When not playing with trains, and working full time, I have been pursuing a PhD in Environmental Management.
As part of my Environmental Law and Policy requirements I wrote a paper about the rise of waste transfer facilities and the concept of Federal Preemption as it applies to transloading facilities. The paper concludes with a discussion of the federal Clean Railroad Act.
Railroads also feature prominently in my dissertation about Jamaica Bay, New York. The railroads brought tourists to the bay and later helped build the suburban landscape. This of course, changed the environment, hence the inclusion in my dissertation. I would like to break out this portion of the dissertation into a publishable article.
One of the other PhD students is conducting research into rapid transit and city planning and others are thinking about the environmental impacts of light rail development.
We are producing scholarly work but where can it be published? I doubt Trains Magazine would be interested in the evolution of waste transloading law. Railroad History seems like a good choice but they seem to be a more general interest publication. Certainly neither magazine wants to publish a treatise on bus rapid transit. (Oh the horror!)
Historians of Science have paid some attention to the railroad chemical testing laboratories and the role that thermodynamics research played in locomotive development, but again, finding a good place to publish such research remains elusive.
As PhD students, we cannot simply create web sites and put the information on-line for everyone to enjoy. Unless the research and writing is good enough to pass muster with a journal editor and two reviewers, it does not count toward our degree requirements.
Any suggestions?
Kevin
For the specialized subjects that you are working on interest among the railfan community that supports the variuous Kalmbach publications would appear to be rather limited. You might possibly approach the editors of Railway Age which is the journal serving professional railroad management. If you have a convincing historical narrative there's The Railway and Locomotive Historical Society Journal but that would be a real longshot. Unfortunately PhD dissertation topics are just too rarified and specialized to find much of an audience. Good Luck!
There is a professional "Garbage Engineering" Association ("Waste Management"?) although that probably is not its name. So by all means find it, become a member, and then approach them about publishing the book.
I have worked in the environmental field for decades, and I can't imagine many RR pubs would be interested in an environmental study of the RRs that would have to be scholarly enough to get doctoral credit. It sounds like something for an environmental pub.
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