Edward K. Morlok, 68, Penn transportation expert

Edward K. Morlok, 68, of Swarthmore, a lifelong railroad buff and a leading authority on transportation systems, died Saturday after a long struggle with colon cancer.

At the time of his death. he was a professor emeritus at the University of Pennsylvania and was Penn's UPS Foundation Professor of Transportation.

"He was expert in all aspects of transportation engineering: highways, railroads, airlines," said Vukan Vuchic, a colleague at Penn's School of Engineering.

His specialty was the economics and logistics of freight transportation, according to Vuchic. He dealt with ways to coordinate trucks and rail cars for package transport.

He developed ideas for integrating satellite tracking and other data exchanges, and researched ways to make transportation systems more energy efficient, environmentally friendly, and accommodating of disabled people.

Dr. Morlok was born in Philadelphia and graduated from Yale University in 1961 with a bachelor of science degree. He completed his doctorate at Northwestern University in 1967 and taught transportation engineering there until relocating to Penn in the 1970s.

At Penn he taught engineering economics, logistics, and manufacturing, and supervised numerous doctoral students. He was the author of four books, including a standard textbook, and for 13 years served as editor of McGraw-Hill Cos.' series on transportation.

"He was above all things a gentleman, even when so sick," his wife, Patricia Campbell Morlok, said yesterday. "He'd always stand up to greet visitors."

Diagnosed with cancer in 2000, he "fought it valiantly," she said, "and was always optimistic."

He took special interest in the history of the Leiper Railroad, a horse-drawn rail line begun in 1809 to haul quarry stone through Swarthmore; it was among the world's earliest railroads.

But his greatest hobby was model trains of the OO gauge. "He never thought you could have enough," his wife said. "The largest room on the third floor of our house was filled floor to ceiling with locomotives and train cars."

She described him as a passionate liberal and civil libertarian who loved jazz and bluegrass but was the first to admit he "couldn't carry a tune in a bucket."

Dr. Morlok also is survived by a daughter, Jessica Prince; a stepson, John Conboy; and stepdaughters Patricia Kuzyk, Elizabeth Sheslow, Peggy Wagman, and Nancy Burke.

The funeral will be at 11 a.m. Wednesday at Cavanaugh Patterson Family Funeral Home, 43 E. Baltimore Ave., Media. Visitors may call at the funeral home before the service, starting at 9:30 a.m.