Download or read book Twilight Rails written by H. Roger Grant and published by U of Minnesota Press. This book was released on 2010 with total page 293 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By the start of the twentieth century railroads crisscrossed the nation, yet there were still those who believed that the railroad network in the United States was far from complete. Residents of small towns lacking rail access lobbied hard for steam and electric roads to serve their communities, and investors eagerly started new ventures that would fill the gaps in the railway map. While some of these roads enjoyed a degree of success, most of them were financial flops even before the rise of the highway system made them obsolete.In Twilight Rails, H. Roger Grant—one of the leading railroad historians working today—documents the stories of eight Midwestern carriers that appeared at the end of the railroad building craze. When historians have reflected on these “twilight” carriers, they have suggested that they were relevant only as examples of unwise business ventures. Grant finds that even the weakest railroads were important to the communities they served; the arrival of the railroad was cause for great celebration as residents were finally connected to the outside world. A railroad’s construction pumped money into local economies, farmers and manufacturers gained access to better markets, and the excitement generated by a new line often increased land values and inspired expansion of local businesses. Even the least financially successful carriers, Grant argues, managed to significantly improve their local economies.This thorough and highly accessible history provides a fascinating look at the motivations, accomplishments, and failures of the twilight carriers, granting a new breath of life to this neglected aspect of American railway history.
Download or read book Railroads and the American People written by H. Roger Grant and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2012-10-17 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “[A] wealth of vignettes and more than 100 black-and-white illustrations . . . Does a fine job of humanizing the iron horse” (The Wall Street Journal). In this social history of the impact of railroads on American life, H. Roger Grant concentrates on the railroad’s “golden age,” from 1830 to 1930. He explores four fundamental topics—trains and travel, train stations, railroads and community life, and the legacy of railroading in America—illustrating each with carefully chosen period illustrations. Grant recalls the lasting memories left by train travel, both of luxurious Pullman cars and the grit and grind of coal-powered locals. He discusses the important role railroads played for towns and cities across America, not only for the access they provided to distant places and distant markets but also for the depots that were a focus of community life, and reviews the lasting heritage of the railroads in our culture today. This is “an engaging book of train stories” from one of railroading’s finest historians (Choice). “Highly recommended to train buffs and others in love with early railroading.” —Library Journal “With plenty of detail, Grant brings a bygone era back to life, addressing everything from social and commercial appeal, racial and gender issues, safety concerns, and leaps in technology . . . A work that can appeal to both casual and hardcore enthusiasts.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
Download or read book Rails written by Barry Taylor and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2010-08-30 with total page 601 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a guide to rails, a relatively homogeneous family of birds spread throughout the world. Barry Taylor and Ber van Perlo have described and illustrated 145 species of rails, including two that are newly described, and also ten that are recently extinct and two that are almost certainly extinct. The book, based on up-to-date references and on new observations, is the first to give comprehensive information on field identification (including voice), covering all species and races for which details are known. It is also the first to provide descriptions of the immature and juvenile plumages of many species. The authors provide a detailed summary of current knowledge of all aspects of rail biology and their often complex behaviour, social structure, and family life. They explain how such apparently poorly flying birds can undertake intercontinental migrations and are such widespread and successful colonists of remote oceanic islands. They also discuss the remarkable ease and speed with which species on such islands have evolved into flightless forms in the absence of predators, a fact that has led to the rapid extinction of numerous island taxa following the arrival of man. Rail habitats are fast disappearing, say the authors, and many rails become endangered before enough is known about them to plan effective conservation measures. The book provides information on distribution, status, habitat requirements, and current threats, and it gives conservation priorities for threatened species.
Download or read book Railway Locomotives and Cars written by and published by . This book was released on 1832 with total page 856 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Sunset Cluster written by H. Roger Grant and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2023-06-20 with total page 247 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Discover the Sunset Cluster—railroads that were doomed to fail? The first two decades of the 20th century were the twilight of the Railroad Age. Major routes had long been established, and local service became the focus of new construction. Beginning in 1907, a cluster of five shortline railroads were established in otherwise unconnected parts of Iowa. They, however, would short lived. The five Iowa 'sunset cluster' railroads might appear to deserve eternal obscurity, being at best minor footnotes to American railroad history. After all, their total mileage barely exceeded 100 miles. Their average life span, moreover, covered about five years, and the Des Moines & Red Oak Railway (DM&RO) never turned a wheel. Yet, these Iowa shortlines had an immediate positive impact to their service area, but disappointingly they became victims of modal competition and the Good Roads Movement. Using contemporary newspapers, government reports, and other little-known sources, renowned railway historian H. Roger Grant offers a fascinating look at these shortline railroads. Sunset Cluster explores the almost desperate desire by communities to benefit from steel rails before the regional railroad map finally imploded and the challenges faced by latter-day shortline builders.
Download or read book Transportation and the American People written by H. Roger Grant and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2019-10-01 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Transportation is the unsung hero in America’s story. Stagecoaches, waterways, canals, railways, busses, and airplanes revolutionized much more than just the way people got around; they transformed the economic, political, and social aspects of everyday life. In Transportation and the American People, renowned historian H. Roger Grant tells the story of American transportation from its slow, uncomfortable, and often dangerous beginnings to the speed and comfort of travel today. Early advances like stagecoaches and canals allowed traders, business, and industry to expand across the nation, setting the stage for modern developments like transcontinental railways and busses that would forever reshape the continent. Grant provides a compelling and thoroughly researched narrative of the social history of travel, shining a light on the role of transportation in shaping the country and on the people who helped build it.
Download or read book Old Fashioned Modernism written by Andy Oler and published by LSU Press. This book was released on 2019-06-12 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Midwest holds two conflicting positions in the American cultural imagination, both of which rob the region of its distinctiveness. Often, it is seen as the “heartland,” a pastoral ideal standing in for all of American culture. Alternatively, the Midwest can represent “flyover country,” part of an expansive, undifferentiated mass between the coasts. In Old-Fashioned Modernism: Rural Masculinity and Midwestern Literature, Andy Oler challenges both views by pairing fiction and poetry from the region with cultural and material texts that illustrate the processes by which regional modernism both opposes and absorbs prevailing models of twentieth-century manhood. Although it acknowledges a tradition of Midwestern urban literature, Old-Fashioned Modernism focuses on representations of life on farms and in small towns that generate specific forms of rural modernity. Oler considers a series of male protagonists who both fulfill and resist conventional American narratives of economic advancement, spatial experience, and gender roles. The writers he studies portray the onset of socioeconomic and mechanical modernity by merging realist and naturalist narratives with upwellings of modernist form and style. His analysis charts a trajectory in which Midwestern literature depicts experiences that appear dependent on nostalgic pastoralism but actually foreground the ongoing fragmentation and emerging anxieties of the countryside. In detailed readings of novels by Sherwood Anderson, William Cunningham, Langston Hughes, Wright Morris, and Dawn Powell, as well as the poetry of Lorine Niedecker, Oler highlights images of men from the rural Midwest who face the tensions between agricultural production and mass industrialization. These works of literature, which Oler examines alongside pieces of material culture like advertisements for farm implements and record labels, feature communities that support self-made as well as corporate identities. As portraits of the Midwest that resist the totalizing trajectory of industrialization, these texts generate spaces that meld rural and urban economics, land use, and affective experiences. Old-Fashioned Modernism reveals how Midwestern regionalism negotiates the anxieties and dominant narratives of early- and midcentury rural masculinities, as regional literature and culture alter the forms and spaces of literary modernism.
Download or read book Electric Interurbans and the American People written by H. Roger Grant and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2016-10-31 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A well-written social history of the shortest-lived major US transportation mode” from the railway historian and author of A Mighty Fine Road (Choice). One of the most intriguing yet neglected pieces of American transportation history, electric interurban railroads were designed to assist shoppers, salesmen, farmers, commuters, and pleasure-seekers alike with short distance travel. At a time when most roads were unpaved and horse and buggy travel were costly and difficult, these streetcar-like electric cars were essential to economic growth. But why did interurban fever strike so suddenly and extensively in the Midwest and other areas? Why did thousands of people withdraw their savings to get onto what they believed to be a “gravy train?” How did officials of competing steam railroads respond to these challenges to their operations? H. Roger Grant explores the rise and fall of this fleeting form of transportation that started in the early 1900s and was defunct just 30 years later. Perfect for railfans, Electric Interurbans and the American People is a comprehensive contribution for those who love the flanged wheel. “With this book, the subject no longer has footnote status. In fact, Grant’s work deserves a place alongside some of the other landmark surveys of the subject . . . Here, Grant moves beyond the receiverships, the rickety track, and all that fascinating rolling stock. He shows us why the whole darned thing mattered.” —Railroad History “H. Roger Grant has produced a fine social history of America’s electric interurbans, exploring the relationship between people and those railway enterprises. The book fills a void, is eminently readable, and richly illustrated.” —Don L. Hofsommer, author of Off the Main Lines
Download or read book Autumn in Snake Canyon written by Angela Dorsey and published by Enchanted Pony Books. This book was released on 2012 with total page 115 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Evy has a couple of BIG problems. First, her orphaned moose calf is causing her a world of trouble. Her mom is ready to lock him up and throw away the key. Second, Evy discovers that her mom’s art dealer is stealing money from them, and even worse, he’s purposefully destroying her mom’s confidence in her art. How can Evy prove his crime? Maybe with a little help from her friends, both horses and human – and one very rambunctious moose calf. Maybe moose trouble is exactly what her family needs!
Download or read book Rails to Penn State written by Michael Bezilla and published by Stackpole Books. This book was released on 2007 with total page 350 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: More than five hundred short line railroads existed in the United States at the industry's height, and Pennsylvania had more than any other state. The history of the Bellefonte Central, which operated in central Pennsylvania from the 1880s until 1982, is a classic story of the rise and decline of short line railroads nationwide. Connecting with the Pennsylvania Railroad--a company that proved to be both friend and foe--the Bellefonte Central played an important role in developing the region's renowned limestone and hot-blast ironmaking industries and was Penn State University's economic lifeline for generations.
Download or read book The Louisville Cincinnati Charleston Rail Road written by H. Roger Grant and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2014-04-17 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Among the grand antebellum plans to build railroads to interconnect the vast American republic, perhaps none was more ambitious than the Louisville, Cincinnati & Charleston. The route was intended to link the cotton-producing South and the grain and livestock growers of the Old Northwest with traders and markets in the East, creating economic opportunities along its 700-mile length. But then came the Panic of 1837, and the project came to a halt. H. Roger Grant tells the incredible story of this singular example of "railroad fever" and the remarkable visionaries whose hopes for connecting North and South would require more than half a century—and one Civil War—to reach fruition.
Download or read book The Railway Magazine written by and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page 650 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Iron Road in the Prairie State written by Simon Cordery and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2016-01-20 with total page 238 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1836, Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas agreed on one thing: Illinois needed railroads. Over the next fifty years, the state became the nation's railroad hub, with Chicago at its center. Speculators, greed, growth, and regulation followed as the railroad industry consumed unprecedented amounts of capital and labor. A nationwide market resulted, and the Windy City became the site of opportunities and challenges that remain to this day. In this first-of-its-kind history, full of entertaining anecdotes and colorful characters, Simon Cordery describes the explosive growth of Illinois railroads and its impact on America. Cordery shows how railroading in Illinois influenced railroad financing, the creation of a national economy, and government regulation of business. Cordery's masterful chronicle of rail development in Illinois from 1837 to 2010 reveals how the state's expanding railroads became the foundation of the nation's rail network.
Download or read book Train written by Tom Zoellner and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2014-01-30 with total page 420 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An epic and revelatory narrative of the most important transportation technology of the modern world In his wide-ranging and entertaining new book, Tom Zoellner—coauthor of the New York Times–bestselling An Ordinary Man—travels the globe to tell the story of the sociological and economic impact of the railway technology that transformed the world—and could very well change it again. From the frigid trans-Siberian railroad to the antiquated Indian Railways to the Japanese-style bullet trains, Zoellner offers a stirring story of this most indispensable form of travel. A masterful narrative history, Train also explores the sleek elegance of railroads and their hypnotizing rhythms, and explains how locomotives became living symbols of sex, death, power, and romance.
Download or read book Bound by Steel and Stone written by J. Bradford Bowers and published by University Press of Colorado. This book was released on 2021-07-01 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bound by Steel and Stone analyzes the Colorado-Kansas Railway through the economic enterprise in the American West in the decades after the supposed 1890 closing of the frontier. In it, J. Bradford Bowers weaves a tale of reinvention against the backdrop of the newly settled West, showing how the railway survived in one form or another for nearly fifty years, overcoming competition from other railroads, a limited revenue base, and even more limited capital financing. Offering the Colorado-Kansas Railway as an example of how shortline railroads helped to integrate the rural landscape with the larger urban and economic world, Bowers reveals the constant adaptations driven by changing economic forces and conditions. He puts the railway in context of the wider environmental and political landscapes, the growing quarrying and mining business, the expansion of agriculture and irrigation, Progressive-era political reforms, and land development. In the new frontier of enterprise in the early twentieth-century American West, the railroad highlights the successes and failures of the men inspired to pursue these new opportunities as well as the story of one woman who held these fragile industries together well into the second half of the twentieth century. Bound by Steel and Stone is an insightful addition to the history of industrialization and economic development in Colorado and the American West.
Download or read book Financial World written by and published by . This book was released on 1957 with total page 1046 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Twilight s Last Glory written by Stephen Perkins and published by Lulu.com. This book was released on 2018-09-25 with total page 358 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A global spectacle of triumph and anguish. A grand pageant of violence and drama. In the future it is more than just a game, and a mysterious secret society will use it to change the world. America's game has become the world's favorite pastime, and she is not just the WFFL's latest superstar but the future of humanity! In a world secretly ruled by an organized crime pyramid with mystical powers known as the Octagonal, and while a legend who harbors a dark secret strives for one last shot at glory in the twilight of his career, crime lord Gigi Salerno is the sinister hand casting the ultimate fate of victory or defeat. And, he will utilize any means necessary to ensure the Octagonal remains in control of the world's most popular game. But when a brilliant team doctor envisions future WFFL rosters filled out with AI, Salerno's masters decide he's expendable. Now threatened by the ambitions of a young sports columnist determined to expose the Octagonal, Salerno may have to befirend his enemies to survive!
