The Story of American Railroads From the Iron Horse to the Diesel Locomotive

by Holbrook, Stewart H.

• ISBN13: 9780486799223
• ISBN10: 0486799220
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2016-01-14
• Publisher: Dover Publications

Summary

This richly comprehensive history by a self-proclaimed "low-brow" historian features more than 100 photographs and contemporary prints of America's railway system. Stewart H. Holbrook presents a dramatic, highly readable chronicle of the development of the backbone of the country's commerce and industry. Abounding in episodes of ingenuity and achievement, the growth of the railway system required constant improvements in techniques, devices, and machines, from the first wood burner that traveled on wooden rails to modern streamliners and diesel-powered giants.
In addition to technological innovations, the colossal enterprise required courage and resolve to battle challenges posed by nature as well as by political maneuvering and corruption. This fascinating survey draws upon many hitherto unknown original sources and new data, in addition to firsthand accounts from hundreds of brakemen, conductors, engineers, and other railroad employees. Sound and authoritative, it constitutes a definitive history of America's railroads.

Author Biography

Stewart Hall Holbrook (1893–1964) worked as a lumberjack, actor, cartoonist, artillery man, and editor. In addition to reviews for the New York Herald Tribune and editorials and feature articles for the Portland Oregonian, he wrote several lively books on American history, covering topics as diverse as the timber industry, the Wobblies, Ethan Allen, and eccentrics of the Pacific Northwest.

Table of Contents

1. Panorama

2. The Prophets

3. Primeval Railroading

4. Railroad Fever

5. "The Work of the Age"

6. Forgotten Genius

7. The Pennsy and The Central

8. The Art of Colonization

9. Hoosiers Start a Railroad--The Monon

10. War Comes to a "Neutral" Line

11. The Big Junction

12. The Rebel Route's Abraham Lincoln

13. Land--Uncle Sam's Alternate Sections

14. The First Transcontinental

15. Jim Hill's Empire

16. Locating the Route

17. The Saga of Stampede Pass

18. Out in the Wild and Woolly

19. Up in the Cold and Icy

20. The Carriers are Harassed

21. Times of Trouble

22. Through the Dark Ages--And After

23. Moments of Disaster

24. The Airbrake Fanatic

25. The Rise of the Railway Express

26. The Fast Mail

27. The Story of the Sleeping Car

28. The Life of the Pullman Porter

29. Spotters

30. First Transcontinental Trip

31. Time and the Railroads

32. The Little Fellers

33. Robbing the Steam Cars

34. Riders of the Rods and the Blinds

35. News Butchers

36. The Biography of a Flagstop

37. The Railroad in the Drama

38. Ballads of the Rails

39. The Second Century

A Railroad Almanac

Bibliography

Index