Traveling by train is more expensive and slower than traveling by car.

US railway stations

Mostly the stations here are small and unattractive, because... were built after the 1940s (when no one cared about the development of railway transport). Those built before the 1940s have either already been demolished, converted or abandoned. For example, an abandoned one Train Station in Detroit:

Or in Buffalo:

And here is a functioning station in the US capital, Washington:

Types of wagons in the USA

US trains, like Russian trains, have seating and compartment carriages. reserved seat carriages there is no. Unlike Russian trains, passengers seated carriages You can’t walk through the compartments. I think this is a plus.

The seated carriages are comfortable and each passenger has their own power socket. All seats are located in the direction of travel. The trains are almost 100% filled with passengers.

A compartment for two people (without its own toilet and shower) is almost 3 times more expensive than ordinary seated carriages. The same compartments for four (two adults + two children) are 3 times more expensive than a compartment for two.

The more expensive compartments have their own shower, toilet and sink, as well as air conditioning. The price includes breakfast, lunch and dinner. Some trains provide free wifi (at low speed) and the opportunity to sit in a quiet car (a quiet carriage where you are expected to behave accordingly).

Boarding the train

American carriages do not have numbers. The conductor decides which seat to seat the passenger in and either writes the seat number on the ticket or gives the passenger a tag with his number. As a rule, there is one conductor per two cars. And the driver here often works without assistants. People wait their turn to board, just like in the USSR. 🙂

After boarding, a tag with three letters is attached above the passenger, which indicate his final station. For example, for Houston it is HOS, for New York it is NYP, for Los Angeles it is LAX. The place here cannot be changed spontaneously.

Train schedule

Because There are very few trains; even between some million-plus cities, trains can run only twice a day. And there are destinations where trains run only 3 times a week. However, trains run frequently along the Washington-Boston Expressway (almost every hour).

How much do train tickets cost in the USA?

• New York - Washington (distance 365 km, 3 hours 30 minutes travel time) - from 49$;
• Washington - Boston (distance 703 km, 7 hours 45 minutes travel time) - from 79$;
• San Diego - Los Angeles (distance 188 km, 3 hours travel) - from 37$;
• San Francisco - Los Angeles (distance 615 km, 4 hours 30 minutes) - from 59$;
• Houston - El Paso (distance 1190 km, 19 hours 30 minutes travel time) - from 82$.

If you are a tourist, you can buy unlimited passes for 15, 30 or 45 days.

Ticket prices:

for 15 days - $459 (adult), $229.5 (children from 2 to 12 years);
for 30 days: $689 (adult), $344.5 (child);
for 45 days: $899 (adult), $449.5 (child).

You can also save with Amtrak SmartFares (up to 30% off) every week Tuesday through Friday.

California Pass (the ability to travel 7 days in a period equal to 21 days). The pass is limited to 4 one-way trips. Traveling at any time of the day is used as a whole day out of the given seven. Price: $159 for adults, $79.5 for children (from 2 to 12 years old).

Railways in the USA. Development prospects

In August 2016, the US Department of Transportation allocated $2.45 billion to Amtrak. This money will be used to build new stations, modernize trains and railways, and launch more than 20 high-speed trains (speeds up to 306 km/h), mainly in the Northeast Corridor (New York - Trenton).

May our trains be the busiest in the world!

Oksana Bryant was with you, see you on the air!

Wow, it's almost a verse. I guess I have talent! 🙂

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The use of electricity as an energy source for traction of trains was first demonstrated at an industrial exhibition in Berlin in 1879, where a model of an electric railway was presented. A train consisting of a 2.2 kW locomotive and three carriages, each of which could accommodate up to 6 passengers, moved along a section less than 300 m long at a speed of 7 km/h. The creators of the new type of traction were the famous German scientist, inventor and industrialist Ernst Werner von Siemens (Werner von Siemens, 1816-1892) and engineer Halske.

The electric line and train demonstrated at the exhibition instantly became a sensation. Over the course of 4 months, the train transported about 90,000 exhibition visitors. DC electricity with a voltage of 150 V was supplied to the electric locomotive via a contact rail located between the rails; the return wire was the rails along which the train moved. The draft was controlled using a water rheostat.

A copy of the first electric locomotive from Siemens and Halske (1879) in the German Railways Museum. in Nuremberg.
Photo: Oleg Nazarov, 2010.

Swiss engineer Rene Thury (1860-1938) built an experimental mountain rack and pinion road in the suburbs of Montreux in 1884. Movement along the site to the mountain hotel with a slope of 30‰ and a length of 300 m was carried out by a two-axle locomotive, which could also carry 4 passengers.

The first trams

The expansion of the use of electric traction at the first stage encountered serious resistance from officials due to misunderstanding or often unwillingness to change anything.

Because of this mistrust, Ernst Werner von Siemens had to build a demonstration model of an electric tram at his own expense. The world's first permanently operating electric tram line opened in Berlin in the spring of 1881.

In the USA, the appearance of electric traction is associated with the name of the inventor Franklin J. Sparga (1857-1934), who is called in America the “father of electric traction.” In 1880, F. Sparg received a patent for a system for collecting current from a contact wire with a contact wheel on a pantograph, using which in 1887 the first electric tram system in the United States, the Richmond Union Passenger Railway, was built in Richmond (Virginia). Here, on February 2, 1888, the ability to smoothly operate tram lines with slopes of up to 10‰ was demonstrated for the first time, which was previously impossible with horse traction.

Electric tram in Richmond (USA) using the Franklin Sparga system. Postcard from 1923.
Source: Wikipedia.

The Russian engineer-inventor Fyodor Apollonovich Pirotsky (1845-1898) began to conduct experiments using electricity in 1874. In 1875, in St. Petersburg, on a section of the Sestroretsk railway, he conducted experiments with electric cars, for which about one mile of the track was electrified. In his design, the rails were connected to a Graham generator. Both rails were isolated from the ground, one of them was a direct conductor, and the other was a return conductor.

Based on the experiments carried out in 1880, at his own expense he upgraded one city horse-drawn double-decker tram in St. Petersburg to electric traction, and on September 3 an unusual public transport begins to transport residents of St. Petersburg, despite open protests from the owners of horse-drawn trams. A carriage weighing 7 tons could carry up to 40 passengers at a speed of 12-14 km/h. Pirotsky's experiments continued for several days until the end of September 1880, after which he proposed replacing all horse-drawn trams in St. Petersburg with electric trams. Unfortunately, like everything new, the idea of ​​the Russian engineer was treated with distrust; the papers wandered around the offices of officials for a long time , there were no funds available for its implementation for a long time. And only in 1892, when electric trams had already successfully conquered European cities, they appeared on the streets of St. Petersburg.

Engineer F.B. Bespalov, in the brochure “Electric Economic Railway” published in 1894, substantiated the principle of controlling several cars in a coupling from one post - perhaps for the first time in the world. This is a key principle for managing multi-section rolling stock.

The first electric locomotives

For the first time in industrial use, a section of electric railway approximately 2 km long was launched in 1879 at a textile factory in French city Breile.

In the UK, the first line to be electrified at 500 V DC using a contact rail was the 5.6 km underground City & South London Railway, opened in 1890. The company Messrs Mather & Platt and Siemens Bros supplied 16 electric locomotives for it, each equipped with 2 gearless traction motors with a power of 36.7 kW. In fact, it was the world's first subway.

The first section of the main electric railway, 11.2 km long, was opened in 1895 in the USA between Baltimore and Ohio (Baltimore Belt Line) with a catenary voltage of 675 V DC. The line consisted of an open section 6.4 km long and an underground section within the city. Electric locomotives for it were supplied by General Electric.

Europe's first experimental electric locomotive for main lines was created by the Hungarian engineer Kalman Kando in 1894. The electric locomotive was powered by a three-phase high voltage network of 3300 V with a frequency of 15 Hz and was equipped with an asynchronous traction motor. A new electrical machine invented by Kando, a phase shifter, was used as a converter. K. Kando has the same meaning for European engineers as F. Sparg for Americans, therefore in European countries K. Kando (1869-1931) is considered the “father of electric traction”.

Electric locomotives designed by K. Cando were used in Italy to organize traffic on a full-fledged railway route (before that they were used only on certain sections of roads). Energy was supplied to the electric locomotive through two contact wires; rails were used as the third phase.

Electric locomotive Kalman Kando (Hungary) for Italy.

Yes, Richardson assured the professor that this was true. He said the Ohio Archaeological and Historical Society museum building in Columbus has stairs leading to the basement. On this very staircase, on the lowest platform between the flights, Fitch's steam locomotive stands, collecting dust. After the death of John Fitch himself, it was inherited by his adopted son, who settled in Worthington, Ohio. In the 1850s, interested parties somehow learned that this small working model of a steam locomotive, of significant historical value, was in Worthington, and convinced Fitch's son to donate the model to the museum.

After listening to the young man, the professor became very excited. It seemed as if he would immediately jump off the train to go to Columbus. But he suddenly calmed down and sat down in his place. And then he became very angry, because he remembered that at one time, when he was just starting to collect information about Fitch’s locomotive, he wrote requests about it to many US museums, including the Ohio State Museum. The museum then responded that they knew nothing about him.

John Fitch invented the steam locomotive for the railroad in the 1780s. He even organized a demonstration of his scaled-down, working model in Philadelphia for President George Washington and cabinet officials. His idea was to use a full-size locomotive to haul freight trains across the Allegheny Mountains, where, due to the complete lack of road routes, the United States was then experiencing enormous difficulties in supplying the military operation under the command of Major General Arthur St. Claire against the aggressive Indian tribes of the northwest, actively supported by the British.

The same model of John Fitch from Philadelphia, supposedly built by him
in the late 1780s and early 1790s. The model is currently in the museum
Ohio State Historical Society. Photo from the collection of Robert Richardson

Fitch's little locomotive ran on rails made of wooden beams and was supported by flanged wheels. These flanges were located on the outer edges of the wheels, and not on the inner ones, in contrast to later technical practice in the railway industry. A copper boiler was installed on the frame of the locomotive, and a movable lever mechanism was used to transmit rotational motion to the wheels, working on the “grasshopper’s legs” principle. Fitch also invented the steam pump, a steam dredge for use in and around Philadelphia, and a steamboat, which he tested on the Schuylkil River.

Another inventor showed up, a man named Rumsey, who invented the steamboat around the same time. A dispute arose between Finch and Ramsay over the right of primacy. Each of the two tried to prove their priority. Moreover, both of them were significantly ahead of the now recognized inventor of the steamboat, Robert Fulton. But Fulton later, in his time, took care of gaining fame as the inventor of the steamboat, and since he was married to a representative of one of the richest and most influential families in the United States, he did not have any special problems with this. And the names of two engineers, one of whom really had priority in this epoch-making invention, were consigned to undeserved oblivion.

Fitch's locomotive, despite its more than modest dimensions (two feet long and two feet wide), remains the very first steam locomotive in the world. And it turns out, therefore, that the steam locomotive was invented in America, and not in England, as is commonly believed. But the United States at the end of the 18th century was a distinctly agrarian country. American society at that time had a very negative attitude towards technology and invention. John Fitch was a man far ahead of his time, and his amazing inventions had no chance of recognition and worthy use in the States. They were soon forgotten.

10 years later. Rule, Britannia!

In 1804, an Englishman named Richard Trevithick “reinvented” the steam locomotive.

Steam locomotive by Richard Trevithick. 1804

It's him. There are quite different images of Trevithick's locomotive on the Internet.

Its boiler was made of drawn iron, a firebox was arranged inside, and the products of fuel combustion came out through a chimney located in the same end wall of the boiler as the fire door. The steam cylinder was installed vertically, and its piston was connected to a pair of drive wheels using metal levers through eccentrics. The exhaust steam was removed from the cylinder into the chimney, increasing the draft from the boiler. The pressure in the boiler reached forty pounds per square inch, that is, it was a high-pressure unit. To avoid excess pressure and associated troubles, the locomotive was equipped with a safety valve. As operating practice has shown, the locomotive operated reliably and stably, but the possible economic effect from it could not be considered satisfactory, since its power was only sufficient for movement, but not for transporting any significant cargo.

Blenkinsop steam locomotive. 1812

The next relatively successful attempt to build a steam locomotive was made by an English engineer named Blenkinsop in 1812. This machine was equipped with two vertical steam cylinders with a diameter of 203 millimeters each. The connecting rods, driven by the pistons, transmitted rotation to the intermediate gears, which, in turn, rotated two large gears mounted on the same axis and engaged in gear sectors laid on both sides outside the rail bed. One supporting axle was installed in front and behind the drive axle. Thus, this locomotive had six wheels in total.

Steam locomotive "Puffing Billy", built in 1813

Just a year later, the Englishman Blackett created the Puffing Billy locomotive. Its design was very similar to Blenkinsop's, however, unlike it, "Puffing Billy" was driven not by gears, but in the "traditional" way - by engaging the drive wheels with the rails under the influence of weight, just like Richard Trevithick's locomotive and all the locomotives familiar to us.

George Stephenson (1781 - 1848)

And in 1814, another Englishman, George Stephenson, an engineer from the Killingworth coal mine, built his first steam locomotive to transport coal. The locomotive was named Blucher (pronounced "Blucher" in American style) in honor of the Prussian general Gebhard Leberecht von Blucher, who played a significant role in the Battle of Waterloo against Napoleon. It had a horizontally located boiler with a diameter of 863 millimeters and a length of 2.43 meters, two steam cylinders 203 millimeters in diameter with a drive on one of the two axes. The piston stroke was 609 millimeters. The Blooker could pull a train carrying thirty tons of coal. It was the first steam locomotive in world history that was able to transport goods.

This locomotive was structurally little different from its predecessors. But, starting with the next model, and a total of sixteen of them were built over the next five years, Stephenson began to move more and more away from the original design. These modifications and the constant pursuit of improvement ultimately predetermined Stephenson's future success in creating a cost-effective steam locomotive. Already in the second model, the cylinders drove all four wheels, which, in addition, were connected in pairs on each side by separate rods. Later, in subsequent models, the rods connecting the wheels were replaced with chains.

Stephenson's third freight locomotive, named Killingworth. 1816

All Stephenson steam locomotives built from 1814 to 1819 were designed to transport coal at low speeds from mining sites. Despite the fact that they did this job well, for a long time, for a long time, passenger transportation by rail in England was exclusively horse-drawn.

In 1820, Stephenson, by now well-known, was awarded the contract to build an eight-mile railway, also for the transport of coal, between Hetton and Sunderland. The road built by Stephenson was unique in that it skillfully used the features of the local terrain. The part of the route leading down the slopes of the hills was covered by coal cars using their own weight, and steam locomotives were used on the ascent sections of the road. This was the first railway that was completely without horse traction.

In 1821, construction began on the Stockton and Darlington railroad (S&DR). The original plan for operating the road called for the use of horses to transport coal cars along iron rails. But after a meeting with Stephenson, road director Edward Pease agreed to make adjustments to the plan.

Through his great tenacity and faith in the power of steam, Stephenson managed to obtain permission to build three locomotives for the S&DR. Having begun this work in 1822, Stephenson completed the first of the three locomotives in September 1825. At first the locomotive was named Active, but it was soon renamed Locomotion.

Locomotive, built in 1825, crosses one of the first railroad bridges

The length of its boiler was three meters, diameter - 1.21 meters. There were two cylinders, with a diameter of 254 millimeters, installed vertically. The four driving wheels were connected in pairs by side pistons, as on the familiar locomotives of the 20th century. The entire structure weighed six and a half tons and was equipped with a tender to supply the steam engine with coal and water.

The Stockton and Darlington railroad opened on September 27, 1825. Led personally by Stephenson, Locomotive pulled a train loaded with coal weighing eighty tons for nine miles, reaching a speed of 24 miles per hour (approximately 39 km/h) on one section of the route. After this, a specially built passenger carriage called "Experiment" was attached to the locomotive, and the first familiarization tour was organized for the dignitaries present at the opening of the road. The S&DR was the first railway in England and the world to use steam engines instead of horses to transport people and goods. The "cavalry" was dismissed.

Even during the construction of the S&DR, Stephenson noted that even minor climbs greatly slowed down the movement of his locomotives, and on even minor declines the locomotive's primitive brakes became almost completely ineffective. This observation led him to the conclusion that the railway track should, if possible, be laid on flat areas of the landscape, avoiding slopes. He subsequently used this experience in the construction of the Bolton & Leigh Railway (B&LR) and Liverpool & Manchester Railway (L&MR), insisting on the construction of a number of overpasses and stone viaducts in difficult terrain to smooth out possible slopes of the tracks.

After only four years, the final and complete superiority of steam over horse-drawn was demonstrated during a public competition held by the L&MR Directorate to ascertain which of the two modes of travel along its newly laid rail route between the two cities would be faster. For the victory, a rather serious reward for those times was announced - five hundred pounds. The company's plan was a success. The competition took place despite attempts by some conservative surrounding landowners and horse-drawn stagecoach companies competing with the railroad to prevent it from taking place. In history they remained under the name Rainhill Trial (Rainhill Trail) after the name of the place between Liverpool and Manchester.

The statement by Stephenson, who was appointed chief engineer, essentially the project manager on the railway side, that he would build a locomotive that would be capable of traveling at a speed of thirty kilometers per hour, caused disbelief and ridicule among everyone around him. But he was confident in his abilities.

Once, when the struggle for holding the competition reached its peak, and the matter came to proceedings in the House of Commons of the British Parliament, during one of the hearings, one of the deputies asked Stephenson a provocative question.
Let’s assume,” said the deputy, “that your car is traveling along the rails at a speed of, say, two and a half or three kilometers per hour, and at this time a cow crosses the road and blocks the car’s path. Wouldn't this be, in some ways, a very delicate situation?
Yes,” the engineer answered without hesitation, “Too delicate.” For a cow.

And when another time someone, clearly hostile to steam engines, asked him whether a steam locomotive along its route would unacceptably frighten people and animals with its chimney, painted bright red, Stephenson, who had a subtle sense of humor , asked a counter question:
How do you think they will understand that it is something to be wary of if the pipe is not painted?

For the competition, which took place in October 1829, Stephenson created the steam locomotive "The Rocket". The name fully justified itself. Stephenson's new locomotive not only defeated all its competitors, both mechanical and live, but was capable of traveling at a record constant speed of forty kilometers per hour for that time. Moreover, two days after the competition, he pulled a weight of thirteen tons at a fantastic speed of fifty kilometers per hour during testing. Stephenson more than fulfilled his promise.

The "Rocket" itself weighed only four and a half tons. It used a boiler with a tubular evaporator system, very similar to that used in modern boilers with tubular evaporators. The length of the boiler was 1.82 meters with a diameter of 1 meter. The steam cylinders were mounted obliquely, and each of the pistons directly rotated one of two large diameter drive wheels. The spent steam was released into the chimney through special exhaust pipes with pointed ends.

The opening ceremony of the L&MR, held on 15 September 1830, was a very significant event in England. It was attended by many prominent statesmen, including the Prime Minister, the Duke of Wellington. Although the day was overshadowed by the death of Liverpool MP William Huskison, who was accidentally hit by a Rocket and crushed to death, the opening of the road received a huge positive response. Stephenson became very famous and began to be bombarded with offers to lead the construction of many railways in Great Britain.

"Rocket" by George Stephenson. 1829

The Rocket was the first truly efficient locomotive to run on rails. Since his success, it was Stephenson who is considered the “father of the steam locomotive”, and his “Rocket” - the first steam locomotive.

There is a statue of Stephenson at the National Railway Museum, York.

And on October 28, 2005 at railway station Chesterfield railway station, which is directly visible from the Tapton House mansion, where the great engineer spent the last ten years of his life, has a monument erected to him. The unveiling ceremony for the bronze statue of George Stephenson included a working, full-size replica of his greatest creation, the Rocket locomotive.

The story of the American "father"

Meanwhile, in 1815, a certain John Stevens (not to be confused with Stephenson!), a wealthy military man with the rank of colonel, as well as an engineer and businessman from the city of Haboken, New Jersey, obtained from his state government the rights to build the first in America railroad. He managed to realize these rights only after ten years and not in the way he would have liked.

Colonel John Stephens (1749 - 1838)

At that time, the United States already had several relatively short horse-drawn railways. The most famous of these are the Beacon Hill Road in Boston, built by Silas Whitney and opened in 1807, as well as the road built in 1809 in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, owned by a man named Thomas Leiper. Leiper).

One of the largest railroad museums in the United States, The Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania, has one rather unusual exhibit.

It looks like both a typical American farm horse-drawn wagon and a self-propelled, mechanically driven carriage. And there is a steam boiler installed on it. This strange machine is a replica of a steam locomotive designed to run on a six hundred and sixty foot circle of rails that was laid on the estate of Colonel Stevens at Haboken.

For your information, the Stevens Institute of Technology, founded in 1870, is now located on the site of this estate. This man is often called "the father of American railroads" these days.

In 1825, John Stevens succeeded in something completely different from what he had set out to achieve. Dreaming of the commercial exploitation of railways and not being able to realize his dream, the colonel built a “funny” road on his estate with a single purpose. This was another attempt to somehow contribute to the popularization and development of railroads in Pennsylvania.

"Railroad Fun" at Stevens's estate in Haboken. 1825

Fifteen years earlier, he completely transferred the shipping company he owned to his sons and concentrated all further efforts in the development of land steam transport. Anticipating the grand future of railroads, Stevens invested in their popularization and development. a large number of personal funds and all your energy. In particular, he spent a lot of effort trying to dissuade the then governor New York De Witt Clinton from the construction of a ship canal to Lake Erie. Canals, as Colonel Stevens reasonably argued, based on his own experience as the owner of a shipping company, could not serve as effective transport routes, especially for supplying cities with agricultural products, and this was the most important and main type of cargo transportation at that time. By the beginning of winter, that is, precisely when farmers needed them most, the canals simply froze.

Unable to prevent what he believed was an erroneous decision to build a canal, and lacking sufficient capital to build his own railroad in New Jersey, Stevens turned to the state of Pennsylvania for financing for the construction of such a road. There, at that moment, the issue of building a system of shipping canals on the territory of the state was also considered. The colonel even built a steam locomotive of his own design, which was driven by the engagement of a gear wheel with a gear sector laid along the rails. He chose this design because he wanted to clearly demonstrate that his locomotive was capable of climbing steep hills and mountain slopes on rails, which were natural (and insurmountable for water transport) an obstacle to the development of transport routes from east coast to the west, inland. But the time had not yet come, either then or in 1825.

Stevens's ideas were nevertheless implemented by the middle of the 19th century. In 1846, the Pennsylvania Rail Road (PRR) became a giant railroad in the United States, absorbing more than six hundred smaller railroad companies and their track infrastructure. The 1846 PRR had a huge network of tracks stretching from the company's headquarters in Philadelphia to New York, Washington, Chicago and St. Louis. Within the state of Pennsylvania, and in some places outside the state, its main lines ran for the most part along the routes predicted by Colonel Stevens. One of them passed through the town of Paradise, where it was joined from the Strasburg Junction station by a short branch of the Strasburg Rail Road, built back in 1832. This line, which still exists today, leads to a very remarkable place, where the aforementioned Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania was opened in 1975.

The fact of the creation of this wonderful museum is yet another confirmation of the enormous role that railroads played in the development of the state, its economy, industry and society as a whole during the century and a half of its existence. Now the museum's exhibition includes more than ninety historical locomotives.

Developed railway network during Civil War The North and South of the United States of 1861-65 created a huge advantage for the northerners over the southerners, giving them the opportunity to quickly transfer troops, deliver strategic cargo from production sites to the theater of operations, and quickly supply their army with everything they needed. Thus, the victorious Battle of Gettysburg for the northerners in 1863, according to the recollections of its participants, was preceded by an intense redeployment of troops and military cargo by rail. On the line from Baltimore to Westminster, Maryland, Western Maryland (WM) trains carrying troops, supplies, and ammunition followed almost continuously, one after another. This line was under the direct coordination of Northern military authorities and became the main supply channel for the Army of the Potomac, originally created by Northerners back in 1861 to defend Washington against the advancing forces of the South and winning the Battle of Gettysburg under the command of General George Meade. Prisoners, wounded and dead bodies were also transported by rail for several days after the battle.

Second try. First steps

Returning to the history of the birth of steam locomotives in America, it should be noted that the “fruit was ripe” by the end of the 1820s. The Americans, who a quarter of a century earlier had successfully buried their own invention of the steam locomotive, began purchasing English locomotives. The first steam locomotives to operate on US railroads were built in England for the Delaware & Hudson Canal Company (D&HCC) by order of its chief engineer, John Jervice.

1828 Stourbridge Lion steam locomotive

There were only four of them. The first of them, bearing the rather strange name Sturbridge Lyon to our ears, was brought with him from a trip in 1828 by Horatio Allen, a representative of the D&HCC, who was sent to England. "Overseas imports" could travel on what were then wooden rails at speeds of up to ten miles per hour. Upon arrival in the United States, these locomotives were immediately put to work. They transported coal from the mines to the Delaware & Hudson piers on the Pennsylvania Canal for further transportation by water. But pretty soon the company removed all four locomotives from the line, recognizing them as ineffective. Following this, they were dismantled. However, both the D&HCC and other American railroads continued to increasingly send engineers to England for railroad training in the early 1830s.

The practice of the first years of operation of British imported steam locomotives in American conditions showed that they were not as good as could be expected. And in general, being created in a highly technically developed and relatively densely populated country with a small territory, the English railways were completely unsuited in their “engineering ideology” to American realities, primarily geographical ones. The Americans quickly recognized the British system of laying rail beds as overly advanced and too expensive in the conditions of their country with a small number of centers of civilization scattered over a large territory and surrounded by vast undeveloped areas. And soon local engineers developed several of their own, cheaper rail track designs.

Many locomotives purchased in England also underwent numerous successive modifications. The original design included pilot trucks to facilitate the passage of radii, differently designed driver's cabs, and "cowcatchers", which literally translates as "cow grabber". This typically American detail was a wedge-shaped safety grille in the front of the locomotive, designed to throw foreign objects off the tracks, placed far forward at a small angle to the rails. On locomotives they began to use headlights of a completely different design compared to England, as well as many other innovations. All this led to the fact that by the 1850s, American locomotives, even appearance very different from English and any other European ones. And this constructive divergence continued in subsequent periods.

Tom Thumb steam locomotive by Peter Cooper. 1830

The first experimental steam locomotive built entirely in the United States in 1830 was a steam locomotive called Tom Thumb. He traveled on the Baltimore & Ohio (B&O) Railroad. It was developed by B&O engineer Peter Cooper. The steam lines in his boiler were made from gun barrels. It developed a power of only 1.43 horsepower.

The first American steam locomotive that went into actual operation was created in the same 1830 by the West Point Foundry Association of New York City for the South Carolina Railroad, whose headquarters were located in Charleston. He was given the name Best Friend.

The following year, 1831, the locomotives West Point, South Carolina and De Witt Clinton, named after the very governor of New York whom Colonel Stevens could not convince, were built.

"Atlantic" with two driving axles

"Old Iron" by Matthias Baldwin

In 1832, the Atlantic and Old Ironsides steam locomotives appeared. This piece of hardware is notable in that it was designed by none other than Matthias W. Baldwin, who later founded the Baldwin Locomotive Works in Philadelphia, one of the three greatest US locomotive-building companies of all time. This was the first locomotive of the great locomotive builder.

In the first years of the development of railway transport, almost every small factory, even with a primitive foundry and some kind of mechanical workshops, had the opportunity to build a steam locomotive. And many small businesses built them. The history of one such enterprise, taking into account the personality of its founder and the gigantic contribution that this man and his company made to the development of American railroads, deserves to be discussed in more detail.

Baldwin Locomotive Works (1834 - 1956). 70,500 locomotives in 122 years.

Matthias William Baldwin (1795 - 1866) was born in Elizabethtown, New Jersey. He was the third of five children in the family of a successful carriage maker. In 1811, a sixteen-year-old young man began training in jewelry making. In 1817, he took a job with the Fletcher and Gardner company in Philadelphia. And two years later, in 1819, he patented his own original gilding method, which later won universal recognition and became an industry standard.

Statue of Matthias Baldwin in front of Philadelphia City Hall

The interests of the young jeweler were not limited only to the craft. At the very beginning of the 1820s, he became interested in printing and bookbinding. He even opened a small printing workshop in Philadelphia where the printing press was powered (a very significant fact!) by a steam engine of his own design. This steam engine developed significant power for its size and was so successful that Baldwin began to receive commercial orders for the manufacture of such steam engines.

Thus, the History of Baldwin Locomotive Works began in a very modest and ordinary manner in 1825. Baldwin entered into a commercial partnership with a man named David Mason. Together they opened a small mechanical workshop. Soon this workshop gained fame throughout the area for the high quality of order execution.

Just to complete the picture, we note that in 1827 Baldwin married a very distant relative. They subsequently had three children.

It seemed that fate itself was consistently and steadily pushing Baldwin towards locomotive building. In 1831, at the request of the City Museum of Philadelphia, he produced a scaled-down demonstration model of a steam locomotive, the design of which was based on the best examples of machines that took part in the above-mentioned 1829 Rainhill Trial competition in England (and we remember whose design won the victory). Baldwin's model was powerful enough to pull several carriages, each carrying four passengers. The innovation of the design was that the model ran on coal, while all locomotives of that time, without exception, were designed for wood power.

That same year, Baldwin received his first order in the suburbs of Philadelphia. He was invited to advise on the assembly of a locomotive from parts sent from England for New Jersey's first railroad company, Camden & Amboy (C&A). It was his comments made during the inspection of the disassembled locomotive that allowed the Irish engineer Isaac Dripps from Belfast, hired by the company to accompany and assemble the purchased machine, relatively quickly, in just eleven days, without drawings, to assemble the locomotive and then properly install it. tune. In 1832, Baldwin himself had to take on the task of assembling another steam locomotive, which arrived from England in the form of a set of parts, also without drawings, at the request of the Newcastle & Frenchtown Railroad (N&FRR). This locomotive, successfully assembled by Baldwin, was named Delaware.

Then it was the turn of “Old Claptrap”. She was completed and tested on the Philadelphia, Germantown & Norristown Railroad (PG&NRR) in November 1832. Initially, the Zhelezyaka was equipped with one (rear) pair of driving wheels and one (front) pair of auxiliary wheels. Baldwin soon modified the locomotive by adding a second pair of auxiliary wheels at the front. The locomotive weighed just over five tons and its drive wheels were 54 inches (1.37 m) in diameter. The diameter of the working cylinders was 9.5 inches (24 cm), the piston stroke was 18 inches (45.7 cm). The wheel hubs and axles were made of iron castings, the spokes and rims were made of hard wood. Forged bandages with flanges were put on the rims. The "Zhelezyaki" frame was made of wood and extended beyond the track in width.

Once put into operation, the "Old Iron" served for more than twenty years.

Quite a short time after the construction of "Old Iron", Baldwin founded the Baldwin Locomotive Works, which throughout almost its entire history since 1834 remained the undoubted leader and "trendsetter" of the American locomotive building, creating more fundamentally new successful designs than any other locomotive building company. company in the world. Only in the mid-50s of the 20th century, as a result of the loss of a strategic partner in the Westinghouse concern, Baldwin lost the market for diesel locomotives to ALCO and EMD and was forced to go out of business.

Before the death of Matthias Baldwin in 1866, the company managed to produce more than one and a half thousand steam locomotives of various types. By the beginning of the 1920s, the fifty-thousandth locomotive was produced. And during the entire existence of Baldwin Locomotive Works, more than 70,500 locomotives came out of its workshops (just think about the number!). Among them, we can especially note such outstanding examples as the Cab Forward 2-8-8-4 and the magnificent high-speed Golden State (GS) 4-8-4 Southern Pacific roads, the famous PRR GG-1 electric locomotives, which served for almost fifty years, as well as the most powerful in the world Chesapeake & Ohio 2-6-6-2 Allegheny - the last steam locomotives built by the great company.

America for the Americans

As already mentioned, the American locomotive industry followed its own path of further progress through a number of improvements. The boiler began to be installed on the locomotive frame not vertically, but horizontally along, just like the working cylinders. The pistons began to be directly connected to one of the pairs of drive wheels, and this pair - by side pistons - to the second drive axle. The firebox was placed between the wheels for quite a long time and remained narrow because of this. They began to lift her above the wheels, right up to the end of the 19th century century.

A whole series of improvements also took place in the development of wheel designs, later combined into the Whyte Wheel Arrangement Classification system. This basic American classification system for steam locomotives was introduced in the early 20th century. It is named after its author, Frederick Methvan Whyte, a Dutch-American engineer for the New York Central (NYC) railroad (the name is pronounced "Whit" in the Dutch manner). These improvements began with the addition of a front auxiliary bogie, which supported the front of the horizontal boiler and helped the locomotives negotiate radii.

According to the Wheat system, the wheel formula of a locomotive is divided into components according to the number of main groups of wheels and is expressed by a sequence of numbers separated by hyphens. The first number reflects the number of auxiliary wheels on the front bogie (pilot truck), the second - the number of driving wheels (if the locomotive has two groups of driving wheels, then two numbers are included in the formula, separated by a hyphen, according to the number of wheels in each group). The last number in the formula expresses the number of wheels on the rear trailing truck. Since most American locomotives of that time did not have rear bogies, the last number in the wheel formulas of such locomotives was zero. And shunting locomotives in those years were not equipped with front bogies. Accordingly, the first number in their wheel formulas was also zero.

In the standard designs of the first American steam locomotives, the 4-2-0 formula was very popular. Only one wheel on each side of the locomotive was steam driven through pistons. After some time, however, the design underwent further improvements. Another pair of drive wheels was added. The formula for this new type of locomotive took the form 4-4-0. It was this design that became typical of America in the mid-19th century. It is known as the "American type" or "American standard".

4-4-0 "American" 60s - 90s of the 19th century

However, the development of the “typically American” 4-4-0 formula did not stop there. As the need arose to increase the power of locomotives, the designers followed the obvious path and added a third drive axle, thereby creating the 4-6-0 formula and its junior modification 2-6-0. The next logical step was the appearance of steam locomotives with the 2-8-0 formula.

In 1866 (the year of the founder's death), the first copy of a new design steam locomotive was built in the Baldwin Locomotive Works workshops, commissioned by the Lehigh Valley Railway. It was called Consolidation because the Lehigh Valley Road had recently been created by the consolidation of several smaller railroad lines into one company. The newly created locomotive had eight driving wheels and one pair of front auxiliary wheels. There was no rear support trolley. This was the first example of the 2-8-0 formula. Consolidation steam locomotives quickly gained great popularity as heavy freight locomotives needed, for example, for transporting coal.

The following year, 1867, the Baldwin Company produced its first example of another new locomotive with six driving wheels and one front pair of auxiliary wheels. This new 2-6-0 locomotive was named The Great Mogul, or simply Mogul, as all locomotives with this formula soon became known. They have also become very popular for transporting heavy loads. Although to be fair, it should be mentioned that Baldwin's Mogul was not the very first 4-6-0. The first such locomotive was built by Rogers Locomotive Works four years before Baldwin, around 1863.

Some examples of the 2-6-0 Mogul remained in service until the late 1940s

And in 1897, designers from the same Baldwin company introduced a new type of heavy freight locomotive with a 2-8-2 wheel arrangement, developed by order of the Japanese Nippon Railway. Not surprisingly, it was called Mikado. This was also facilitated by the extreme popularity of the opera of the same name by Gilbert & Sullivan, "The Mikado", which premiered relatively shortly before the events described - in 1885.

The 2-8-2 formula turned out to be a new word in steam locomotive engineering, since the presence of a rear two-wheeled bogie made it possible to place the firebox not above the drive wheels, but behind them, lengthening and expanding it. This gave a significant increase in power compared to any other previously built steam locomotives.

Since its inception, the Mikado 2-8-2 has been a huge success in the United States, primarily as a freight locomotive. With nearly the same towing capacity as the Consolidation 2-8-0, the Mike, as it was nicknamed, allowed freight trains to be hauled at significantly higher speeds. The design turned out to be so successful that, despite the subsequent appearance of many heavier and more powerful locomotives, the Mikado 2-8-2 remained the most common freight locomotives in the States until the very end of the steam era.

Mikado 2-8-2 PRR No. 520. A typical representative of the class, surviving to this day

During World War II, which for America was primarily a war with Japan, the "enemy" name Mikado was changed to the patriotic name MacArthur in honor of General Douglas MacArthur, who commanded American forces opposing the Japanese in the Pacific.

In the second half of the 19th century, many other types of locomotives were also created in the USA. But the purpose of this material is not to mention “everyone without exception,” but only to note the fundamental stages in the development of steam locomotive building in the United States.

A few words in conclusion

As a conclusion, we can summarize briefly. Until the beginning of the 20th century, as many experts have repeatedly noted, it was possible to increase the power of steam locomotives by simply increasing the size of the boiler and steam cylinders or by increasing the operating pressure in the boiler. With the advent of the 1900s, a new stage in the development of steam locomotive engineering began, when the weight of locomotives increased so much that weight restrictions and axle load limits became relevant. In these new conditions, to achieve a similar effect, the use of much more complex technical solutions was already required. Just as examples of such solutions (in reality there were many more) we can mention steam superheater systems (superheater technology), additional steam drives on rear bogies (booster), systems for preheating water before feeding into the boiler (feedwater heater) and mechanical coal feeders into the firebox (stocker).

An interesting comparison: an 1831 De Witt Clinton three-car locomotive against a 4-6-2 Pacific class locomotive from the 1920s.

If we try to express ourselves figuratively on this topic, we can say that with the advent of the 20th century, the “youth” of the steam locomotive gave way to its “maturity.”

At the unspoken request of a friend cedrus2012 I’m posting an article about American railroads. The whole truth about them...

The US rail freight transportation system is considered one of the most efficient in the world by many indicators. Experts say the key to its successful development is relative freedom from government regulation and the ownership of railway tracks and most of the associated infrastructure by private companies. Significantly inferior in terms of income to their main competitors, road carriers, American railroads, however, are actively increasing cargo turnover and hope that in the near future they will be able to further increase their share in the total volume of national cargo transportation. The main thing is that, as before, they are allowed to independently manage their resources, determine tariff policies and build relationships with partners and clients.

The US railroad network, with a total length of 140,490 miles (226,000 km), serves virtually every sector of the national economy. Railways account for more than 40% of the total national freight turnover. According to data for 2006 (more recent data from American statistics in this moment missing) there were 561 railroad freight companies operating in the United States, and their combined revenue was $54 billion.

In accordance with the current classification in the United States, railway companies are divided into several classes: Class I railway companies, Regional companies, Local line carriers and the so-called S&T operators.

Class I railroad companies are railroad freight companies with annual revenues of $346.8 million or more as of 2006. There are seven such companies in the United States: BNSF Railway (BNSF); CSX Transportation (CSX); Grand Trunk Corporation (which includes the US-based Canadian National (CN), the former Grand Trunk Western (GTW), Illinois Central (IC) and Wisconsin Central); Kansas City Southern (KCS), Norfolk Southern (NS); former Soo Line (SOO), now owned by Canadian Pacific (CP) and Union Pacific (UP). Class I railroads make up only 1 percent of all American railroads, but carry 67 percent of all freight traffic. They employ 90% of all railroad personnel and account for 93% of total U.S. freight revenue. The length of railroad tracks owned by companies in this class can range from 3,200 to 32,000 miles and employ from 2,600 to more than 53,000 people. Class I companies primarily transport long-distance, highly congested intercity routes, often interstate.

Regional railroads are those that operate line-haul service over distances of at least 350 miles and/or have annual revenues of $40 million or more (some of these companies may have revenues approaching those of Class I companies). As of 2006, there were 33 regional rail networks in the United States. They typically transport distances ranging from 400 to 650 miles within 2-4 states. Most regional railroads have between 75 and 500 employees, and only a few have more than 600 employees.

Local liner carriers provide freight services over distances of less than 350 miles and have annual revenues of less than $40 million per year (most earn even less than $5 million per year). In 2006, there were 323 railroad companies in this class in the United States. In most cases, they provide hauling services averaging up to 75 miles (with about 20% hauling freight 15 miles or less) within a single state.

S&T operators (Switching and Terminal) are companies that are engaged not only in the delivery of goods, but also in providing sorting and transshipment services. They also deliver goods within a certain area at the request of one or more carrier companies. Some S&T companies distribute traffic to local railroad companies. In 2006, there were 196 S&T companies in the United States. The largest of them process hundreds of thousands of pastures per year, which brings them tens of millions of dollars annually.

Both of Canada's largest rail carriers (Canadian National Railway and Canadian Pacific Railway), which also own a number of Class I companies, are active in the United States. As of 2006, the rail freight industry employed a total of 187,000 people. Human. Between 1980 and 2007, railroad freight companies spent about $420 billion—more than 40 cents of every dollar earned—to expand tracks, maintain and upgrade their equipment. Such large-scale investments allow them to guarantee safety, cost-effectiveness and high quality of services provided.

Railways are a private business
The vast majority of U.S. rail freight companies, including all Class I companies and all but one regional company, are privately owned and receive very little government support. Most of the railroads on which American freight companies operate are built, operated, and maintained by the companies themselves. By comparison, passenger transportation in the United States, like passenger and freight transportation in almost every other country in the world, is heavily subsidized by the government. At the same time, the main competitors of American railroad companies - motor carriers and barge owners - carry out transportation on highways and waterways that have public status, and at the same time receive significant subsidies from the government and other users of highways and waterways.

The debate over the advisability of government subsidies for transport companies has a history of almost two centuries. For the first 60 years of the 19th century, the issue of government subsidies for the development of so-called “internal improvements,” which included the creation of a national transport system, was the main stumbling block between adherents of the concept of state non-intervention in the economy and mercantilists. The two key points of the political platform of the mercantilists of that time were: the creation of a central bank and the introduction of protective tariffs. The third key point of this concept was based on the idea that taxpayers should subsidize the construction of roads, canals and railways. The reason for the emergence of such a thesis was the need for money to implement projects such as, for example, the 10-year central plan of Albert Gallatan (American politician, 1761-1849) to create a system of canals and publicly funded roads in the country. However, history has shown that projects that the government subsidized during the first half of the 19th century centuries, most of them were financed from private sources. Moreover, in almost all cases where the state intervened in the construction of roads, canals and railways, the main result was increased corruption and financial failure. It is because of these many failures that many states have amended their constitutions to prevent taxpayer dollars from funding such projects.
By 1861, on the eve of the Civil War, the debate over subsidizing "internal improvement" projects ended in victory for opponents of government subsidies. It was decided that government subsidies for private transport were not necessary.

Industry deregulation
But subsidies are subsidies, and control is control. In 1887, the United States passed the Interstate Transportation Act, under which rail freight transportation became the subject of comprehensive economic regulation by the state, and for the next 93 years, the US federal government, through the Committee on Interstate Transportation and Commerce, controlled the entire sphere of rail transportation. As often happens in other countries, such active government concern for the economy led to the fact that by 1970 the US rail freight industry was on the verge of ruin. Railroad revenues were too low to maintain tracks and equipment, fares rose, service quality declined, and railroad bankruptcies became common. Proposals to nationalize the industry began to be heard more and more often. However, an alternative was found to this decisive step.

The salvation for the railroads was the Staggers Rail Act of 1980, passed by Congress in 1980 (see sidebar). Congress recognized that existing legislation impedes the development of effective competition within the industry and the receipt of profits from transportation. The existing regulatory system called into question not only the development of the industry, but also its continued existence in principle. It was therefore decided that the railways should be run by the railway companies, and that they, and not the government, should, guided by market demands, decide which routes to develop, which tariffs to set and which services to offer.

Government control remained minimal. For example, the Committee on Interstate Transportation and Commerce (now the Bureau ground transport USA) retained the authority to set maximum tariff rates, as well as to adopt necessary measures to maintain conditions for healthy competition in the market and prevent the dominance of one or another company.
Overall, the Stagger Act allowed railroad companies to reinvest hundreds of billions of dollars in their development and thereby significantly improve the quality and safety of services; increase cargo turnover and profitability while simultaneously reducing tariffs.

Proponents of industry regulation argue that in some regions of the United States there is a need to specifically promote competition among carriers and/or limit the power of railroad companies to impose tariffs on their own services. However, opponents of regulation are confident that competition develops where it is justified by demand, and the number of railway operators in a given region should correspond to the intensity of freight turnover. Proponents of the "free hand of the market" believe that saying that any market can have two railroad companies just because some markets can do so is the same as saying that every city can have two major league baseball teams just because that's the norm. in NYC.

The railway companies themselves are strongly opposed to increased regulation, as this would reduce their income and, accordingly, their investment in the development and maintenance of infrastructure. Since the passage of the Stagger Act, U.S. railroads have already used up much of their excess capacity, and with continued freight growth, they will have to focus on building new capacity and replacing existing equipment in the very near future.

Since 1980, when government regulations in the rail transportation industry were relaxed, the industry's profitability has increased significantly, but it is still at a fairly low level. In terms of profitability, freight rail transportation in the United States is consistently in the bottom quartile (that is, in the bottom quarter) compared to other sectors of the US economy. Even in the most successful years for rail carriers in 2006 and 2007, railroad profitability was still below average.

Business
American rail carriers operate in a highly competitive market. To compete with each other and other modes of transport, they must provide high-quality services at competitive prices.
In terms of tons of freight moved per mile, railroads account for 41 percent of all U.S. freight volumes, more than any other mode of transportation. Over the past 15 years, this figure has been steadily growing, having previously remained unchanged or even decreased for decades. However, due to the cost-effectiveness of rail transportation, their share in the total income from intercity transportation by all modes of transport is less than 10%. Railroad profitability has been declining for decades, reflecting increased competition.

The bulk of railway freight turnover comes from coal. Coal in the United States is used primarily to generate electricity. And more than 2/3 of this mineral is transported by rail. In 2007, it provided US railroads with 44% of total tonnage and 21% of revenue.
2006 was a particularly successful year for American railroads. Their freight turnover fell slightly in 2007 (mainly due to difficulties in the housing construction and automotive sectors), but the long-term trend indicates continued growth in rail freight turnover. The US Department of Transportation recently released a forecast that demand for rail transportation will increase by 88% by 2035 compared to 2002 levels. Other experts also predict significant growth in freight traffic and say the railways need to evolve accordingly to meet demand. growing demand.

Another trend recent years There remains rapid growth in intermodal transport. Over the past 25 years, the share of intermodal transportation in the total freight turnover of railways has increased 4 times. If in 1980 there were 3 million trailers and containers involved in intermodal transportation, then in 2006 and 2007 there were already more than 12 million. Today, intermodal transportation provides 22% of the income of rail freight carriers.
As already noted, in the railway industry there is a tendency to reduce the cost of transportation. Thus, in 2007, moving a ton of freight per mile cost railroad companies on average 54% less than in 1981 (adjusted for inflation). According to experts, this trend will continue in the future, but railways need to earn enough to maintain equipment and the entire railway infrastructure in good condition.

Between 1980 and 2007, railroad companies were able to reduce the total number of railroad accidents by 71% and the number of work-related injuries by 80%. Overall, 2007 was the safest year on US railroads since statistics were kept. Railroads have the lowest risk of on-the-job injuries compared to other modes of transportation and most other industries, including agriculture, construction and manufacturing.

In the face of fierce competition with road and other carriers, railway companies are keenly focusing public attention on the environmental and economic advantages of their industry. When it comes to fuel consumption, trains are on average three times more economical than road transport, and this figure is constantly growing. Thus, in 1980, approximately 1 gallon (3.78 L) of fuel equivalent was required to move one ton of cargo over a distance of 235 miles. In 2007, the same amount of fuel was enough to move a ton of cargo 436 miles.

According to experts from the Association of American Railroads, if only 10% of road freight turnover is transferred to rail transport, annual fuel savings will be more than 1 billion gallons (or almost 4 million tons). Also, moving a ton of cargo by rail instead of by road reduces the amount of greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere by at least 2/3. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, when moving a ton of cargo per mile, a typical truck emits on average three times more nitrogen oxide and particulate matter than a locomotive. In addition, rail transport apologists never tire of reminding us that railroads make it possible to relieve congestion on highways, since a train transports cargo equivalent to the average volume of the bodies of several hundred trucks.

Cargo vs passengers
US freight and passenger carriers successfully cooperate throughout the country. About 97% of the railroad tracks carried by the National Railroad Passenger Corporation Amtrak are owned by freight companies. By law, freight carriers must provide Amtrak with access to their tracks on demand, with Amtrak trains having priority over all other trains. The passenger company pays freight carriers to use their tracks, but that fee does not fully cover all the costs freight companies have to bear when they provide their capacity to Amtrak trains.

Moreover, each year hundreds of millions of passenger trips travel on the passenger rail network, which at least partially encloses tracks or other infrastructure owned by freight companies. Passenger traffic is growing, even outpacing freight traffic, so looking into the future, the main factor determining the efficiency of rail transport will be the capacity of the railway tracks, and a strict balance of freight and passenger traffic must be maintained in order to provide a high level of service to passengers , without infringing on the interests of clients of cargo transportation companies.

Staggers Rail Act of 1980
The Staggers Act, signed into law by President Jimmy Carter on October 14, 1980, significantly weakened the government regulation of railroad transportation that had existed in the United States since the Interstate Transportation Act of 1887.

This was not the first attempt to weaken government control over US rail transportation. Four years earlier, the US Congress passed the so-called “four R” law - the Railroad Revitalization and Regulatory Reform Act of 1976, which established the basic principles for reforming the regulatory system of the US railway industry. The Four R's Act was intended to give rail carriers greater freedom in the pricing process, as well as to weaken the mechanisms of collective tariff setting procedures and government control over the entry of new companies into the market.

However, despite these provisions being enshrined in legislation, their influence on the activities of the Committee on Interstate Transport and Commerce was practically not felt at first. At the same time, more railroad companies began to support the new regulatory system, and eventually a second round of legislation was initiated, resulting in the passage of the Staggers Railroad Act in 1980.

According to the new law:
railroad companies could set their own rates for their services, provided that the Board of Interstate Transportation and Commerce did not find that they interfere with effective competition in the railroad freight market;
The Committee on Interstate Transportation and Commerce has lost the right to intervene in the process of entering into contracts between shippers and cargo carriers, except in cases where a particular contract might contain conditions that would prevent the carrier from providing its essential services (such conclusions were made by the Committee very rarely, if ever ever occurred);
the government's powers to control the process of tariffing the services of railway carriers were significantly limited in order to protect the rights of shippers;
the general increase in tariffs in the industry was stopped;
measures were taken to prevent collective agreements among carriers to set tariffs, including restrictions on the ability of railway carriers to participate in determining tariffs for transportation in which they did not directly participate, including when it came to other modes of transport.

The Staggers Act did not deregulate the industry entirely. The government was left with the authority to set maximum tariffs and take the necessary measures to prevent one or another company from dominating the market. Under the Act, the Committee could also request from one railway company access to its equipment and tracks for another company.
Thanks to this document, the railways literally experienced a rebirth. According to the U.S. Department of Transportation's Division of Freight Management, the Staggers Act halved railroad carrier prices and railroad company costs within 10 years. In addition, large-scale bankruptcies of railway companies were stopped.

The Staggers Act was one of the three most significant laws passed within two years in the area of ​​reform of the transportation regulatory system. The other two laws were the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978 and the Motor Carrier Act of 1980. These documents led to a change in the system of comprehensive government regulation of the transport industry that had existed almost a century before.
The Staggers Act was named after Congressman Harley Staggers, Chairman of the Committee on Interstate Transportation and Foreign Commerce. This was the first, but not the last, case when the name of the initiator of the bill was officially enshrined in the text of the Federal Law and began to be used as its official name.

(In preparing the material, materials from the Association of American Railroads (AAR) were used)

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