For most of the 19th and much of the 20th centuries, railroads dominated
American transportation. They transformed life and captured the
imagination. Yet by 1907 railroads had also become the largest cause of
violent death in the country, that year claiming the lives of nearly
twelve thousand passengers, workers, and others. In Death Rode the
Rails Mark Aldrich explores the evolution of railroad safety in the
United States by examining a variety of incidents: spectacular train
wrecks, smaller accidents in shops and yards that devastated the lives
of workers and their families, and the deaths of thousands of women and
children killed while walking on or crossing the street-grade tracks.
The evolution of railroad safety, Aldrich argues, involved the interplay
of market forces, science and technology, and legal and public
pressures. He considers the railroad as a system in its entirety:
operational realities, technical constraints, economic history, internal
politics, and labor management. Aldrich shows that economics initially
encouraged American carriers to build and operate cheap and dangerous
lines. Only over time did the trade-off between safety and
output--shaped by labor markets and public policy--motivate carriers to
develop technological improvements that enhanced both productivity and
safety.
A fascinating account of one of America's most important industries and
its dangers, Death Rode the Rails will appeal to scholars of economics
and the history of transportation, technology, labor, regulation,
safety, and business, as well as to railroad enthusiasts.
