The Victorians risked more than just delays when boarding a steam train . . . Victorian inventors certainly didn't lack steam, but while they squabbled over who deserved the title of 'The Father of the Locomotive' and enjoyed their fame and fortune, safety on the rails was not their priority. Brakes were seen as a needless luxury and boilers had an inconvenient tendency to overheat and explode, and in turn, blow up anyone in reach. Often recognised as having revolutionised travel and industrial Britain, Victorian railways were perilous. Disease, accidents and disasters accounted for thousands of deaths and many more injuries. While history has focused on the triumph of engineers, the victims of the Victorian railways had names, lives and families and they deserve to be remembered . . .

"SwitchPoints" is the inspiring story of how Canadian National Railway (CN) advanced from good to great in a few short years-becoming North America's top-performing railroad and a favorite with of corporate customers and investors. In it, the authors reveal how company-wide culture change propelled this aging transportation giant to become the profitable powerhouse it is today. Rich with insights and anecdotes, "SwitchPoints" offers lessons that can be applied to "any" organization seeking to improve the bottom line by improving their culture.

"An extraordinary book by a master historian! Orsi demonstrates that the Southern Pacific was not simply a predatory corporation obsessed with maximizing its profits and political power; it had a strong sense of the public good and a devotion to building stable, prosperous communities. This superb book should be required reading for all historians of the West, business, and the environment."--Donald J. Pisani, author of "Water and American Government"
"This deep and extensive examination of the Southern Pacific's development activities in California will encourage readers to look beyond the overblown rhetoric of the railroad's many political enemies and see afresh its many positive economic accomplishments as it worked to build the Twentieth-Century West. Orsi's presentation is as luminous as it is impressive"--Carlos Schwantes, author of "Going Places: Transportation Redefines the Twentieth Century West"
"This brilliantly researched and beautifully written study of one of America's greatest railroads offers wonderful insights into both transportation and Western history. Orsi places the early history of the Southern Pacific Railroad in proper focus by skillfully untangling the long-standing Octopus myth. This work deserves to be called a landmark in the field."--H. Roger Grant, author of "Follow the Flag: A History of the Wabash Railroad Company"
""Sunset Limited" illuminates not only the workings and ambitions of the Southern Pacific railroad but teaches us a great deal about the late nineteenth and early twentieth century American West as well. This is a wonderful scholarly study: remarkably thorough, ambitious, and gracefully rendered."--William Deverell, author of"Railroad Crossing: Californians and the Railroad, 1850-1910"

Beginning in 1862 as a small carrier connecting St. Paul and Minneapolis with outlying towns, the Saint Paul & Pacific Railroad became the foundation of the vast rail system that would open the entire Northwest. As a pioneering line in virgin territory, it played a vital role in the early development of Minnesota's economy. When railroad tycoon James J. Hill took over the troubled company in 1879, its tracks were extended into westward lines that eventually, as the Great Northern Railway, reached the Pacific Ocean. Written by leading railroad historian Augustus J. Veenendaal Jr. this finely researched book examines the growth of the fledgling Saint Paul & Pacific as it struggled to lay track, meet the schedule, and make the payroll. The railway's leaders and workers took risks of injury and ruin during these years on the frontier, when everything except hardship was in short supply. Veenendaal devotes an entire chapter to the accidents and disasters that befell the new enterprise, including deadly collisions and derailments. He also chronicles triumphs, such as the use of the Miller coupler and the refurbishment of the famed Wm. Crooks, a 4-4-0 woodburning engine that was the first locomotive in Minnesota. Veenendaal reveals the strategic importance of foreign investment in American railroads-in particular, Dutch investment. The Saint Paul & Pacific was one of the first railroads to attract the attention of Dutch bankers, who would eventually become the second largest group of foreign investors in American railroads. After James J. Hill bought out the Dutch interest in the railroad, he reorganized it as the St. Paul, Minneapolis & Manitoba Railroad. Today, after the megamergers of recent years, the Burlington Northern Santa Fe system owns the ghost of the old Saint Paul & Pacific Railroad Company.

Entering an already crowded and established industry, the Niles Car & Manufacturing Company in Ohio began business with surprising success, producing well over 1,000 electric and steam railway cars-cars so durable they rarely needed to be replaced. That durability essentially put the company out of business, and it vanished from the scene as quickly as it had appeared, leaving little behind except its sturdy railway cars. The story of this highly regarded company spans just 16 years, from Niles's incorporation in 1901 to the abandonment of railway car production and sale of the property to a firm that would briefly build engine parts during World War I. Including unpublished photographs and rosters of railway cars produced by the company and still in existence in railroad museums, The Electric Pullman will appeal to railroad enthusiasts everywhere. -- Indiana University Press

While Congress has been interested in high speed rail (HSR) since the 1960s, the provision of $8 billion for intercity passenger rail projects in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, enacted in February 2009, under the Obama administration, has invigorated the prospect of high speed passenger rail transportation in the United States. This book provides an overview of high speed rail in the United States and discusses what high speed rail would encompass, describes congressional initiatives to promote HSR and looks at high speed rail in selected other countries. Also discussed is the rationale for developing HSR, cost estimates and some of the challenges expected in implementing HSR.

The debate on rail privatisation often seems to focus on very narrow issues. Those on both sides of the argument seem to be able to employ a mass of statistics to prove their point. Proponents of privatisation suggest, with some credibility, that all was reasonably well with the privatised railways until the Hatfield disaster. Opponents point to spiralling costs since privatisation. The authors of this monograph examine privatisation in the context of the long history of continual government intervention. The government imposed upon the industry a particular structure - separation of track and wheel. It also wrapped it up in increasing amounts of regulation. After examining the history of government intervention in the railways and the privatisation process, the authors of this monograph then examine the future of railway policy. Should the industry be allowed to evolve its own structure - remerging the ownership of track and wheel if it wishes? What aspects of a railway should be regulated? Who should own the various parts of the infrastructure? This monograph is essential reading for all with an interest in railway policy and the process of privatisation.

In John W. Barriger III: Railroad Legend, historian H. Roger Grant details the fascinating life and impact of a transportation tycoon and "doctor of sick railroads." After graduating from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, John W. Barriger III (1899-1976) started his career on the Pennsylvania Railroad as a rodman, shop hand, and then assistant yardmaster. His enthusiasm, tenacity, and lifelong passion for the industry propelled him professionally, culminating in leadership roles at Monon Railroad, Pittsburgh and Lake Erie Railroad, Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad and the Boston and Maine Railroad. His legendary capability to save railroad corporations in peril earned him the nickname "doctor of sick railroads," and his impact was also felt far from the train tracks, as he successfully guided New Deal relief efforts for the Railroad Division of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation during the Depression and served in the Office of Defense Transportation during World War II. Featuring numerous personal photographs and interviews, John W. Barriger III is an intimate account of a railroad magnate and his role in transforming the transportation industry.

One of America's foremost civil engineers of the past 150 years, John Frank Stevens was a railway reconnaissance and location engineer whose reputation was made on the Canadian Pacific and Great Northern lines. Self-taught and driven by a bulldog tenacity of purpose, he was hired by Theodore Roosevelt as chief engineer of the Panama Canal, creating a technical achievement far ahead of its time. Stevens also served for more than five years as the head of the US Advisory Commission of Railway Experts to Russia and as a consultant who contributed to many engineering feats, including the control of the Mississippi River after the disastrous floods of 1927 and construction of the Boulder (Hoover) Dam. Drawing on Stevens s surviving personal papers and materials from projects with which he was associated, Clifford Foust offers an illuminating look into the life of an accomplished civil engineer."

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."

Profiting from the Plains looks at two inextricably linked historical movements in the United States: the westward expansion of the great Northern Railway and the agricultural development of the northern plains. Claire Strom explores the persistent, idiosyncratic attempts by the Great Northern to boost agricultural production along its rail routes from St. Paul to Seattle between 1878 and 1917. Lacking a federal land grant, the Great Northern could not make money through land sales like other railways. It had to rely on haulage to make a profit, and the greatest potential for increasing haulage lay in farming. The energetic and charismatic owner of the Great Northern Railway, James J. Hill, spearheaded most of the initiatives undertaken by his corporation to boost agricultural production. He tried, often unsuccessfully, to persuade farmers of the profitability of his methods, which were largely based on his personal farming experience. When Hill's initial efforts to increase haulage failed, he shifted his focus to working with outside agencies and institutions, often providing them with the funding to pursue projects he hoped would profit his railroad. At the time, state and federal agencies were also promoting agricultural development through irrigation, conservation, and dryland farming, but their agendas often clashed with those of the Great Northern Railway. Because Hill failed to grasp the extent to which politicians' goals differed from those of the railroad, his use of federal expertise to promote agricultural change often backfired. But despite these obstacles, the railroad magnate ironically remained among the last defenders of the small-scale farmer modeled on Jeffersonian idealism. This fascinating story of railroad politics and development ties into themes of corporate and federal sponsorship, which are increasingly recognized as fundamental to western history. As the first scholarly examination of James J. Hill's agricultural enterprises, Profiting from the Plains makes an important contribution to the biography of the popular and controversial Hill, as well as to western and environmental history.

Early in the 19th century, growing American cities began to experience transportation problems. One solution was the horse-drawn streetcar, developed in 1832, but it soon proved inadequate. The first elevated train was transporting passengers above the streets of Manhattan by 1871; the first subway opened 25 years later in Boston; and similar systems soon followed in Philadelphia and Chicago. Rapid transit was confined to these few cities until after World War II, when a new generation of systems began to appear. In the 1970s, light rail became an economical alternative to conventional rapid transit. By century s end, some three dozen cities in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico operated metropolitan rapid transit or light rail systems that transported five billion urban passengers annually, and still more were under construction or planned.
These diverse systems include elevated lines ranging from Chicago s "L" to the fully automatic Skytrain metro of Vancouver, B.C.; subways from New York City s thundering tunnels the world s largest underground system to the thoroughly modern metro of Guadalajara; and light rail from lovingly restored New Orleans streetcars to the sleek, articulated vehicles of Silicon Valley.

Metropolitan Railways is a large-scale, extensively illustrated volume that deals with the growth and development of urban rail transit systems in North America. It traces the history of rail transit technology from such impractical early schemes as a proposed steam-powered "arcade railway" under New York s Broadway through today s sophisticated systems. Rapid transit enthusiasts as well as residents of cities that are potential candidates for rapid transit or light rail systems will find this book indispensable."

Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis Railway
History and Steam Locomotives

Richard E. Prince

Richard E. Prince s long out-of-print encyclopedic study of the Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis Railway, "The Dixie Line," with hundreds of vintage photographs, schematics, maps, and rosters.

Railroad buffs, historians, and casual readers alike will be delighted by the reappearance of Richard E. Prince s Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis Railway. It was originally published in 1967, and its reputation as the foremost work on this railroad is still unchallenged.
The NC&StL Railway originated in 1845 as the Nashville and Chattanooga RR. Taken over by the Union Army during the Civil War, it suffered extensive damage from Confederate attack but was rebuilt and operated by the U.S. Military Railroad for over two years. Returned to its owners in September 1865, it became the Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis Ry. in 1873, after absorbing the Nashville & Northwestern RR.
During the next 25 years, it became known to the public first as the Tennessee Line, then as the Lookout Mountain Route. In 1890 it gained entrance into Atlanta as lessee of the state-owned Western & Atlantic RR. Paducah and Memphis were reached in 1896, when lines of the former Paducah, Tennessee & Alabama RR were leased from L&N. At its zenith in the 1920s, it operated approximately 1,259 miles of track, from the Mississippi and Ohio rivers through Kentucky, Tennessee, and Alabama, to Atlanta, Georgia.
In 1880, to eliminate the threat of competition that was developing between the two companies, the Louisville & Nashville RR acquired control of the NC&StL Ry., much to the dismay of the citizens of Nashville, and for the next 77 years it operated as a prosperous subsidiary of the Old Reliable. It was actually absorbed by the L&N organization in 1957 to become part of the Nashville and W&A divisions. But it will always be remembered by the people of Tennessee and Georgia as the original Dixie Line the route of such Chicago-Florida passenger trains as the Dixie Flyer, Dixie Limited, Dixie Express, Dixie Mail, Dixieland, Dixie Flagler, and Dixiana.
Maps, schedules, rosters, diagrams, and hundreds of photographs supplement historical information on the company and technical information on the trains.

Richard E. Prince attended Georgia School of Technology in Atlanta. During World War II, he joined the Merchant Marine and sailed on steam Liberty ships. He worked in several capacities for the L&N Railroad and the Union Pacific Railroad. Prince retired in 1983 and lives in Omaha, Nebraska. He has written ten books on railroads.

May 2001
196 pages, 348 b&w photos, 8 1/4 x 10 3/4, index
cloth 0-253-33927-8 $59.95 t / 45.00

Contents
Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis Ry. Historical Sketch
Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis Ry. The Tennessee Line
Western & Atlantic Railroad
Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis Ry. -Lookout Mountain Route
Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis Ry. The Dixie Line
Steam Locomotives Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis Ry.
Steam Freight and Passenger Trains NC&StL Ry.
Steam Locomotive Diagrams"

Few scenes capture the American experience so eloquently as that of a lonely train chugging across the vastness of the Great Plains, or snaking through tortuous high mountain passes. Although this vision was eclipsed for a time by the rise of air travel and trucking, American railroads have enjoyed a rebirth in recent years as profitable freight carriers. An account of the rise, decline, and rebirth of railroads in the United States, this survey traces their history from the first lines that helped eastern seaports capture western markets to the modern newly-revitalized industry. John Stover describes the growth of the railroads' monopoly, with the consequent need for state and federal regulations; relates the vital part played by the railroads during the Civil War and the two World Wars; and charts the railroads' decline due to the advent of air travel and trucking during the 1950s. The author recounts the remarkable recovery of the railroads, along with other pivotal events of the industry's recent history. During the 1960s declining passenger traffic and excessive federal regulation led to the federally-financed creation of Amtrak to revive passenger service and Conrail to provide freight service on bankrupt northeastern railroads. The real saviour for the railroads, however, proved to be the Staggers Rail Act of 1980, which brought prosperity to rail freight carriers by substantially deregulating the industry. By 1995, renewed railroad freight traffic had reached nearly twice its former peak in 1944.

The Chicago Great Western Railroad was a spunky midwestern carrier that contributed mightily to the transportation industry. The 1,500-mile CGW, built by the iconoclastic and ambitious A. B. Stickney, proved to be exceptionally innovative as it developed new ways to compete with larger railroads. Pitted against tough, determined competitors, the CGW during its eighty-five years made innovations that changed the history of American transportation. Among the pioneering activities for which the Great Western is remembered are the early use of internal combustion equipment, the hauling of truck trailers atop flatcars ("piggy-backs"), and the use of extremely long freight trains. Indeed, much of the railroad's past supports the notion that smaller, less-established carriers like the CGW frequently stimulated changes in industry thinking and practices. In spite of its innovations, the path of the Great Western, sometimes called the "Great Weedy," did not always run smoothly. In the 1930s, John W. Barriger III quipped, "The Chicago Great Western is a mountain railroad in a prairie country serving a traffic vacuum." Such a negative assessment was not uncommon for this Granger pike, which in fact climbed some steep grades and owned a long tunnel. And while the road did not operate in a "traffic vacuum," its competitors were well entrenched and robust. By 1903, the CGW served the strategic gateways of Chicago, Kansas City, Minneapolis-St. Paul, St. Joseph, and Omaha. Between Chicago and the Twin Cities alone, the company competed with six other roads. When the Chicago & North Western acquired the Great Western in 1968, one of America's most imaginative railroads disappeared. The Corn Belt Route is the first scholarly treatment of the Chicago Great Western Railroad, a company that has long intrigued the railfan, whether collector, modeler, photographer, or historian. Richly illustrated, this book tells the lively story of one of the great small railroads that once served the Midwest.

After tackling the GW pannier tanks in his Locomotive Portfolios' for Pen & Sword, author David Maidment seeks out descriptions and photographs of the GW 0-6-2 tank engines, the majority of which were built by the Rhymney, Taff Vale, Barry and other Welsh railways from the last decade or so of the nineteenth century onwards. The engines of eight different companies, absorbed by the GWR in 1922, are described and illustrated, and the way in which many were modernised and rebuilt at Swindon or Caerphilly Works in the 1920s. Charles Collett was, however, faced with a motive power crisis in the mining valleys at the Grouping, as many of the companies had economised on essential maintenance as the GW's take-over drew near, and he had to hurriedly design a standard 0-6-2T to complement and bolster their work as the powerful GW 2-8-0Ts were too heavy and wide for many of the Cardiff valleys. These engines, the 56XX & 66XX classes, became part of the South Wales scene between 1925 and 1964, mainly running the coal traffic between pits and docks, although they dominated Cardiff Valley passenger services until the influx of BR 3MT 2-6-2Ts and GW 41XX 2-6-2Ts in 1954/5\. The book has nearly 40,000 words of text and around 300 black & white photographs.

This generously illustrated narrative follows the evolution of dozens of separate railroads in the Meridian, Mississippi, area from the destruction of the town s rail facilities in the 1850s through the current era of large-scale consolidation. Presently, there are only seven mega-size rail systems in the United States, three of which serve Meridian, making it an important junction on one of the nation's four major transcontinental routes. The recent creation of a nationally prominent high-speed freight line between Meridian and Shreveport, the "Meridian Speedway," has allowed the Union Pacific, Kansas City Southern, and Norfolk Southern railroads to offer the shortest rail route across the continent for Asia-US-Europe transportation."

Railway expansion was the great industrial project of the late 19th century, and the Great Powers built railways at speed and reaped great commercial benefits. The greatest imperial dream of all was to connect the might of Europe to the potential riches of the Middle East and the Ottoman Empire. In 1903 Imperial Germany, under Kaiser Wilhelm II, began to construct a railway which would connect Berlin to the Ottoman city of Baghdad, and project German power all the way to the Persian Gulf. The Ottoman Emperor, Abdul Hamid II, meanwhile, saw the railway as a means to bolster crumbling Ottoman control of Arabia. Using new Ottoman Turkish sources, Murat Ozyuksel shows how the Berlin-Baghdad railway became a symbol of both rising European power and declining Ottoman fortunes. It marks a new and important contribution to our understanding of the geopolitics of the Middle East before World War I, and will be essential reading for students of empire, Industrial History and Ottoman Studies.

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.

For over 25 years, the creatively led Railroad Development Corporation (RDC) has rejuvenated a series of down-and-out and even defunct railroads. Launched in 1987 by Henry Posner III, this investment and management company has demonstrated that it is possible both to have a conscience and to earn a profit in today's railroad industry. With ventures on four continents, RDC has created an admirable record of long-term commitments, respect for local cultures, and protection of the public interest. H. Roger Grant presents a firsthand look at this unique business operation and its triumphs and disappointments.

Profiting from the Plains looks at two inextricably linked historical movements in the United States: the westward expansion of the great Northern Railway and the agricultural development of the northern plains. Claire Strom explores the persistent, idiosyncratic attempts by the Great Northern to boost agricultural production along its rail routes from St. Paul to Seattle between 1878 and 1917. Lacking a federal land grant, the Great Northern could not make money through land sales like other railways. It had to rely on haulage to make a profit, and the greatest potential for increasing haulage lay in farming. The energetic and charismatic owner of the Great Northern Railway, James J. Hill, spearheaded most of the initiatives undertaken by his corporation to boost agricultural production. He tried, often unsuccessfully, to persuade farmers of the profitability of his methods, which were largely based on his personal farming experience. When Hill's initial efforts to increase haulage failed, he shifted his focus to working with outside agencies and institutions, often providing them with the funding to pursue projects he hoped would profit his railroad. At the time, state and federal agencies were also promoting agricultural development through irrigation, conservation, and dryland farming, but their agendas often clashed with those of the Great Northern Railway. Because Hill failed to grasp the extent to which politicians' goals differed from those of the railroad, his use of federal expertise to promote agricultural change often backfired. But despite these obstacles, the railroad magnate ironically remained among the last defenders of the small-scale farmer modeled on Jeffersonian idealism. This fascinating story of railroad politics and development ties into themes of corporate and federal sponsorship, which are increasingly recognized as fundamental to western history. As the first scholarly examination of James J. Hill's agricultural enterprises, Profiting from the Plains makes an important contribution to the biography of the popular and controversial Hill, as well as to western and environmental history.

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.