The “Evil” of Railway Gauge Breaks: A Study of Causes in Britain, India, Japan, and Manchuria

A railroad gauge is defined as the width between two rails on a track. In the earliest days of railroading, many companies adopted different gauges, often resulting in chaos where incompatible lines met up. By the 20thcentury, most countries selected a single national gauge, but the fallout from the ‘battle of the gauges’ can still be felt today, making the issue of gauge breaks more than an historical footnote. This thesis suggests that the study of track width can provide meaningful insight into why Britain and Japan differed so greatly in constructing their own railroad lines—differences that impacted their oversight of railway systems in India and Manchuria. After examining the causes of gauge breaks in these countries, the thesis concludes that whether a gauge break problem arose or was quickly resolved largely depended on the following factors: (1) Whether interested parties adopted a localist or nationalist approach to railroad construction (i.e., building a line instead of a network); (2) How the railroads were financed, and whether investors were impacted by economic losses and the unprofitability of lines; (3) Inconsistent railway policies that were often influenced by a revolving door of advisors and/or parties with conflicting interests (e.g., laissez-faire proponents versus advocates of strong regulatory oversight); and (4) The ability of those most impacted by gauge breaks to petition for redress

Salient Aspects of the Growth Story of Indian Railways 1981-82 through 2007-08

This paper makes an attempt to provide a broad overview of the salient aspects of the growth story of Indian Railways (IR) since independence. More specifically, the study aims to analyse the trends of output and employment for the period 1981-82 through 2007-08. The entire study period is divided into three sub-periods - Period I (1981-82 to1991-92);PeriodII(1992-93-2002-03);PeriodIII(2003-04to2007-08). Inaddition, the study also looks at the 'turnaround' story of IR. The output of IR is categorised as freight (NTKM) and passenger (PKM) outputs. Labour is divided into three categories - skilled management personnel (group A&B), semi-skilled employees (group C) and unskilled employees (group D). The data on freight output reveal that while the average annual growth rates of NTKM declined in the second period over the first period, high average annual growth rates of freight output were registered in the third period. The rate of growth of PKMs increased over the study period across IR. The employment scenario across IR shows that the percentage share of the skilled management personnel (group A&B) remained more or less the same over the entire study period, while the percentage share of the semi-skilled labour (group C) increased from around 51 percent in the first period to nearly 63 percent in the third period. The percentage share of the unskilled labour (group D) registered a decline from the first period to the third period (from nearly 49 percent to 36 percent respectively). The rate of growth of labour productivity registered an increase in all the three periods over IR. The contribution made by the skilled management personnel to output is more when compared to the semi-skilled labour. The turnaround story tells us that the high growth rates of output and earnings on IR were made possible through the implementation of various strategies already in place.India, railroads, output, Employment

Determinants of interregional mobility in Russia: evidence from panel data

The paper studies determinants of internal migration in Russia. Using panel data on gross region-to-region migration flows in 1992-99, we estimate the effect of economic, political and social factors. Although overall migration is rather low, it turns out that its intensity does depend on economic factors even controlling for fixed effects for each origin-destination pair. People move from poorer and job scarce regions with worse public good provision to ones that are richer and more prospering both in terms of employment prospects and public goods. Migration is however constrained by the lack of liquidity; for the poorest regions, an increase in income raises rather than decreases outmigration. Our estimates imply that up to a third of Russian regions are locked in poverty traps.internal migration, liquidity constraints, gravity model, Russia's transition

Montana Business Quarterly, Winter 1966

This is an academic publication produced by the Bureau of Business and Economic Research (BBER) at the University of Montana’s College of Business. This is volume 4, number 1.https://scholarworks.umt.edu/mtbusinessquarterly/1027/thumbnail.jp

Special Libraries, May 1933

Volume 24, Issue 4https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/sla_sl_1933/1003/thumbnail.jp

More than a river: using nature for reform in the progressive era

Title from PDF of title page, viewed on March 27, 2014Dissertation advisor: John HerronVitaIncludes bibliographical references (pages 242-294)Thesis (Ph. D.)--Dept. of History and English. University of Missouri--Kansas City, 2013The decades around the turn of the twentieth century were a time of vast social and economic change. Industrialization altered the ways people related to each other and to their social, political, and cultural institutions. Some perceived that the rise of cities, changing middle-class values, and changing work patterns created vexing social convulsions—disorder, inefficiency, and class struggle. The work of John Gneisenau Neihardt, William Ellsworth Smythe, and Francis Griffith Newlands revealed how progressives looked to nature as a tool of social reform. Each of these men understood the American environment in multiple contexts. Nostalgia and romanticized Missouri River history activated themes of empire, race, and manhood in Neihardt’s work. He also voiced the concerns of river improvement advocates, who wanted more federal support for their cause. William Smythe became the chief propagandist for the western irrigation cause. He formulated resilient and emotionally powerful rhetoric that motivated irrigationists. Both the river improvement and irrigation causes, however, proved fractious and parochial. Newlands was a practical politician. In reclamation, he found a mechanism to bring irrigation and river control under coordinated government management for social order, business expansion, and reliable systems of investment and return. These social reform efforts, however, faltered and created new kinds of conflicts that justified and necessitated continued government intervention in society and business in the name of progressAbstract -- Introduction -- John Gneisenau Neihardt and the Missouri River -- Neihardt and Missouri River Improvement -- William Elsworth Smythe and the Irrigated Paradise -- Francis Griffith Newlands and the West -- Newlands: from Irrigation to Rivers -- Working Together and Not Working Together -- Afterword -- Select bibliograph

Railroads of the Raj: Estimating the Impact of Transportation Infrastructure

How large are the benefits of transportation infrastructure projects, and what explains these benefits? To shed new light on these questions, this paper uses archival data from colonial India to investigate the impact of India's vast railroad network. Guided by four predictions from a general equilibrium trade model, I find that railroads: (1) decreased trade costs and interregional price gaps; (2) increased interregional and international trade; (3) increased real income levels; and (4), that a sufficient statistic for the effect of railroads on welfare in the model (an effect that is purely due to newly exploited gains from trade) accounts for virtually all of the observed reduced-form impact of railroads on real income in the data. I find no spurious effects from over 40,000 km of lines that were approved but - for four different reasons - were never built.