{"product_id":"railways-of-the-twentieth-century-by-geoffrey-allen-dj","title":"Railways of the Twentieth Century By Geoffrey Allen DJ","description":"\u003cbody\u003e\n\u003c!-- HTML Generated by Auction Wizard 2000 - http:\/\/www.AuctionWizard2000.com\/ --\u003e\n\n\n\u003c!-- AW2KLOT#:23293 --\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003ctable style=\"width:98%;padding:2px;margin:auto;border:5px outset #673434;background-color:#FDF3D0\"\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd style=\"border:1px inset #673434;margin:5px;\"\u003e\n\u003ctable style=\"width:100%;border:0px;padding:5px;\"\u003e\n\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd\u003e\n\u003c\/td\u003e\u003c\/tr\u003e\n\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd style=\"padding:5px\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"text-align:center\"\u003e\n\u003cspan style=\"font-family:Arial Black;font-size:1.5em;color:#000000;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;text-decoration: underline;\"\u003eRailroadTreasures\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-family:Arial Black;font-size:1.5em;color:#000000;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;text-decoration: underline;\"\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-family:Arial Black;font-size:1.5em;color:#000000;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;text-decoration: underline;\"\u003eoffers the following item:\u003c\/span\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"text-align:left\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:1.0em;color:#000000;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;text-decoration:none;\"\u003e  \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\n\u003c\/td\u003e\u003c\/tr\u003e\n\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd style=\";padding:5px\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"text-align:center\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-family:Arial;font-size:1.13em;color:#000000;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;text-decoration:none;\"\u003eRailways of the Twentieth Century By Geoffrey Allen DJ\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"text-align:center\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-family:Arial;font-size:1.13em;color:#000000;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;text-decoration:none;\"\u003e  \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\n\u003cdiv style=\"text-align:left\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-family:Calibri;font-size:0.82em;color:#000000;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;text-decoration:none;\"\u003eRailways of the Twentieth Century By Geoffrey Allen Dust Jacket Copyright 1990  204 Pages\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"text-align:left\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-family:Calibri;font-size:0.82em;color:#000000;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;text-decoration:none;\"\u003eINTRODUCTION\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"text-align:left\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-family:Calibri;font-size:0.82em;color:#000000;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;text-decoration:none;\"\u003eAT THE STAKE of the twentieth century railways commanded the inland transport market. Their only serious challenge was from shipping operators where rail routes were paralleled by canals, navigable rivers or coastal shipping lanes. Where the railways were still in private hands, their competitors were not external but their own kind, and inter-railway struggles were often as vicious as any between rail and other modes half-a-century later. The pressure was still on legislators to protect the traveller and trader from railways' misuse of their dominant standing: that the railways themselves might soon be clamouring for protection from unfair competition was unimaginable.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"text-align:left\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-family:Calibri;font-size:0.82em;color:#000000;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;text-decoration:none;\"\u003eThe shadows of road and air transport were already creeping over the railways between the wars. At that stage the traditional railway had sufficient technological reserve, particularly with electric and newborn diesel traction, to fend off bids for its long-haul traffic in bulk. Hut with the advantage of small-unit flexibility, road transport was already supplanting the railway as a local carrier. And in the freight market it was free to pick and choose the best-paying business, so that it was already starting to cream off the high-value end of the merchandise market, leaving the railways, still locked in the common carrier legislation enacted in their monopolistic prime, compelled to accept what was left.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"text-align:left\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-family:Calibri;font-size:0.82em;color:#000000;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;text-decoration:none;\"\u003eRapid mid-century exploitation of the Second World War's wealth of new air and road vehicle technology so intensified the pre-war trends that in some countries the railway's very survival looked dubious. In much of Africa and South America, in particular, road development pre-empted almost all the cash allocated to ground transport. By the end of the 1960s more than one State railway system in those two areas was imprisoned in a spiral of investment starvation that diminished efficiency, which in turn drove away traffic and thus encouraged fresh penny-pinching. Total collapse was on the cards. Even in the industrialized world the contraction of the railway's role to haulage of coal and other minerals in bulk and to short-hauls of peak passenger flows, notably in the conurbations, looked a possibility. They were the only tasks which road and air were clearly incapable of taking over at acceptable financial and environmental cost.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"text-align:left\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-family:Calibri;font-size:0.82em;color:#000000;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;text-decoration:none;\"\u003eTo claim the last quarter of the century as the 'Age of the Train' may be hyperbole. Hut at least it is the age in which the train has firmly re- established itself as indispensable and at the same time fully competitive in all its turn-of-the-century activity except transcontinental passenger and rural service.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"text-align:left\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-family:Calibri;font-size:0.82em;color:#000000;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;text-decoration:none;\"\u003eIt might have happened sooner but for many railway managements, slowness to grasp that the new competitive environment demanded a revolution of operating and commercial methods that had been unquestioningly accepted since the late nineteenth century. That reappraisal had begun before energy sources became a global worry in 1973. So had recognition that in some sectors - the huge new consumer goods freight market, for instance - inter-modal techniques offered a better way back into good business than straight confrontation.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"text-align:left\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-family:Calibri;font-size:0.82em;color:#000000;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;text-decoration:none;\"\u003eThus when the oil crisis broke, the range of practical, thoroughly economical alternatives to more energy-expensive transport the railway had to offer was much wider than it would have been two decades earlier. And technology was fast advancing the electrified railway's superiority further yet. To cite one example, by 1983 a 160 mph (258 km\/h) train would be linking the centers of Paris and Lyons in less overall time than the journey would take by a 314-seater Airbus of the latest build, but for at least 60 per cent less consumption of energy per passenger- and vehicle-mile. Moreover, though railways had been one of the backmarkers in industrial labour cost-shedding, they were now belatedly becoming one of the pacemakers. Rationalization had begun the process. By the 1980s, when over 65,000 bits of information could be stored in a single micro-chip, electronics was accelerating it. With its uniquely disciplined operation over immovable tracks, the railway was the best equipped of any form of transport to benefit from the new age of automation. So, starting with Spain, rail history since 1974 has been dominated by the decision in one country after another to re-draft transport policy with a new emphasis on rail investment and in many cases on rail electrification.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"text-align:left\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-family:Calibri;font-size:0.82em;color:#000000;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;text-decoration:none;\"\u003eThis account of twentieth-century railways, then, is a fascinatingly contrasted three-acter of complacent supremacy, then nervous retreat and finally of tempered confidence. I am deeply grateful to the many friends in the railway industry at home and abroad who have allowed me to see so much of the second half of the action unfold at close quarters.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"text-align:left\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\n\u003cdiv style=\"text-align:left\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-family:Arial;font-size:1.0em;color:#000000;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;text-decoration:none;\"\u003eAll pictures are of the actual item.  If this is a railroad item, this material is obsolete and no longer in use by the railroad.  Please email with questions. Publishers of Train Shed Cyclopedias and Stephans Railroad Directories. Large inventory of railroad books and magazines. Thank you for buying from us.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"text-align:left\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"text-align:center\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-family:Arial;font-size:1.13em;color:#CE0000;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;text-decoration:none;\"\u003eShipping charges\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"text-align:left\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-family:Arial;font-size:1.0em;color:#000000;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;text-decoration:none;\"\u003ePostage rates quoted are for shipments to the US only.    Ebay Global shipping charges are shown. These items are shipped to Kentucky and then ebay ships them to you. Ebay collects the shipping and customs \/ import fees.   For direct postage rates to these countries, send me an email.   Shipping to Canada and other countries varies by weight.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"text-align:left\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"text-align:center\"\u003e\n\u003cspan style=\"font-family:Arial;font-size:1.13em;color:#CE0000;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;text-decoration:none;\"\u003ePayment options\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-family:Arial;font-size:1.13em;color:#000000;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;text-decoration:none;\"\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"text-align:left\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-family:Arial;font-size:1.0em;color:#000000;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;text-decoration:none;\"\u003ePayment must be received within 10 days. Paypal is accepted. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"text-align:left\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"text-align:center\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-family:Arial;font-size:1.13em;color:#CE0000;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;text-decoration:none;\"\u003eTerms and conditions \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"text-align:left\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-family:Arial;font-size:1.0em;color:#000000;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;text-decoration:none;\"\u003eAll sales are final. Returns accepted if item is not as described.  Contact us first.  No warranty is stated or implied. Please e-mail us with any questions before bidding.   \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"text-align:left\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"text-align:center\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-family:Arial;font-size:1.5em;color:#000000;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;text-decoration:none;\"\u003eThanks for looking at our items.   \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"text-align:left\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\n\u003c\/td\u003e\u003c\/tr\u003e\n\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd style=\";padding:5px\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"text-align:center;width:99.9%;margin:auto\"\u003e\n\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/td\u003e\u003c\/tr\u003e\n\u003c\/table\u003e\n\u003c\/td\u003e\u003c\/tr\u003e\u003c\/table\u003e\n\n\u003c\/body\u003e","brand":"RailroadTreasures","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44241226989764,"sku":"392264639937","price":8.38,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/2232\/7333\/files\/57_37d9184a-b627-41d2-891a-9aa3fe6e4a0d.jpg?v=1727908187","url":"https:\/\/railroadtreasures.com\/products\/railways-of-the-twentieth-century-by-geoffrey-allen-dj","provider":"RailroadTreasures","version":"1.0","type":"link"}