ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at the main structuring effects of rail terminals, particularly high-speed rail and intermodal rail. New passenger terminal developments, particularly high-speed rail stations, offer the opportunity to establish office parks, including hotels, large surface retail and convention centres. The book focuses on the structuring effects of two types of rail terminals that have accounted for a large share of the renewed dynamism of rail in the late twentieth and early twenty-first century: high-speed rail and intermodal rail. The surge of inland long distance containerized rail traffic require transmodal operations as freight is moved from one rail network to the other. The chapter concludes with some of the implications of the spatial re-bounding of rail terminals and their impacts on the future of rail. With globalization and the growth of long distance trade, container rail terminals have come to play a growing role in the structure of regional economic landscapes.
