Download or read book Death Rode the Rails written by Mark Aldrich and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2006-04-10 with total page 481 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "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."--BOOK JACKET.