Railways' basic structure and the operating characteristics of trains provide a clear model of today's impacts of works which were implemented a century or more ago. This text contains pertinent information for railway planners and designers about the environmental repercussions which they can cause and suggests how they can design optimal solutions. Offers ideas concerning the evaluation of land and other resources affected by transport infrastructure developments to aid in devising ways of choosing between solutions solving short-term problems, those which may be cost effective and others which best sustain fragile natural resources.