Great Northern Railway Research Articles

No Way to Run a Railroad: The Decline of the Great Northern Railway of Ireland after Partition

No Way to Run a Railroad: The Decline of the Great Northern Railway of Ireland after Partition

ПРОСТРАНСТВЕННОЕ РАЗВИТИЕ НАРОДНОГО ХОЗЯЙСТВА СССР И ОБЕСПЕЧЕНИЕ ИНКЛЮЗИВНОГО РОСТА СОВРЕМЕННОЙ ЭКОНОМИКИ РОССИИ

The research is aimed at studying and analyzing the experience of spatial development of the national economy of the USSR in order to develop proposals and recommendations for ensuring inclusive growth of the modern Russian economy. Goal. To give a system of arguments proving that the experience of spatial development of the national economy of the USSR in the Arctic region should not only be used to the maximum, but also scaled up to ensure inclusive, involving all segments of the population and increasing their well-being of the development of the modern economy of Russia. Tasks. To prove the necessity and determine the main directions for the creation and functioning of a large transport and transit corporation in the Arctic region - a modern superorganization following the example of the spatial development of the USSR. To pay special attention to the directions of ensuring inclusive growth of the Arctic economy through the development of North-South trade routes and strengthening the economic sovereignty of Russia. Methodology. The research uses the methods of system analysis, evolutionary and institutional theory, the theory of production and technological balance and technical and economic structures, expert and analytical assessments, content analysis of periodical materials. Results. It is determined that the priority project should be the construction and year-round transit use of the Great Northern Railway (VSP) and the North-South transport corridor in order to multiply the export of transport services in the Arctic zone. It is established that after the collapse of the USSR and the independence of the countries of Central Asia and the South Caucasus, the spatial organization of the Russian economy took on an even greater northern, Arctic character. The increase in the priority of the development programs of the Russian Arctic should be accompanied by the establishment of cooperation and strengthening of integration with the southern states of the Eurasian space, the infrastructure basis of which will be the new trade routes of the XXI century in the direction of «North - South» and the development of their innovation and industrial belts. Conclusions. On the basis of historical and economic studies and analysis of the experience of spatial development of the national economy of the USSR, the conclusion is made about the relevance and necessity of creating and developing new organizational and institutional forms of functioning of the Arctic economy, the formation of trade routes of the XXI century and their innovative and industrial belts both in the direction of «East-West» (the Northern Sea Route, the Great Northern Way) and «North-South» (the Arctic Ocean - Indian Ocean transport corridor).

Railway Architecture: The Great Northern Railway (Ireland) at Dundalk

ABSTRACTThis article is adapted from the dissertation ‘Railway Architecture: The Great Northern Railway (Ireland) at Dundalk’, completed by Siobhan Osgood for the MPhil in Art History: Art + Ireland, where it was awarded a distinction. The study provides an historical analysis in the context of architectural development and broader railway culture in Ireland to provide an interpretation and understanding of the use of polychromatic yellow, red and black brickwork to create a visual identity for railway architecture. The use of accented colours to pick out key features is repeated across a series of buildings, thus creating a distinctive style of ‘brick-branding’. These are most prominent in the town of Dundalk, where the GNRI had its central engineering works at the halfway point on the Dublin to Belfast mainline and at the point where the Irish North line extended west and north. The buildings were each intricately designed by the GNRI's first chief engineer, William Hemingway Mills, a second-generation railway engineer who merged the roles of architect and engineer using an amalgamation of architectural designs from his earlier career in Derby, Scotland, Mexico and Spain. Mills thus created his own ‘Millsian’ style of industrial architectural design.

Encounters in Avalanche Country: A History of Survival in the Mountain West, 1820–1920, by Diana L. Di Stefano

Encounters in Avalanche Country: A History of Survival in the Mountain West, 1820-1920, by Diana L. Di Stefano, Seattle, University of Washington Press, 2013. x, 171 pp. $34.95 US (cloth). When avalanches (or snowslides) make history, the results are usually rather grim. This is certainly the case in Diana L. Di Stefano's Encounters in Avalanche Country, but there is also more here than thundering avalanches wiping out towns and trains and creating deadly disasters. Focusing on the North American West between 1820 and 1920, Di Stefano contends that mountain people developed increasingly complex understandings of their mountainous environments that helped them negotiate the often perilous environmental realities--particularly avalanches--that framed life in the high country for everyone. Over time, those understandings shaped ideas about environmental risk and responsibility, which in turn influenced social and economic developments, cultural and legal traditions, and even the way people thought about their relationship to the natural world more generally in the emerging industrial age. These are interesting ideas and Di Stefano pursues them in eight relatively brief chapters. The first three chapters move quickly across vast historiographical terrain, leaping from the fur trade to industrial mining in forty-three pages. The main ideas developed here focus on the challenges and dangers of mountain life--such as extreme cold, deep snows, steep slopes, and avalanches--and the way trappers, mailmen, miners, and others learned to negotiate and understand these challenges, weigh their risks, and stitch together a more cooperative social fabric in response. The following five chapters narrow the focus of the book to railways and the mountain towns they served. After a short synthetic overview of the problems snowslides posed for high country railroads, Di Stefano digs deeply into two events that animate much of the rest of the book: the 1910 Rogers Pass slide that struck the Canadian Pacific Railway in the Selkirk Mountains near the town of Revelstoke, and the 1910 Wellington slide that hit the Great Northern Railway east of Seattle in the Cascade Range. The Rogers Pass slide killed fifty-seven railroad workers, while the Wellington slide carried away ninety-six passengers and crew. These tragedies generated numerous liability claims, which Di Stefano analyzes in great detail to both reinforce and parse her ideas about local environmental knowledge, the social solidarity and identity of mountain people and their communities, and the nature and limits of liability law. Throughout Encounters in Avalanche Country, Di Stefano's most effective historiographical intervention touches on the way we think about the relationship of environment and culture in the settlement of the North American West. …

Archibald Sturrock and the Steam Tender Experiment

The impact is assessed of the career and family circumstances of Archibald Sturrock on his decision to experiment with the auxiliary or powered steam tender, for which he is best remembered. Earlier experiments with the steam tender in France and Scotland are reviewed, particularly the Caledonian Railway's experience in 1859–60. The contribution is examined of Charles Sacré and the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway to the development of the steam tender on the Great Northern Railway and the reasons for the failure of the experiment are identified. The impact this had on Sturrock's decision to retire from the Great Northern Railway in December 1866 is assessed, and the effect of his experience on the development of Gresley's booster and the Poultney steam tender in the 1920s is considered.

‘Diplomatic Forces of the New Railroad’

In this paper, a comparison is offered of the activities of the Canadian Pacific Railway and the Great Northern Railway to secure access to a Pacific terminus at Vancouver and Seattle, respectively. The paper's focus on the actions of company managers sets it apart from accounts of the terminus activities of other lines on the Pacific coast of North America. Its method, an examination of terminus entry conflict through the lens of a select group of company officers that highlights the role of the railroad local lawyer, melds traditional perspectives on railroad management with organizational approaches of other researchers. Its conclusion, that both railroads sustained significant setbacks in the process, departs from the received interpretation in histories of the concerns.

Profiting from the Plains: The Great Northern Railway and Corporate Development of the American West

Profiting from the Plains: The Great Northern Railway and Corporate Development of the American West

Profiting from the Plains: The Great Northern Railway and Corporate Development of the American West

Book Review| January 01 2005 Profiting from the Plains: The Great Northern Railway and Corporate Development of the American West Profiting from the Plains: The Great Northern Railway and Corporate Development of the American West. Claire Strom. C. Fred Williams C. Fred Williams Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Agricultural History (2005) 79 (1): 109–110. https://doi.org/10.1215/00021482-79.1.109 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Twitter Permissions Search Site Citation C. Fred Williams; Profiting from the Plains: The Great Northern Railway and Corporate Development of the American West. Agricultural History 1 January 2005; 79 (1): 109–110. doi: https://doi.org/10.1215/00021482-79.1.109 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu nav search search input Search input auto suggest search filter Books & JournalsAll JournalsAgricultural History Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. Copyright 2005 Agricultural History Society2005 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Review of Profiting from the Plains: The Great Northern Railway and Corporate Development of the American West by Claire Strom:Profiting from the Plains: The Great Northern Railway and Corporate Development of the American West

Review of Profiting from the Plains: The Great Northern Railway and Corporate Development of the American West by Claire Strom:Profiting from the Plains: The Great Northern Railway and Corporate Development of the American West

Profiting from the Plains: The Great Northern Railway and Corporate Development of the American West. By Claire Strom. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2003. x + 228 pp. Illustrations, maps, notes, bibliography, index, $35.00

Previous articleNext article No AccessBook ReviewsProfiting from the Plains: The Great Northern Railway and Corporate Development of the American West. By Claire Strom. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2003. x + 228 pp. Illustrations, maps, notes, bibliography, index, $35.00Mark FinlayMark Finlay Armstrong Atlantic State University Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Volume 9, Number 3July 2004 Published for the American Society for Environmental History and the Forest History Society Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.2307/3985788 © 2004 American Society for Environmental History and Forest History SocietyPDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

Profiting from the plains: the Great Northern Railway and corporate development of the American West

Profiting from the Plains looks at two inextricably linked historical movements in the United States: the westward expansion of the great Northern Railway and the agricultural development of the northern plains. Claire Strom explores the persistent, idiosyncratic attempts by the Great Northern to boost agricultural production along its rail routes from St. Paul to Seattle between 1878 and 1917. Lacking a federal land grant, the Great Northern could not make money through land sales like other railways. It had to rely on haulage to make a profit, and the greatest potential for increasing haulage lay in farming. The energetic and charismatic owner of the Great Northern Railway, James J. Hill, spearheaded most of the initiatives undertaken by his corporation to boost agricultural production. He tried, often unsuccessfully, to persuade farmers of the profitability of his methods, which were largely based on his personal farming experience. When Hill's initial efforts to increase haulage failed, he shifted his focus to working with outside agencies and institutions, often providing them with the funding to pursue projects he hoped would profit his railroad. At the time, state and federal agencies were also promoting agricultural development through irrigation, conservation, and dryland farming, but their agendas often clashed with those of the Great Northern Railway. Because Hill failed to grasp the extent to which politicians' goals differed from those of the railroad, his use of federal expertise to promote agricultural change often backfired. But despite these obstacles, the railroad magnate ironically remained among the last defenders of the small-scale farmer modelled on Jeffersonian idealism. This fascinating story of railroad politics and development ties into themes of corporate and federal sponsorship, which are increasingly recognized as fundamental to western history. As the first scholarly examination of James J. Hill's agricultural enterprises, Profiting from the Plains makes an important contribution to the biography of the popular and controversial Hill, as well as to western and environmental history. Claire Strom is assistant professor of history, North Dakota State University, Fargo.

Profiting from the Plains: The Great Northern Railway and Corporate Development of the American West. By Claire Strom. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2003. x + 228 pp. Photographs, illustrations, maps, bibliography, notes, index. Cloth, $35. ISBN: 0-295-98348-5.

Profiting from the Plains: The Great Northern Railway and Corporate Development of the American West. By Claire Strom. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2003. x + 228 pp. Photographs, illustrations, maps, bibliography, notes, index. Cloth, $35. ISBN: 0-295-98348-5. - Volume 78 Issue 3

Profiting from the Plains: The Great Northern Railway and Corporate Development of the American West by Claire Strom

Profiting from the Plains: The Great Northern Railway and Corporate Development of the American West by Claire Strom

The Saint Paul & Pacific Railroad: an empire in the making, 1862-1879

Beginning in 1862 as a small carrier connecting St. Paul and Minneapolis with outlying towns, the Saint Paul & Pacific Railroad became the foundation of the vast rail system that would open the entire Northwest. As a pioneering line in virgin territory, it played a vital role in the early development of Minnesota's economy. When railroad tycoon James J. Hill took over the troubled company in 1879, its tracks were extended into westward lines that eventually, as the Great Northern Railway, reached the Pacific Ocean. Written by leading railroad historian Augustus J. Veenendaal Jr. this finely researched book examines the growth of the fledgling Saint Paul & Pacific as it struggled to lay track, meet the schedule, and make the payroll. The railway's leaders and workers took risks of injury and ruin during these years on the frontier, when everything except hardship was in short supply. Veenendaal devotes an entire chapter to the accidents and disasters that befell the new enterprise, including deadly collisions and derailments. He also chronicles triumphs, such as the use of the Miller coupler and the refurbishment of the famed Wm. Crooks, a 4-4-0 woodburning engine that was the first locomotive in Minnesota. Veenendaal reveals the strategic importance of foreign investment in American railroads in particular, Dutch investment. The Saint Paul & Pacific was one of the first railroads to attract the attention of Dutch bankers, who would eventually become the second largest group of foreign investors in American railroads. After James J. Hill bought out the Dutch interest in the railroad, he reorganized it as the St. Paul, Minneapolis & Manitoba Railroad. Today, after the megamergers of recent years, the Burlington Northern Santa Fe system owns the ghost of the old Saint Paul & Pacific Railroad Company.

CREWS: A Train Scheduling Tool

We present a tool, CREWS, for generating applications in personnel scheduling in transportation companies. Systems based on CREWS have been developed for the Portuguese Railways, the Dutch Railways, the Norwegian Railways, and the West Anglia Great Northern Railway (one of the operators of the British Rail). The initial version of CREWS supported long-term scheduling of drivers and guards, but current developments are extending it to support short-term planning as well. CREWS heavily relies on the use of Artificial Intelligence techniques and has been built in the perspective of a white box system, in the sense that the planner can perceive what is going on, can interact with the system by proposing alternatives or querying decisions, and can adapt the behaviour of the system to changing circumstances. Scheduling can be done in automatic, semi-automatic or manual mode. CREWS has mechanisms for dealing with the constant changes that occur in input data, can identify the consequences of the change and guides the planner in accommodating the changes in the already built schedules (re-scheduling). 1. Problem Description Long-term scheduling of crew is typically done several months prior to the execution of the schedule and consists in arranging the tasks that have to be done by personnel into duties (sequences of tasks to be done by one crew member in one day). A set of duties for the crew members of a certain depot with certain qualifications is called a schedule. Crew scheduling is known for its algorithmic complexity. It is usually carried out manually by a small number of planners that acquire most of their knowledge through experience. Besides the human skill of efficiently arranging tasks into duties, crew Transactions on the Built Environment vol 34, © 1998 WIT Press, www.witpress.com, ISSN 1743-3509

Promotional Imagery of Glacier National Park

The Great Northern Railway vigorously encouraged visitation to Glacier National Park between 1911 and 1930. We reconstruct the railway's promotional imagery of Glacier through an assessment of 796 photographs used by the company to publicize park landscapes and activities. Seven themes in the photographs—Native Americans, scenery, recreation, wildlife, the Wild West, park management, and personalities—reveal a useful portrait of how Glacier National Park was marketed with images of the American West mass distributed for decades by one of the nation's most influential corporations.

United States Steel's Acquisition of the Great Northern Ore Properties: Vertical Foreclosure or Efficient Contractual Governance?

This article examines United States Steel Corporation's acquisition by long-term lease of the iron ore properties of the Great Northern Railway. This 1906 transaction, which significantly increased U.S. Steel's already substantial ore holdings, has been characterized by contemporary observers and modem economists as an example of vertical foreclosure. We present qualitative and quantitative evidence to support an alternative view that the lease generated a net efficiency gain as it promoted relationship-specific investment in the exploitation of the ore properties.

On the Move: Córas Iompair Éireann 1945-95

The beginning of the railways in Ireland is the starting point for this major work on a significant Irish institution, Coras Iompair Eireann - the national public transport organisation. The troubled stories of the railways is outlined, through to the political controversy that attended CIE's birth in 1944. The rise of the motor car and the privately-owned lorry affected the demand for public transport and the author describes CIE's struggle with an inherently conflicting mandate which required it to serve an undefined 'national interest' while meeting sometimes arbitrary financial targets. Conversion of railways from steam to diesel power, unsuccessful efforts by the Dublin and Belfast governments to preserve the Great Northern Railway, bitter protests at various railway closures, the saga of the canals and of CIE's hotels, are all recorded. Bus operations also feature, including the Van Hool and Bombardier stories, the success of Expressway, growing urban traffic congestion and industrial relations problems, particularly concerning one-person bus operation.

Review: The Great Northern Railway: A History, by Ralph W. Hidy, Muriel E. Hidy, Roy V. Scott, and Don L. Hofsommer

Review: <i>The Great Northern Railway: A History</i>, by Ralph W. Hidy, Muriel E. Hidy, Roy V. Scott, and Don L. Hofsommer

The Great Northern Railway: A History by Ralph W. Hidy, et al

TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 1057 what the actual story is. Without such insights, he is left without a skeleton on which to hang the information at his disposal. Maury Klein Dr. Klein teaches at the University of Rhode Island. His most recent books have been The Life and Legend ofJay Gould (1986) and Union Pacific: The Birth, 1862—1893 (1987). The second volume of his Union Pacific history, Union Pacific: The Rebirth, 1894-1969, will be published by Doubleday. The Great Northern Railway: A History. By Ralph W. Hidy, Muriel E. Hidy, and Roy V. Scott, with Don L. Hofsommer. Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 1988. Pp. xv + 360; illustrations, tables, notes, bibliography, appendixes, index. $49.95. The history of this volume is as interesting as the book itself; it took over thirty years and four authors to write it. The final result, however, illustrates their careful scholarship and their thoroughness in recounting the Great Northern’s history from its earliest trials in 1856 to the road’s merger into the Burlington Northern. And it is a fascinating story, even though the much larger original manuscript has been condensed to its essential core at the expense of some of the road’s personalities and color. The authors never lost sight of their theme, however. They delineate James J. Hill’s struggles to extend rail technology out into lonely wastes far ahead of settlement. Later the Great Northern spent millions to entice settlers and to promote enlightened livestock breeding, dry farming techniques, modern farm equipment, irriga­ tion, and better roads. The company also hired scientists to analyze nearby oil, coal, and iron ore reserves and to suggest commercial uses for them. The initial rail technology that opened the region quickly spawned further agricultural advances that dictated the region’s fundamental economic and social orders. In the larger sense, postCivil War railway technology enabled immigrants to skip an interme­ diate step in the settlement process; they advanced directly from homesteading to commercial farming for worldwide markets. The Great Northern, with its educational efforts, made it possible to transport millions of tons of raw agricultural and mineral products to processing centers in the Midwest and East, enabling the United States to emerge as the world’s largest industrial power by 1894. The second part of the book, covering the period from Hill’s death in 1916 to the merger, is in many ways the more interesting. Hill was a careful builder and always considered his operating costs as he located his road through the best lands and over the mountains with the lowest grades. The soundness of his planning paid dividends in the ‘20th century when his railway struggled with rising labor costs, 1058 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY ANI) CULTURE the need for new equipment, and a changing traffic mix. The Great Depression almost broke the transcontinental, but some adroit fi­ nancing through the RFC and a superb physical plant enabled it to survive and handle huge wartime tonnages. Post—World War II inflation, labor regulations, and constantly rising wages forced the Great Northern to cut its labor force through mechanization and to adopt the more economical diesel locomotives. All the technological advances, however, could not protect the road against trucks, buses, and automobiles. Ralph Budd and his contemporaries on the North­ ern Pacific and the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy understood the need for a merger. They worked out its details in 1960, but road­ blocks at levels from the ICC to the Supreme Court delayed the merger’s consummation until March 3, 1970. The book ends with that date. This excellent corporate history chronicles how rails and their associated technologies created new societies on the American fron­ tier where the company’s policies literally determined the shape of the on-line communities. This is technological history at its most basic level. And no reviewer in good conscience could omit mention of the volume’s superb photographs and maps; they are worth the book’s price. James A. Ward Dr. Ward is professor of history at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and has written That Man Haupt: A Biography ofHerman Haupt;J. Edgar Thomson: Master ofthe Pennsylvania; and Railroads and the Character of...