In most of America, trains are nostalgic: a sepia-toned tourism rather than an efficient means of conveyance. Despite this quaint vision of trains, modern high-speed rail has been embraced around globe. This transportation mode has dramatic — and idiosyncratic — implications for the built environment. Using travel as a lens of inquiry, Riding the Rails explores the physical implications of the railroad in the past, present and future at several scales of intervention and in a variety of cultural contexts.

Drawing from first-hand train passage throughout Europe, Asia, and America, the resulting body of research establishes a platform from which to speculate on new models of American urbanization in the age of high-

See the full research at www.ridingtherails.org.