Download or read book New York Central Railroad written by Brian Solomon and published by Voyageur Press. This book was released on 2007-08-15 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For decades the New York Central reigned as one of Americas most important railroads. Beginning with the 1853 consolidation of a group of fledgling railways that formed a route from Buffalo to Albany, the New York Central grew into a powerhouse transportation company with more than 10,000 route miles. This illustrated history of the railroad that grew to power under the Vanderbilt dynasty covers every aspect of the New York Central through its 1968 merger with longtime rival Pennsylvania Railroad and the eventual merger of Penn Centrals successor, Conrail, into Norfolk Southern and CSX. Along the way, readers are treated to a selection of archival photographs, commissioned route maps, period ads, and timetables detailing all of New York Centrals operations--steam and diesel, freight and passenger--not to mention associated icons like Grand Central Terminal, the legendary Henry Dreyfuss shrouded Hudson steam locomotives, the Water Level Route, and the 20th Century Limited passenger trains. Prolific railway author Brian Solomon sources 150 evocative photographs, promotional materials, and postcards not included in the previous edition to deliver a nostalgic and colorful look at the New York Central. In addition, there are four specially commissioned maps.
Download or read book Grand Central Terminal written by Kurt C. Schlichting and published by Johns Hopkins University Press+ORM. This book was released on 2003-04-30 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Looks behind the facade to see the hidden engineering marvels . . . will deepen anyone’s appreciation for New York’s most magnificent interior space.” —The New York Times Book Review Winner of the Professional/Scholarly Publishing Award in Architecture from the Association of American Publishers Grand Central Terminal, one of New York City’s preeminent buildings, stands as a magnificent Beaux-Arts monument to America’s Railway Age, and it remains a vital part of city life today. Completed in 1913 after ten years of construction, the terminal became the city’s most important transportation hub, linking long-distance and commuter trains to New York’s network of subways, elevated trains, and streetcars. Its soaring Grand Concourse still offers passengers a majestic gateway to the wonders beyond 42nd Street. In Grand Central Terminal, Kurt C. Schlichting traces the history of this spectacular building, detailing the colorful personalities, bitter conflicts, and Herculean feats of engineering that lie behind its construction. Schlichting begins with Cornelius Vanderbilt—“The Commodore”—whose railroad empire demanded an appropriately palatial passenger terminal in the heart of New York City. Completed in 1871, the first Grand Central was the largest rail facility in the world and yet—cramped and overburdened—soon proved thoroughly inadequate for the needs of this rapidly expanding city. William Wilgus, chief engineer of the New York Central Railroad, conceived of a new Grand Central Terminal, one that would fully meet the needs of the New York Central line. Grand Central became a monument to the creativity and daring of a remarkable age. More than a history of a train station, this book is the story of a city and an age as reflected in a building aptly described as a secular cathedral.
Download or read book Branch Line Empires written by Michael Bezilla and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2017-11-06 with total page 390 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The saga of a fierce business rivalry: “Absorbing, well-written . . . will appeal to American history scholars and railroad enthusiasts.” —Choice The Pennsylvania and the New York Central railroads helped to develop central Pennsylvania as the largest source of bituminous coal for the nation. By the late nineteenth century, the two lines were among America’s largest businesses and would soon become legendary archrivals. The PRR first arrived in the 1860s. Within a few years, it was sourcing as much as four million tons of coal annually from Centre County and the Moshannon Valley and would continue do so for a quarter-century. The New York Central, through its Beech Creek Railroad affiliate, invaded the region in the 1880s, first seeking a dependable, long-term source of coal to fuel its locomotives but soon aggressively attempting to break its rival’s lock on transporting the area’s immense wealth of mineral and forest products. Beginning around 1900, the two companies transitioned from an era of growth and competition to a time when each tacitly recognized the other’s domain and sought to achieve maximum operating efficiencies by adopting new technology such as air brakes, automatic couplers, all-steel cars, and diesel locomotives. Over the next few decades, each line began to face common problems in the form of competition from other forms of transportation and government regulation—and in 1968, the two businesses merged. Branch Line Empires offers a thorough and captivating analysis of how a changing world turned competition into cooperation between two railroad industry titans. Includes photographs
Download or read book On the Main Line written by Edwin P. Alexander and published by New York : C.N. Potter. This book was released on 1971 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Railroads of New York s Capital District written by Timothy Starr and published by Arcadia Publishing. This book was released on 2021-03-22 with total page 128 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New York's Capital District was ideally situated to become one of the nation's earliest and most important transportation crossroads. The Mohawk River was the only water level gap in the Appalachian range to the west, which led to the construction of the Erie Canal. Soon after its completion, the state's first railroad began operating between Albany and Schenectady in 1831. Other pioneer railroads followed, heading north to Canada, south to New York City, west to Chicago, and east to Boston. Over the next century, railroads like the New York Central, Boston & Albany, Boston & Maine, and Delaware & Hudson built extensive passenger stations, freight and classification yards, and repair shops in the tri-city region. Passenger operations continue today at the Schenectady and Albany-Rensselaer Amtrak stations, while the Selkirk Yard is still an important classification point for CSX Transportation.
Download or read book Classic American Railroads written by Mike Schafer and published by Motorbooks International. This book was released on 2003-09 with total page 172 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book picks up where the previous two Classic American titles left off, focusing on the golden age of American railroading from 1945 to the early 1970s. It extends to the present day where applicable, providing a colorful look at locomotives, passenger and freight operations, development, and, in some cases, demise. Full color.
Download or read book History of the Mohawk Valley Gateway to the West 1614 1925 written by Nelson Greene and published by . This book was released on 1925 with total page 978 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Railroad Wars of New York State written by Timothy Starr and published by Arcadia Publishing. This book was released on 2012-07-24 with total page 187 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New York's railroads were born of the cutthroat conflict of rate wars, bloody strikes and even federal graft. The railroad wars began as soon as the first line was chartered between Albany and Schenectady when supporters of the Erie Canal tried to block the new technology that would render their waterway obsolete. After the first primitive railroads overcame that hurdle, they began battling with one another in a series of rate wars to gain market share. Attracted by the success of the rails, the most powerful and cunning capitalists in the country--Cornelius Vanderbilt, Jay Gould, Daniel Drew and other robber barons--joined the fray. Timothy Starr's account of New York's railroad wars steams through the nineteenth century with stories of rate pools, labor strikes, stock corners, legislative bribery and treasury plundering the likes of which the world had never seen.
Download or read book The Pennsylvania Railroad Volume 1 written by Albert J. Churella and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2012-10-29 with total page 970 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Do not think of the Pennsylvania Railroad as a business enterprise," Forbes magazine informed its readers in May 1936. "Think of it as a nation." At the end of the nineteenth century, the Pennsylvania Railroad was the largest privately owned business corporation in the world. In 1914, the PRR employed more than two hundred thousand people—more than double the number of soldiers in the United States Army. As the self-proclaimed "Standard Railroad of the World," this colossal corporate body underwrote American industrial expansion and shaped the economic, political, and social environment of the United States. In turn, the PRR was fundamentally shaped by the American landscape, adapting to geography as well as shifts in competitive economics and public policy. Albert J. Churella's masterful account, certain to become the authoritative history of the Pennsylvania Railroad, illuminates broad themes in American history, from the development of managerial practices and labor relations to the relationship between business and government to advances in technology and transportation. Churella situates exhaustive archival research on the Pennsylvania Railroad within the social, economic, and technological changes of nineteenth- and twentieth-century America, chronicling the epic history of the PRR intertwined with that of a developing nation. This first volume opens with the development of the Main Line of Public Works, devised by Pennsylvanians in the 1820s to compete with the Erie Canal. Though a public rather than a private enterprise, the Main Line foreshadowed the establishment of the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1846. Over the next decades, as the nation weathered the Civil War, industrial expansion, and labor unrest, the PRR expanded despite competition with rival railroads and disputes with such figures as Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller. The dawn of the twentieth century brought a measure of stability to the railroad industry, enabling the creation of such architectural monuments as Pennsylvania Station in New York City. The volume closes at the threshold of American involvement in World War I, as the strategies that PRR executives had perfected in previous decades proved less effective at guiding the company through increasingly tumultuous economic and political waters.
Download or read book New Departures written by Anthony Perl and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2002-12-01 with total page 366 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: North America faces a transportation crisis. Gas-guzzling SUVs clog the highways and air travelers face delays, cancellations, and uncertainty in the wake of unprecedented terrorist attacks. New Departures closely examines the options for improving intercity passenger trains’ capacity to move North Americans where they want to go. While Amtrak and VIA Rail Canada face intense pressure to transform themselves into successful commercial enterprises, Anthony Perl demonstrates how public policy changes lie behind the triumphs of European and Japanese high-speed rail passenger innovations. Perl goes beyond merely describing these achievements, translating their implications into a North American institutional and political context and diagnosing the obstacles that have made renewing passenger trains so much more difficult in North America than elsewhere. New Departures links the lessons behind rail passenger revitalization abroad with the opportunity to recast the policies that constrain Amtrak and VIA Rail from providing efficient and effective intercity transportation.
Download or read book The Complete Book of North American Railroading written by Kevin EuDaly and published by Crestline Books. This book was released on 2016-09 with total page 355 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Celebrate over 150 years of the North American railroad with this visual history. You'll be amazed by over 400 modern and vintages photographs of these trains!
Download or read book Illinois Central Railroad written by Tom Murray and published by . This book was released on 1882 with total page 174 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
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 Ghosts of Gold Mountain written by Gordon H. Chang and published by Mariner Books. This book was released on 2019 with total page 325 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Guangdong -- Gold Mountain -- Central Pacific -- Foothills -- The High Sierra -- The Summit -- The Strike -- Truckee -- The Golden Spike -- Beyond Promontory.
Download or read book Railroad Generalship Foundations Of Civil War Strategy Illustrated Edition written by Dr. Christopher R. Gabel and published by Pickle Partners Publishing. This book was released on 2014-08-15 with total page 40 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Includes 4 figures, 13 maps and 4 tables. Renowned Military Historian Dr Christopher Gabel investigates the effects of the Railroad on the strategies employed by both the Union and Confederate Generals of the Civil War. According to an old saying, “amateurs study tactics: professionals study logistics.” Any serious student of the military profession will know that logistics constantly shape military affairs and sometimes even dictate strategy and tactics. This excellent monograph by Dr. Christopher Gabel shows that the appearance of the steam-powered railroad had enormous implications for military logistics, and thus for strategy, in the American Civil War. Not surprisingly, the side that proved superior in “railroad generalship,” or the utilization of the railroads for military purposes, was also the side that won the war.
Download or read book Railroad Advertising written by Tad Burness and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2011-02-28 with total page 421 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Relive the glory years of American railroading Return to an era when passenger trains represented the height of luxury and riding the rails was the only way to travel. Classic Railroad Advertising covers nearly a century of memories - of powerful steam locomotives and elegant streamliners, of the brute force of diesel power and the patriotic effort to keep America on the move during a tumultuous world war. During their heyday, railroads employed the top ad agencies and some of the era's best-known illustrators to create compelling magazine advertising. The ads are a wonderful time capsule into a different era, a time when travel meant less about speed and economy and more about comfort and style. Through these ads you'll watch technology advance as railroads embrace streamlined designs and diesels locomotives; ride along as America fights a war, with railroads at front and center of the effort; witness a long, slow decline as passenger trains nearly succumb to competition from automobiles and airplanes, only to re-emerge with a new revitalized role in the guise of Amtrak. Join us for a great railroad journey in print - one that you won't soon forget. • Enjoy nearly 200 color advertisements and authoritative commentary • Remember America's greatest railroads: Pennsylvania, Santa Fe, New York Central, Southern Pacific, and many more • Experience the finest passenger trains, including the Super Chief, 20th Century Limited, California Zephyr, Broadway Limited and others
Download or read book Encyclopedia of North American Railroads written by William D Middleton and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2007-04-06 with total page 1295 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Lavishly illustrated and a joy to read, this authoritative reference work on the North American continent's railroads covers the U.S., Canadian, Mexican, Central American, and Cuban systems. The encyclopedia's over-arching theme is the evolution of the railroad industry and the historical impact of its progress on the North American continent. This thoroughly researched work examines the various aspects of the industry's development: technology, operations, cultural impact, the evolution of public policy regarding the industry, and the structural functioning of modern railroads. More than 500 alphabetical entries cover a myriad of subjects, including numerous entries profiling the principal companies, suppliers, manufacturers, and individuals influencing the history of the rails. Extensive appendices provide data regarding weight, fuel, statistical trends, and more, as well as a list of 130 vital railroad books. Railfans will treasure this indispensable work.