This authoritative collection gathers together the issues important to the understanding of the challenges and problems of rail transport. Part one includes articles on cost and productivity, part two discusses pricing and part three looks at regulation and privatization. Part four examines econometric rail demand models. Part five focuses on disaggregate choice modelling and part six covers investment. The editors have included not only papers by Griliches, Keeler and Caves et al on cost functions, Baumol on pricing and regulation and Foster and Beesley on investment, but also lesser known papers which pioneer up-to-date methods. Together these form a valuable collection of previously published articles which should be of interest to researchers and policy analysts in the industry and to academics and students specializing in rail transport policy and economics.