This well-illustrated work by a distinguished social historian narrates the epic of the great age of railway history and development. It sets this in the context of the social history and its contemporary impact on society as a whole. It shows authoritatively how the railways revolutionised everything - being the most spectacular change of the Industrial Revolution. This impact continues to shape our life today, as the railways transformed the economic life of whole nations and transformed the quality of life itself. The author shows how railways helped break down class barriers, and established quite new ones which persist today. The railways radically altered the pattern of leisure, too, in upper, middle, and working class life. And they made possible the growth of vast suburban areas, and ushered in the computer age. In so many ways the railways formed the social structures of today's industrial advances, as the author shows. This is a very readable and highly individual social history full of valuable insights.

Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, the newly formed country of Czechoslovakia built an ambitious national rail network out of what remained of the obsolete Habsburg system. While conceived as a means of knitting together a young and ethnically diverse nation-state, these railways were by their very nature a transnational phenomenon, and as such they simultaneously articulated and embodied a distinctive Czechoslovak cosmopolitanism. Drawing on evidence ranging from government documents to newsreels to train timetables, Iron Landscapes gives a nuanced account of how planners and authorities balanced these two imperatives, bringing the cultural history of infrastructure into dialogue with the spatial history of Central Europe.

By the latter part of the nineteenth century, the railroad was king. Railroad lines crisscrossed the North American continent, allowing for the long-distance transportation of oil, coal, lumbar, gold, and other valuables. Despite high operating costs and fierce competition, the search for better and more profitable routes was constant. David Moffat, a banker and railroad executive, dreamed of a direct route across the Rocky Mountains, a route that would allow him to tap into Colorado's vast mineral wealth. There was, however, one major obstacle standing in his way-the 13,660-foot Continental Divide.

"The Moffat Line" tells the story of David Moffat and the impossible dream that led to the 1927 completion of the Moffat Tunnel. The story is also about the men who drove the trains and built and operated the railroad under incredible weather and equipment challenges-day and night. Together, Moffat's vision and the exploits of the railroad workers combine to produce a fascinating chapter in the history of the American West.

Covering legendary and obscure intercity passenger trains in a dozen Southeastern states, this book details the golden age of train travel. The story begins with the inception of steam locomotives in 1830 in Charleston, South Carolina, continuing through the mid-1930s changeover to diesel and the debut of Amtrak in 1971 to the present. Throughout, the book explores the technological achievements, the romance and the economic impact of traveling on the tracks. Other topics include contemporary museums and excursion trains; the development of commuter rails, monorails, light rails, and other intracity transit trains; the social impact of train travel; and historical rail terminals and facilities. The book is supplemented with more than 160 images and 10 appendices.

"The Gainesville Midland and her Sister Short Lines" covers the histories of the Gainesville Midland and her predecessors the Gainesville, Jefferson & Southern and the Walton railroads. It covers the successors to the Walton - the Monroe and Great Walton railroads. It covers the Gainesville & Northwestern, the Chestatee, the failed Gainesville & Dahlonega. And finally it covers the associated railroads - the Greene County and its predecessor the Bostwick. There are numerous track plans and industry information on the maps. Great for historians or railroaders and modelers. The book has 208 pages. It has 239 photos, timetables, tables or maps. Several never before published photographs and locomotive histories have been included in this book. Many Georgia Public Service Commission Reports were used as references.

Tim Parks s books on Italy have been hailed as "so vivid, so packed with delectable details, they] serve as a more than decent substitute for the real thing" (Los Angeles Times Book Review). Now, in his first Italian travelogue in a decade, he delivers a charming and funny portrait of Italian ways by riding its trains from Verona to Milan, Rome to Palermo, and right down to the heel of Italy.

Parks begins as any traveler might: "A train is a train is a train, isn t it?" But soon he turns his novelist s eye to the details, and as he journeys through majestic Milano Centrale station or on the newest high-speed rail line, he delivers a uniquely insightful portrait of Italy. Through memorable encounters with ordinary Italians conductors and ticket collectors, priests and prostitutes, scholars and lovers, gypsies and immigrants Parks captures what makes Italian life distinctive: an obsession with speed but an acceptance of slower, older ways; a blind eye toward brutal architecture amid grand monuments; and an undying love of a good argument and the perfect cappuccino.

Italian Ways also explores how trains helped build Italy and how their development reflects Italians sense of themselves from Garibaldi to Mussolini to Berlusconi and beyond. Most of all, Italian Ways is an entertaining attempt to capture the essence of modern Italy. As Parks writes, "To see the country by train is to consider the crux of the essential Italian dilemma: Is Italy part of the modern world, or not?""