This masterful, richly illustrated account of the planning and building of the most important and influential early American railroad, the Baltimore and Ohio, is an essential contribution not only to railyway history but also to the broader history of the development of the United States in the first half of the nineteenth century. There was no precedent for the building of the B&O. The construction of the 380-mile line from Baltimore to the Ohio River over a period of 25 years is an epic story of astute planning and innovative engineering that overcame many formidable obstacles, notably the arduous traversing of 200 miles of mountain wilderness. Its successful inauguration provided a spur to internal improvements throughout the United States. Railroads, and certainly the B&O, epitomized progress, not only in the development and extension of the Western frontier but in the revelation that personal travel and the delivery of freight could be dramatically faster, better, and cheaper. The railroad deeply affected the development of Baltimore's port, industry, and urban geography, as well as its financial, educational, and cultural institutions. George Peabody, Enoch Pratt, William Walters, and Johns Hopkins-the city's most prominent philanthropists-were involved with the B&O, some intimately; the Johns Hopkins University was founded on B&O Railroad stock. The B&O also contributed by aiding in the growth of the state's iron and coal industries. The B&O came to be called "the Railroad University of the United States." Its civil engineers formed the core of the railroad engineering profession in America. The company's annual reports during the building of the line were, according to the American Railroad Journal in 1835, "a textbook and their road and workshops have been as a lecture room to thousands." Throughout, the author highlights the many types of men who were involved in that history: promoters, financiers, politicians, lawyers, newspaper editors, fixers and bagmen, civil engineers, inventors and mechanics, foremen, contractors, and feuding Irish laborers, who together built the first long-distance, general-purpose railroad in the United States. The book is illustrated with 80 photographs and drawings and 5 maps.

This masterful, richly illustrated account of the planning and building of the most important and influential early American railroad, the Baltimore and Ohio, is an essential contribution not only to railyway history but also to the broader history of the development of the United States in the first half of the nineteenth century. There was no precedent for the building of the B&O. The construction of the 380-mile line from Baltimore to the Ohio River over a period of 25 years is an epic story of astute planning and innovative engineering that overcame many formidable obstacles, notably the arduous traversing of 200 miles of mountain wilderness. Its successful inauguration provided a spur to internal improvements throughout the United States. Railroads, and certainly the B&O, epitomized progress, not only in the development and extension of the Western frontier but in the revelation that personal travel and the delivery of freight could be dramatically faster, better, and cheaper. The railroad deeply affected the development of Baltimore's port, industry, and urban geography, as well as its financial, educational, and cultural institutions. George Peabody, Enoch Pratt, William Walters, and Johns Hopkins-the city's most prominent philanthropists-were involved with the B&O, some intimately; the Johns Hopkins University was founded on B&O Railroad stock. The B&O also contributed by aiding in the growth of the state's iron and coal industries. The B&O came to be called "the Railroad University of the United States." Its civil engineers formed the core of the railroad engineering profession in America. The company's annual reports during the building of the line were, according to the American Railroad Journal in 1835, "a textbook and their road and workshops have been as a lecture room to thousands." Throughout, the author highlights the many types of men who were involved in that history: promoters, financiers, politicians, lawyers, newspaper editors, fixers and bagmen, civil engineers, inventors and mechanics, foremen, contractors, and feuding Irish laborers, who together built the first long-distance, general-purpose railroad in the United States. The book is illustrated with 80 photographs and drawings and 5 maps.

Baltimore was an innovator in the development of cast-iron architecture, but the city's heritage of buildings in this genre, once numbering over a hundred, has dwindled to only a handful today. The Baltimore region has also had a long tradition in iron production, beginning with the colonial era and continuing through the 1950s as Sparrows Point became the single largest steel complex in the world.

Baltimore's Cast-Iron Buildings, back in print after an absence of several years, is a celebration of a unique aspect of Baltimore's architectural and industrial history. The authors examine cast-iron buildings in an integrated way to show how the material was fabricated and the buildings erected. They also explore the cast and wrought ironwork used for gates, fences, railings, and ornaments. The heavily illustrated work includes ironwork catalogs from the mid-1800s.

James D. Dilts has written the first comprehensive study of the broad range of structures built in North America for the railroads during their heyday, from high-rise office buildings to beautiful resort hotels to lowly roundhouses and shops. Dilts delves into the personalities of the people who conceived these structures and examines the creative uses that have been found for many of them today. The railroads popularized such vogues in architecture as the Italianate style in the United States and the chateau style in Canada and pioneered the use of new materials (for example, steel) and methods of construction. Included are more than a hundred of the finest examples of fourteen different building types. The World the Trains Made will appeal to railroad and architecture buffs, preservationists considering the adaptive reuse of historic structures, and anyone concerned about our transportation priorities in the age of climate change-particularly with regard to environmentally friendly railroads.