Outline For Rail Research Paper

1338 Words6 Pages

I. Introduction: Rail the backbone of the U.S. transportation infrastructure. Since it was first introduced in 19th century, it has served the country’s overland transportation needs. Furthermore, the constriction of the Western pacific and Union pacific railroads near the end of the 19th century served to help unite the country after the civil war. A. Thesis: Rail transportation is the best overland mode of transportation for both small and large cargo that requires high efficiency. II. History of rail transportation and its relevance and common usage/development over the years. A. History of rail in the U.S. a. The civil war and the aftermath b. Uniting a broken country with rail B. Development of rail in other all over the world. a. The …show more content…

However, a major downside of rail transportation is that “Rail carriers incur a high fixed cost in terms of tracks, locomotives, cards, and yards (Chopra, Meindl, & Vir Kalra, 2016, p. 443). c. Lower responsiveness than either truck or air. B. Cost vs Trucking a. Price is higher than rail. b. Capacity is also larger then rail. c. Better responsiveness than rail. i. In the early days, the choice of rail vs truck was easy because by the time that transportation by tuck came about rail transportation had been around for a long time. Furthermore, “the adoption of motor cars also proved to be more gradual than that of passenger trains, the result of primitive technologies, high costs, and poor roads” (GRANT, 2012, p. 248). This further added to the dominance of rail. C. Cost vs Air a. Price is much higher than rail. b. Capacity is much lower than rail. c. Much better responsiveness than rail. i. Not only was rail the dominant form of transportation of long distance overland freight, it was also dominant form of long distance passengers’ transportation for a long time. In fact, “only after the introduction of jet aircraft, federal deregulation, and the appearance of low-cost carriers did the masses take to the skies” (GRANT, 2012, p. …show more content…

Price is lower than rail. b. Capacity is larger than rail. c. Low responsiveness compared to rail. d. Obviously does not compete with rail in terms of overland transpiration. E. Benefits of intermodal a. Make use of one or more transportation methods in order to achieve to achieve the best mix of responsiveness and efficiency. b. As far as overland transportation goes, a combination of truck and rail in an intermodal system seems offer the best of both worlds in terms of cost and time of delivery that is unrivaled by any other form of transportation on its own (Chopra, Meindl, & Vir Kalra, 2016, p. 445). V. Biggest companies/industries that use this mode A. The rail companies in the U.S. before the Staggers rail act of 1980. a. history of bad behavior i. “Each railroad was the exclusive provider of carriage over its tack. This monopoly allows railroads to determine the price they charged, as well as the level of service they provided to their customers” (Chopra, Meindl, & Vir Kalra, 2016, p. 445). b. The aftermath i. The Staggers rail act of 1980 included many aspects that benefited the rail industry. These included the deregulation of railroads, permitted them some control of rates, add made entry into the rail industry somewhat easier (Chopra, Meindl, & Vir Kalra, 2016, p.