ABSTRACT
This chapter examines conditions that have driven the creation and evolution of regional and local railways and shaped their operational and commercial policies, practices, and performance, primarily onward from the 1970s. The Surface Transportation Board (STB), the US federal agency responsible for administering economic regulation of the railway industry, designates three classes of freight railways, based on operating revenue. Operation of rail freight service in North America, measured by line route length and traffic volume, is concentrated on the systems of two railway companies in Canada, two in Mexico, and seven in the United States. Both similar and dissimilar patterns of structural evolution have been replicated many times down through the now more than 160 year-long existence of the North American railway industry. In the US, significant reductions in the scope of economic regulation of railways were made by passage of the Railroad Revitalization and Regulatory Reform Act, the Staggers Rail Act, and the Northeast Rail Services Act (NERSA).
