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The Decline of Railroad Commutation*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 July 2012

George W Hilton
George W Hilton
Affiliation:
Lecturer in Business Administration, University of California, Berkeley
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Abstract

This article traces the economic factors in the decline of the railroad commuter business and examines the recent public-policy issues. The author is extremely skeptical of the rebirth of railroad commutation under any institutional arrangements and predicts further decline and possibly eventual extinction.

Type
Research Article
Information
Business History Review , Volume 36 , Issue 2 , Summer 1962 , pp. 171 - 187
Copyright
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 1962

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References

1 Nelson, James C., Railroad Transportation and Public Policy (Washington, D. C., Brookings Institution, 1959), p. 20.Google Scholar

2 Yearbook of Railroad Information, 1960 ed., p. 51.

3 Ibid., p. 37.

4 Ibid.

5 Ibid.

6 Southern Pacific Company, California Public Utilities Commission Application, June 22, 1960, Statement E.

7 Rapid Transit Systems in Six Metropolitan Areas, Staff report prepared for the Joint Committee on Washington Metropolitan Problems, 86th Cong., 1st Sess. (1959), p. 6.

8 Yearbook of Railroad Information, 1960 ed., p. 36.

9 Howard Hosmer, et al., “Railroad Passenger Train Deficit,” ICC docket No. 31954 (1958), p. 18.

10 Typescript data furnished by Illinois Central Railroad, 1960.

11 Hosmer, “Railroad Deficit,” p. 50.

12 Brooks-Scanlon Co. v. Railroad Commission, 251 U. S. 396 (1920).

13 Abandonment of Branch Line by Southern Pacific Co., 72 ICC 404.

14 Chicago Milwaukee St. Paul & Pacific RR v. Illinois, 355 U. S. 300 (1958).

15 Chicago North Shore & Milwaukee Ry. Abandonment, 312 ICC 49.

16 Press release of Southern Pacific Company (1960).

17 Lehigh Valley Railroad Company Discontinuance of Service, AU Passenger Operations, 307 ICC 239.

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19 Ibid., June 2, 1958, Aug. 4, 1958; The New York Times, July 1, 1959, p. 23.

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23 Ibid., Sept. 14, 1959, p. 56.

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25 Dwight R. G. Palmer, “A Proposal Toward Solving New Jersey's Transportation Problem,” Report of the New Jersey Commissioner of Highways to Governor Robert B. Meyner, June 15, 1959; press release of Governor Meyner, June 16, 1959.

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29 Ibid., May 5, I960, p. 1.

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