The Louisiana & Arkansas Railway, known as "The Better Way," ran its first trains at the turn of the century and expanded over the years to connect New Orleans to Dallas. Well-maintained and enduringly profitable, this regional railroad succeeded because of the tenacity of three men who consecutively oversaw all aspects of operations. The story of the L&A is largely a collective biography of William Edenborn, William Buchanan, and Harvey Couch—the men who built and extended the line by shrewd acquisitions. These successful businessmen combined wisdom, foresight, and propensity for hard word—traits they had first demonstrated in other careers—with their longtime love for trains. Each applied remarkable talents for industry and commerce toward the development of the L&A to mold it into a model regional railroad. In this first history of the L&A, Fair traces the line's development from the early boom days of railroading to its dissolution in the modern era of takeovers. Although for much of its existence the L&A operated under the control of a parent company, the KCS, it long maintained independence. The eventual takeover by the superline in 1992 finally dissolved the L&A entirely.

The Union Pacific and Central Pacific Railroads were officially joined on May 10, 1869 at Promontory Point, Utah, with the driving of a golden spike. This historic ceremony marked the completion of the first transcontinental railroad. Spanning the Sierras and the "Great American Desert," the tracks connected San Francisco to Council Bluffs, Iowa. "A Great and Shining Road" is the exciting story of a mammoth feat that called forth entrepreneurial daring, financial wizardry, technological innovation, political courage and chicanery, and the heroism of thousands of laborers.

Here, in a pictorial history, Jim Shaughnessy turns an eloquent photographer's eye to the Delaware & Hudson, the line that began in 1823 as a canal system to transport Pennsylvania coal to New York State. The D&H extended from Montreal to the coal fields of northeastern Pennsylvania. It was active for 170 years, when the route was sold in 1993 to the Canadian Pacific Railway Corporation. The line made early railroad fame by importing from England the famous Stourbridge Lion, the first steam locomotive in America. This occurred during a great expansion into gravity, an interesting phase which took advantage of the mountainous terrain. The nineteenth century saw a period of economic growth and amalgamation, which was shaped by extremely able and ambitiou company presidents. Eventually the D&H advertised itself as "the Bridge Line to New England and Canada." Mountainous terrain around the coal mines challenged the line with heavy grades, so it was natural for one of its presidents, L. F. Loree, to be fascinated with experimental traction power. The many Loree locomotives, leaders in progressive design, are pictured and described herein. Because a good railroad history is always an economic history of a region, this book will surely please historian, too. Delaware & Hudson is a definitive work, encompassing the mining of the region and detailing the steamboat operations on Lakes George and Champlain. Syracuse University Press is pleased to reissue this exemplary study of a railroad. Delaware & Hudson has-and will-continue to raise the standards for all future railroad books.

Nimrod J. Bell worked as a conductor for several southern railroads in their formative period, from 1857 to 1894. After his career was cut short by an accident, he wrote his memoirs detailing his first glimpses of some of the earliest trains in the South and his thirty-eight years as a conductor. Published in Atlanta in 1896, his book offers a firsthand account of working conditions on the railroads, operational procedures, wartime railroading, and passenger travel during Reconstruction.

Kansas City was only one of several trading centers along the Missouri River in the mid-nineteenth century. And not the largest at that. But it expanded rapidly into the region's leading commercial city while nearby towns showed only moderate growth or were absorbed by their suddenly urban neighbor. Why did Kansas City take off while others stayed behind? Kansas City got the railroads, says Charles Glaab.

But major rail lines did not merge in Kansas City by happenstance. In this classic urban study, Glaab illustrates the crucial role entrepreneurship and boosterism played in determining rail locations and consequently urban-growth patterns. To persuade the railroad companies to connect through Kansas City rather than its rivals-Leavenworth, St. Joseph, Westport, Independence, Lawrence, and Athison--local boosters, chief among them journalist Robert T. Van Horn, developed better community policies, formed stronger coalitions, and implemented more effective economic development programs than their neighbors.

Political maneuvering, individual decision making, and local promotion of internal improvements, as well as greed and corruption, Glaab contends, played key roles in determining the location of this regional metropolis. Extending beyond the borders and idiosyncrasies of one urban area, Glaab also demonstrates how what happened in Kansas City is representative of what happened across the western half of the United States.

First published in 1962, "Kansas City and the Railroads" remains highly regarded as a landmark study of the forces that shaped the growth of urban America. In this edition, Glaab has included a new preface explaining the development of this study and its relation to the literature that has appeared over the last thirty years.

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.

The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, which journalist LuciusBeebe once called the "Mother of Railroads," was the brainchild of Baltimorecity planners who hoped to outstrip New York in the race for western trade,wealth, and populace. Although Baltimore lost the race, it gave New York a runfor its money early in the 19th century and certainly achieved manyfirsts: the first timetable in 1830, the first eight-wheel passenger coach in1831, and right-of-way for the first telegraph in 1844. In later decades, itwould be a pioneer in the introduction of electric locomotives, diesels, andair conditioning. Author of six earlier books about United States railroads,John F. Stover packs this narrative history with careful scholarship andcolorful description which will appeal to the railroad buff and theprofessional historian, as well as to any reader who wishes to travel with the "Motherof Railroads" through an exciting period in United States history.

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.

How New York City subways signage evolved from a "visual mess" to a uniform system with Helvetica triumphant. For years, the signs in the New York City subway system were a bewildering hodge-podge of lettering styles, sizes, shapes, materials, colors, and messages. The original mosaics (dating from as early as 1904), displaying a variety of serif and sans serif letters and decorative elements, were supplemented by signs in terracotta and cut stone. Over the years, enamel signs identifying stations and warning riders not to spit, smoke, or cross the tracks were added to the mix. Efforts to untangle this visual mess began in the mid-1960s, when the city transit authority hired the design firm Unimark International to create a clear and consistent sign system. We can see the results today in the white-on-black signs throughout the subway system, displaying station names, directions, and instructions in crisp Helvetica. This book tells the story of how typographic order triumphed over chaos. The process didn't go smoothly or quickly. At one point New York Times architecture writer Paul Goldberger declared that the signs were so confusing one almost wished that they weren't there at all. Legend has it that Helvetica came in and vanquished the competition. Paul Shaw shows that it didn't happen that way-that, in fact, for various reasons (expense, the limitations of the transit authority sign shop), the typeface overhaul of the 1960s began not with Helvetica but with its forebear, Standard (AKA Akzidenz Grotesk). It wasn't until the 1980s and 1990s that Helvetica became ubiquitous. Shaw describes the slow typographic changeover (supplementing his text with more than 250 images-photographs, sketches, type samples, and documents). He places this signage evolution in the context of the history of the New York City subway system, of 1960s transportation signage, of Unimark International, and of Helvetica itself.

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.

"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"

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."

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.

Before OPEC took center stage, one state agency in Texas was widely believed to set oil prices for the world. The Texas Railroad Commission (TRC) evolved from its founding in 1891 to a multi-divisional regulatory commission that oversaw not only railroads but also a number of other industries central to the modern American economy: petroleum production, natural gas utilities, and motor carriers. William R. Childs's unprecedented study of the TRC from its founding until the mid-twentieth century focuses on the interplay between business and regulators, between state and national regulatory commissions, and among the three branches of government through a process of ""pragmatic federalism."" Childs demonstrates that the myth of TRC's power was devised by the agency itself as part of building a civil religion of Texas oil. Together, the myth and the civil religion enabled the TRC to convince Texas oil operators to follow production controls and thus stabilized the American oil industry by the 1940s. The result of this fascinating study is a more nuanced understanding of regulation in a federal system, the forces shaping it, and its outcomes.

Charles P. Brown--"a boomer railroad man"--offers in this exceptional autobiography an unusually vivid portrayal of everyday life as a trainman for some of the country's greatest rail lines.
An itinerant railroad worker, or "boomer," Brown hopscotched across America between 1900 and 1913 seeking employment wherever opportunities arose. His wanderlust led him into a variety of jobs--including fireman, brakeman, switchman--for such railroads as the Santa Fe, Union Pacific, Wabash, and New York Central until he was disabled at age thirty-four in a railroad accident. In this sometimes tragic, frequently funny, behind-the-scenes account of railroading, Brownie reveals the reality of working conditions for the railroad laborer at the turn of the century as he relates his many adventures and misadventures.

In the immediate decades after World War II, the French National Railways (SNCF) was celebrated for its acts of wartime heroism. However, recent debates and litigation have revealed the ways the SNCF worked as an accomplice to the Third Reich and was actively complicit in the deportation of 75,000 Jews and other civilians to death camps. Sarah Federman delves into the interconnected roles-perpetrator, victim, and hero-the company took on during the harrowing years of the Holocaust. Grounded in history and case law, Last Train to Auschwitz traces the SNCF's journey toward accountability in France and the United States, culminating in a multimillion-dollar settlement paid by the French government on behalf of the railways.The poignant and informative testimonies of survivors illuminate the long-term effects of the railroad's impact on individuals, leading the company to make overdue amends. In a time when corporations are increasingly granted the same rights as people, Federman's detailed account demonstrates the obligations businesses have to atone for aiding and abetting governments in committing atrocities. This volume highlights the necessity of corporate integrity and will be essential reading for those called to engage in the difficult work of responding to past harms.

With their speed and geographical reach, America’s railroads reigned supreme through much of the nineteenth century, knitting together the sprawling country as no other mode of transportation was able to do. Around 1900, however, an upstart challenger—the automobile— arrived on the scene. At first regarded as little more than a plaything for the wealthy, the new invention rapidly gained popularity, especially after Henry Ford’s innovative mass-production techniques made cars affordable to the middling classes. In this engaging book, John A. Jakle and Keith A. Sculle—renowned experts on the wide-ranging effects of automobility on American life—examine the various ways in which the railroads responded to their new competition, not just from the automobile itself but from its close cousins, the motor truck and motor bus, through several decades up to the eve of World War II. Drawing on extensive research in the trade publications of the period, the authors examine the development of interurban and intraurban rail transport, the transition from steam to electric and diesel power, and the railroads’ close involvement in the nascent trucking and passenger-bus industries. They devote a chapter to the places where trains and automobiles came most directly and dangerously into conflict—railroad crossings—and pay special attention throughout to the key role of government in the competition, whether through antitrust legislation, taxation, or the building of the “good roads� that were so necessary to the rise of auto, truck, and bus transport. Although the railroads remain with us, it was the automobile that emerged as the predominant transportation form, owing to its promise of speed, convenience, flexibility of movement, and, most important, self-gratification. In a country that places such high value on individual freedom, the romance of motoring has proven irresistible.

Railways have always been at the heart of British politics, from their early beginnings in the 1830s through to the present day. And the sharpest debates have been on the issue of ownership and accountability. The book charts the railways under nationalisation (1948-1993) and outlines rail privatisation in both the UK and other European countries. Paul Salveson gives credit to recent achievements but attacks the fragmentation, increased costs and higher fares that have become a feature of Britain's privatised railways. Arguing against the return to a centralised 'British Rail', Salveson instead suggests a new model which goes with the flow of current plans to devolve rail responsibilities within the English regions. The author was the originator of the highly successful community rail movement, and he argues for more direct involvement of local communities in their railways. He outlines recent examples of local social enterprises bringing thriving services back to semi-abandoned stations, and shows how Britain's heritage railway sector has been a successful model for not-for-profit rail enterprise. Combining historical analysis with personal experience and political theory, Salveson's research suggests an alternative ownership system for the rail networks and a possible future for Britain's transport system. The book also includes a foreword by Maria Eagle, the shadow secretary of state for transport.

This book is the first substantial study in any language of one of revolutionary Russia's most distinguished and controversial engineers - Iurii Vladimirovich Lomonosov (1876-1952). Not only does it provide an outline of his remarkable life and career, it also explores the relationship between science, technology and transport that developed in late tsarist and early Soviet Russia. Lomonosov's importance extends well beyond his scientific and engineering achievements thanks to the rich variety and public prominence of his professional and political activities. His generation - Lenin's generation - was inevitably at the forefront of Russian life from the 1910s to the 1930s, and Lomonosov took his place there as one of the country's best known and ultimately notorious engineers. As well as an innovative engineer who campaigned to enhance the role of science, he played a major role in shaping and administering the Russian railways, and undertook several diplomatic and scientific missions to the West during the early years of the Revolution. Falling from political favour during an assignment in Germany (1923-1927), he achieved notoriety in Russia as a 'non-returner' by apparently declining to return home. Thereby escaping probable arrest and execution, he began a new life abroad (1927-1952) which included a research post at the California Institute of Technology in 1929-1930, collaborative projects with the famous physicist P.L. Kapitsa in Cambridge, a long-time association with the Institution of Mechanical Engineers in London, and work for the British War Office during the Second World War. From Marxist revolutionary to American academic, this study reveals Lomonosov's extraordinary life. Drawing on a wide variety of official Russian sources, as well as Lomonosov's own diaries and memoirs, a vivid portrait of his life is presented, offering a better understanding of how science, technology and politics interacted in early-twentieth-century Russia.