In telling the story of the North Carolina Railroad's independent years (1849-71), Trelease covers all aspects of the company and its development, including its construction and rolling stock; its management, labor force, and labor policies; its passenger and freight operations; and its role in the Civil War. He also assesses the impact of the railroad on the economic and social development of North Carolina.
Originally published in 1991.
A UNC Press Enduring Edition -- UNC Press Enduring Editions use the latest in digital technology to make available again books from our distinguished backlist that were previously out of print. These editions are published unaltered from the original, and are presented in affordable paperback formats, bringing readers both historical and cultural value.

Covering almost every line in the country, this acclaimed series of books juxtaposes photographs of the same railway location separated in time by just a few years, or maybe a century or more. Sometimes the result is dereliction or disappearance, in others a transformation into a modern high-speed railway. In both cases, the contrasts are intriguing and informative. This volume includes: Middlesborough, Stockton and Tees-side; the Cleveland coast line to Saltburn; the North Yorkshire Moors Railway; and, the Yorkshire Coast Line through Whitby Malton to Scarborough and Filey.

This historic main line has undergone many station improvements and changes of rolling stock. They are all illustrated from diverse viewpoints by a wide range of experienced photographers. The many early maps help to tell a fascinating story of railway evolution.

Herbert H. Harwood, Jr., tells the story of one of the most infamous railroad construction projects of the late 19th century. This 200-mile line through Pennsylvania s most challenging mountain terrain was intended to form the heart of a new trunk line from the East Coast to Pittsburgh and the Midwest. Conceived in 1881 by William H. Vanderbilt, Andrew Carnegie, and a group of Pittsburgh and Philadelphia industrialists, the South Pennsylvania Railroad was intended to break the Pennsylvania Railroad s near-monopoly in the region. The line was within a year of opening when J. P. Morgan brokered a peace treaty that aborted the project and helped bolster his position in the world of finance. The railroad right of way and its tunnels sat idle for 60 years before coming to life in the late 1930s as the original section of the Pennsylvania Turnpike. Based on original letters, documents, diaries, and newspaper reports, The Railroad That Never Was uncovers the truth behind this mysterious railway."

The factors affecting the economic viability of high speed rail lines include the level of expected riders, costs, and public benefits, which are influenced by a line's corridor and service characteristics. High speed rail tends to attract riders in dense, highly populated corridors, especially when there is congestion on existing transportation modes. Characteristics of the proposed service are also key considerations, as high speed rail attracts riders where it compares favourably to travel alternatives with regard to door-to-door trip times, prices, frequency of service, reliability and safety. In this book, a strategic vision for high speed rail is offered, particularly in relation to the role that high speed rail can play in the national transportation system, clearly identifying potential objectives and goals for high speed rail systems and the roles that federal and other stakeholders should play in achieving each objective and goal. The recently enacted Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act of 2008 will likely increase the federal role in the development of high speed rail, as will the newly enacted American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. This book consists of public documents which have been located, gathered, combined, reformatted, and enhanced with a subject index, selectively edited and bound to provide easy access.

When the Louisville and Nashville Railroad was founded in 1850, it was the first major railroad in the west, and the only one headquartered in Kentucky. In the twentieth century, the L&N grew into one of the nation's major rail systems, reaching from the Great Lakes to the Ohio River Valley and down to Florida and the Gulf Coast. Kincaid Herr worked for the Louisville and Nashville for more than forty years, and this book originated as a series of articles that he wrote for L&N Magazine between 1939 and 1942. After various printings through the 1940s and '50s, this fifth edition, completely revised and updated, was released in 1964. The 1950s saw the reluctant abandonment of the old steam engine (the L&N was a major coal-carrying railroad) in favor of the diesel. During the late 1950s and early 60s, the railroad experienced significant expansion in the South, where the economy was being fueled by new industry. Coal, automobiles, mail, and passengers all counted on the L&N to get them around the region. Herr traces the development and expansion of the L&N system over a century and profiles important company figures, such as longtime L&N president Milton Smith. Confederate raider John Hunt Morgan and railroad bandit Morris Slater also find their place in this entertaining history. Four appendices on topics ranging from the materials used to build trains to passenger equipment to motive power round out the complete, but accessible, account. Even after all these years, this volume remains the concise, illustrated history of "The Old Reliable" for its many fans around the world.

Drawn from intimate interviews with 14 modern-day "steel rail nomads," One More Train to Ride provides a revealing picture of today s American hobo. Interspersed with their stories are original poems and songs echoing the ancient lyricism and loneliness of life on the road. Their connections with the past make the experiences of these hoboes even more striking, as they ride freight trains and jungle up in hobo camps, light years away from the 21st-century cyberworld yet touching the very core of American freedom and individualism.

Cliff Williams skillfully elicits details of family background, motives, and clear insights into the daily life and philosophy of the modern hobo. With its evocative link to the past, One More Train to Ride continues a long tradition of books on hobo oral history, including Nels Anderson s The Hobo (1923) and Thomas Minehan s Boy and Girl Tramps of America (1934)."

Trains have a nostalgic connotation for most Americans, but John Stilgoe argues that we should be looking to rail lines as the path to our future, not just our past. Train Time picks up where his acclaimed work Metropolitan Corridor left off, carrying Stilgoe's ideas about the spatial consequences of railways up to the present moment. With containers bringing the production of a global economy to our ports, the price of oil skyrocketing, and congestion and sprawl forcing many Americans to live far from work, trains offer an obvious alternative to a culture dependent on cars and long-haul trucking. Arguing that the train is returning, "an economic and cultural tsunami about to transform the United States," Stilgoe posits a future for railways as powerful shapers of American life.

For anyone looking for prescient analysis and compelling history of the American landscape and economy in general and railroad and transit history in particular, Train Time is an engaging look at the future of our railroads and of transportation and land development. For those familiar with John Stilgoe's talent for seeing things that elude the rest of us, and delivering those observations in pithy asides about real estate, corporate culture, and other aspects of American life, this book will not disappoint.

At one point in time, no place in Iowa was more than a few miles from an active line of rail track. In this splendid companion volume to Steel Trails of Hawkeyeland (IUP, 2005), H. Roger Grant and Don L. Hofsommer explore the pivotal role that railroads played in the urban development of the state as well as the symbiotic relationship Iowa and its rails shared. With more than 400 black-and-white photographs, a solid inventory of depots and locations, and new information that is sure to impress even the most well-versed railfan, this detailed history of the state's railroads including the Chicago & North Western, Cedar Rapids & Iowa City, and the Iowa Northern will be an essential reference for railroad fans and historians, artists, and model railroad builders."

Visionary Railroader chronicles the life of a key figure in the history of rail travel in the United States. As president of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, Jervis Langdon Jr. had the opportunity to put progressive concepts into practice.
In 1964, Langdon took charge of the Rock Island, and by the time he left in 1970, he had spearheaded major improvements for this struggling carrier. The same year, he became lead trustee for the bankrupt Penn Central and three years later assumed the presidency. From his role in passing the Regional Rail Reorganization Act of 1973 to his work on creating the quasi-public Conrail, Visionary Railroader examines the impact of Langdon's active life with clear text, unique representations of media of the day, and select family photos.

At the beginning of the 20th century, the street railway industry was one of the largest in the nation. Once ubiquitously visible on the city streets, by mid-century the streetcar was nothing more than a distant memory. Ohio was home to several large streetcar systems, especially in Cleveland and Cincinnati, and had more interurban tracks than any other state in the union. Thus, Ohio served as one of the street railway industry's greatest centers of manufacturing.

Built to Move Millions examines the manufacture of streetcars and interurbans within the state of Ohio between 1900 and 1940. In addition to discussing the five major car builders that were active in Ohio during this period, the book addresses Ohio companies that manufactured the various components that went into these vehicles.

The Georgia & Florida Railroad began with bright promise, but like many other enterprises in the early twentieth-century South, it experienced hard times. The story begins in 1906, when-responding to a perceived need for better connections to northern markets-a group of entrepreneurs led by prominent Virginia banker John Skelton Williams began to cobble together logging short lines to create more than 350 miles of railroad connecting Augusta, Georgia, with Madison, Florida. At first the G&F triggered growth in its region as several new towns sprang up or expanded along its lines. By 1915, however, the economic dislocations caused by World War I threw the G&F into receivership, and a few years later the G&F came close to dismemberment. Fortunately, shippers and investors rallied to the railroad's cause, and business conditions improved. In 1926 the road was reorganized and, under pressure to "expand or die," built to Greenwood, South Carolina. The Great Depression forced the G&F into bankruptcy, and after its record-length receivership, it was acquired by the Southern Railway in 1963. When the Southern Railway dissolved the corporation and abandoned much of the former trackage, the G&F became the "Gone & Forgotten." Yet in its 57-year lifespan the G&F did much to bring about agricultural diversification and relative prosperity in the wiregrass region of southern Georgia and northern Florida. Offering insights on social and economic conditions in the South from the late nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth century, Grant's study of this obscure yet noteworthy railroad will appeal to those interested in transportation, business, railroad, and Southern regional history.

"Craig Sanders has done an excellent job of research... his treatment is as comprehensive as anyone could reasonably wish for, and solidly based. In addition, he succeeds in making it all clear as well as any human can. He also manages to inject enough humor and human interest to keep the reader moving." Herbert H. Harwood, author of The Lake Shore Electric Railway Story and Invisible Giants: The Empires of Cleveland s Van Sweringen Brothers

A complete history of Amtrak operations in the heartland, this volume describes conditions that led to the passage of the Rail Passenger Service Act of 1970, the formation and implementation of Amtrak in 1970 71, and the major factors that have influenced Amtrak operations since its inception. More than 140 photographs and 3 maps bring to life the story as told by Sanders. This book will become indispensable to train enthusiasts through its examination of Americans long-standing fascination with passenger trains. When it began in 1971, many expected Amtrak to last about three years before going out of existence for lack of business, but the public s continuing support of funding for Amtrak has enabled it and the passenger train to survive despite seemingly insurmountable odds."

This further volume in this series, looking at the changing patterns of rail freight from 1968 to the present day, examines the gradual shift from wagonload to trainload operation, the cull of public goods depots and small private sidings and the Speedlink years, together with details of wagon types and terminal facilities, and many charts, diagrams and plans.

With the coming of railroads, upstart Chicago quickly became the Midwest's center for commerce and trade, overtaking its older rival, St. Louis. The first tracks to link the East coast with the West ran through Chicago, and within a few decades the city grew to be the hub of an immense transportation network that stretched across the nation. Noted transportation writer David M. Young vividly tells how railroads created and shaped Chicago, from the earliest times to the present. He shows how the expansion of rail lines promoted the growth of the suburbs, and how Chicago's burgeoning manufacturing hub became home to such corporate giants as Cyrus McCormick's harvester operation and catalogue houses Montgomery Ward; Spiegel; and Sears, Roebuck and Company. For the most part, the railroad companies that schemed to bypass Chicago failed. As the hub of a vast transportation network, Chicago experienced many tragic accidents at rail crossings. One of the first books to deal with the history of accidents and issues of safety, The Iron Horse and the Windy City reveals how Chicago eventually forced railroad companies to eliminate dangerous crossings by installing barriers or by raising tracks above street level. Railroad magnates, entrepreneurs, and ordinary people come to life in this first comprehensive account of the impact of railroads on Chicago. Transportation historians and general readers interested in Chicago will find it both essential and engaging.

"Steel Trails of Hawkeyeland offers a comprehensive examination of railroads in Iowa from the introduction of the iron horse to the present. It is more than a study of a single, albeit significant American state. Hofsommer superbly relates local events to the national picture. His is a one-of-a-kind volume." H. Roger Grant, author of Follow the Flag: A History of the Wabash Railroad Company

In the time of jet airplanes and interstate highways, the Internet and e-commerce, it is difficult to comprehend and appreciate the impact that railroads had on Iowa s landscape in terms not just of transportation service and economic development, but of political, social, and cultural linkage as well. Railroads helped to define the character of America, and that certainly was the case in Iowa. Pioneer lines penetrated the interior from established Mississippi River communities during the state s early railroad era, and later opened up huge tracts for agricultural opportunity as well as urban development.

A wide-ranging survey of Iowa s railroad experience, Steel Trails of Hawkeyeland offers a snapshot of a fascinating and critically important element in the state s history, and emphasizes the tight symbiotic relationship between Iowa and its railways. Packed with more than 250 photographs, this is a thorough and engaging book."

Mercer (economics, U. of California at Santa Barbara) assesses the economic efficiency of the land grant subsidies to the large U.S. railroad systems in the 19th century. He limits his analysis to the relationship of the social and private rates of return on investment in the land grant railroads to

The Jewett Car Company was born in Akron, Ohio, in the heyday of the electric railway boom in the 1890s. The company gained an excellent reputation for its elegant, well-built wooden cars for street railway companies, interurban lines, and rapid transit service. Cities large and small used Jewett cars. Many interurban lines employed the graceful, arch-windowed, wood interurban that Jewett was famous for. Competition from automobiles and from larger car builders such as J. G. Brill and the St. Louis Car Company signaled the beginning of the end for Jewett. The company was offered the opportunity to produce munitions for World War I, but refused when a German nationalist banker who was a major source of financing for Jewett refused to allow the company to do anything that would harm Germany. As a result, the Jewett Car Company died, but the reputation of their product survives to this day.

As a vehicle to convey both the history of modern China and the complex forces still driving the nation's economic success, rail has no equal. Railroads and the Transformation of China is the first comprehensive history, in any language, of railroad operation from the last decades of the Qing Empire to the present. China's first fractured lines were built under semicolonial conditions by competing foreign investors. The national system that began taking shape in the 1910s suffered all the ills of the country at large: warlordism and Japanese invasion, Chinese partisan sabotage, the Great Leap Forward when lines suffered in the "battle for steel," and the Cultural Revolution, during which Red Guards were granted free passage to "make revolution" across the country, nearly collapsing the system. Elisabeth Koell's expansive study shows how railroads survived the rupture of the 1949 Communist revolution and became an enduring model of Chinese infrastructure expansion. The railroads persisted because they were exemplary bureaucratic institutions. Through detailed archival research and interviews, Koell builds case studies illuminating the strength of rail administration. Pragmatic management, combining central authority and local autonomy, sustained rail organizations amid shifting political and economic priorities. As Koell shows, rail provided a blueprint for the past forty years of ambitious, semipublic business development and remains an essential component of the PRC's politically charged, technocratic economic model for China's future.

This long-awaited study, the magnum opus of a leading railroad historian, describes the conception, construction, and early operation of the first narrow gauge railroads in northern California. It is lavishly illustrated by some 600 photographs and drawings, almost three-quarters of which have never before been published. The topic is approached through an unusual lens: the history of the relatively small but extraordinarily inventive contracting and engineering firm of the brothers Thomas and Martin Carter. The Carters were able to reduce the cost and complexity of light railroad construction to the point where local narrow gauge lines could initially compete with the state's notorious railroad monopolies. Pioneering a mobile manufacturing operation that could supply locally funded short lines with rolling stock (which traditionally came from East Coast manufacturers), the Carter Brothers began with a line to serve Salinas Valley wheat farmers, desperate to achieve an independent means for conveying their crops to the wharf in Monterey. The narrow gauge railroad that resulted was an act of political and economic defiance, but ultimately a hopeless assault on the "Octopus"-the Central Pacific and Southern Pacific Railroads. Rallying around the example set in Monterey, a narrow gauge movement in California flourished in the mid-1870s, with the rapid launching of five more companies-the North Pacific Coast, the Santa Cruz Railroad, the Santa Cruz & Felton, the Nevada County Narrow Gauge, and the South Pacific Coast-all of which drew on the Carter Brothers for manufacturing and engineering. Soon, Thomas and Martin Carter were not only selling railroad supplies and engineering to all six short lines, but had won management positions with the strongest, the South Pacific Coast. Until personal and financial disaster overtook them in 1880, the Carters were at the forefront of not just a new business, but a new technology.

Invisible Giants is the Horatio Alger-esque tale of a pair of reclusive Cleveland brothers, Oris Paxton and Mantis James Van Sweringen, who rose from poverty to become two of the most powerful men in America. They controlled the country's largest railroad system -- a network of track reaching from the Atlantic to Salt Lake City and from Ontario to the Gulf of Mexico. On the eve of the Great Depression they were close to controlling the country's first coast-to-coast rail system -- a goal that still eludes us. They created the model upper-class suburb of Shaker Heights, Ohio, with its unique rapid transit access. They built Cleveland's landmark Terminal Tower and its innovative "city within a city" complex. Indisputably, they created modern Cleveland.

Yet beyond a small, closely knit circle, the bachelor Van Sweringen brothers were enigmas. Their actions were aggressive, creative, and bold, but their manner was modest, mild, and retiring. Dismissed by many as mere shoe-string financial manipulators, they created enduring works, which remain strong today. The Van Sweringen story begins in early-20th-century Cleveland suburban real estate and reaches its zenith in the heady late 1920s, amid the turmoil of national transportation power politics and unprecedented empire-building. As the Great Depression destroyed many of their fellow financiers, the "Vans" survived through imaginative stubbornness -- until tragedy ended their careers almost simultaneously. Invisible Giants is the first comprehensive biography of these two remarkable if mysterious men.