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The American public has a fascination with railroad wrecks that goes back a long way. One hundred years ago, staged railroad accidents were popular events. At the Iowa State fair in 1896, 89,000 people paid $20 each, at current prices, to see two trains, throttles wide open, collide with each other. "Head-on Joe" Connolly made a business out of "cornfield meets" holding seventy-three events in thirty-six years. Picture books of train wrecks do good business presumably because a train wreck can guarantee a spectacular destruction of property without the messy loss of life associated with aircraft accidents. A "train wreck" has also entered the popular vocabulary in a most unusual way. When political manoeuvering leads to failure to pass the federal budget, and a shutdown is likely of government services, this is widely called a "train wreck. " In business and team sports, bumbling and lack of coordination leading to a spectacular and public failure to perform is also called "causing a train wreck. " A person or organization who is disorganized may be labelled a "train wreck. " It is therefore not surprising that the public perception of the safety of railroads centers on images of twisted metal and burning tank cars, and a general feeling that these events occur quite often. After a series of railroad accidents, such as occurred in the winter of 1996 or the summer of 1997, there are inevitable calls that government "should do something.
List of contents
1 Setting the Scene.- 2 Historical Trends.- 3 Public Policy.- 4 How Safe are American Railroads?.- 5 Risk Evaluation.- 6 The Story So Far.- 7 Economic Theory of Bilateral Accidents.- 8 Highway Grade Crossings.- 9 Trespassers.- 10 Occupational Injuries.- 11 Benchmark Levels of Operational Safety.- 12 Market Power.- 13 Imperfect Information.- 14 Customer Rationality.- 15 Railroad Myopia 115.- 16 Externalities.- 17 Non-Regulatory Responses.- 18 Federal Safety Regulations.- 19 Evaluation of Regulations.- 20 A New Era for Safety Regulation.- 21 The Way Forward.- References.
