The Great Railroad Revolution: The History of Trains in America
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.93 (562 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 1610393473 |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 448 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2018-01-27 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
Promoted by visionaries and built through heroic effort, the American railroad network was bigger in every sense than Europe’s, and facilitated everything from long-distance travel to commuting and transporting goods to waging war. The opening of the Baltimore & Ohio line––the first American railroad––in the 1830s sparked a national revolution in the way that people lived thanks to the speed and convenience of train travel. By the early 1900s, the United States was covered in a latticework of more than 200,000 miles of railroad track and a series of magisterial termini, all built and controlled by the biggest corporations in the land. It united far-flung parts of the country, boosted economic development, and was the catalyst for America’s rise to world-power status.Every American town, great or small, aspired to be connected to a railroad and by the turn of the century, almost every American lived within easy access of a station. The railroads dominated the American landscape for more than a hundred years but by the middle of the twentieth century, the automobile, the truck, and the airplane had eclipsed the railroads and the nation started
Wolmar is clearly in love with his subject—it’s easy to imagine him as a sort of walking encyclopedia of railroad lore—and his enthusiasm for his material shines through on every page. --David Pitt . He finds the decline and increasing irrelevance of the railroad—especially the passenger rails—a deeply saddening aspect of contemporary life, and he makes a convincing case that, in losing rail travel as a fundamental human experience, we’ve lost a hugely important part of ourselves and our history. From Booklist Wolmar, a noted historian specializing in the British railway industry, here turns his attention to American railroads (which, at their peak in 1916, covered 254,037 miles of track). He focuses mostly on the nineteenth century; the twentieth century, he notes, saw
"great history" according to C. P. Anderson. As a serious history buff but a very amateur rail fan, I've always been a bit disappointed. There always seemed to be no shortage of books out there that discussed all sorts of minutiae about obscure lines or particular engines or famous passenger trains. I could never really find anything, however, that got out of the trees and showed me the forest.Well, I think . and fun to read Well written, well researched, and fun to read.Chuck Frank. Plodding at times, but nonetheless fairly entertaining Plodding at times, but some interesting history here and there.