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"Follow the Flag" offers the first authoritative history of the Wabash Railroad Company, a once vital interregional carrier. The corporate saga of the Wabash involved the efforts of strong-willed and creative leaders, but this book provides more than traditional business history. Noted transportation historian H. Roger Grant captures the human side of the Wabash, ranging from the medical doctors who created an effective hospital department to the worker-sponsored social events. And Grant has not ignored the impact the Wabash had on businesses and communities in the "Heart of America." Like most major American carriers, the Wabash grew out of an assortment of small firms, including the first ...
Railroads and the American People is a sparkling paean to American railroading by one of its finest historians.
Railroads altered the landscape of the United States. Within a few decades of the invention of the locomotive, railways stretched from coast to coast, enabling people and goods to travel far greater distances than ever before, completely altering our concept of time and space. And while railroads may seem like an old technology, they continue to be an essential means of transporting both good and people, and new technologies are making the railroads an increasingly relevant resource for the 21st century. This volume in the Greenwood Technographies series tells the life story of all aspects of railroad technology—everything from the structure of the track to communications to what powers the locomotive.
The Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railroad's history is one of big booms and bigger busts. When it became the first railroad to reach and then cross the Mississippi River in 1856, it emerged as a leading American railroad company. But after aggressive expansion and a subsequent change in management, the company struggled and eventually declared bankruptcy in 1915. What followed was a cycle of resurrections and bankruptcies; a grueling, ten-year, ultimately unsuccessful battle to merge with the Union Pacific; and the Rock Island's final liquidation in 1981. But today, long after its glory days and eventual demise, the "Mighty Fine Road" has left behind a living legacy of major and feeder lines throughout the country. In his latest work, railroad historian H. Roger Grant offers an accessible, gorgeously illustrated, and comprehensive history of this iconic American railroad.
This 50-year saga of the "Weary Erie" describes in vivid detail the turbulent last decades of a colorful, spunky, and innovative railroad. It also tells us much about what happened to American railroading, during this period: technological change, governmental over-regulation, corporate mergers, union "featherbedding," uneven executive leadership, and changing patterns of travel and business. The book is illustrated with 45 photographs and drawings and 4 maps.
Out of the tradition of those long-gone days of great, heaving steam locomotives and endless rail lines comes this remarkable selection of vintage cards, a treasure trove selected from John Vander Maas' consummate collection at the University of Iowa Libraries. This lavish volume is the first general book-length work devoted to the once-ubiquitous railroad picture postcard. It comprises an introductory essay and an album of cards. The former fully examines the nature of the postcard craze, which reached its zenith about 1910, and discusses why images of American railroads played such an important part in the card phenomenon. The album divides an engaging assortment of more than 150 represent...
Railroads altered the landscape of the United States. Within a few decades of the invention of the locomotive, railways stretched from coast to coast, enabling people and goods to travel far greater distances than ever before, completely altering our concept of time and space. And while railroads may seem like an old technology, they continue to be an essential means of transporting both good and people, and new technologies are making the railroads an increasingly relevant resource for the 21st century. This volume in the Greenwood Technographies series tells the life story of all aspects of railroad technology—everything from the structure of the track to communications to what powers the locomotive.
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What began as a study of the Minneapolis & St. Louis Railway stretched into more than a dozen contributions on Hawkeye state railroad topics. By 1969 Donovan had examined Iowa's “Little Three”: Chicago Great Western, Illinois Central, and Minneapolis & St. Paul as well as the state's “Big Four”: Chicago & North Western; Chicago, Burlington & Quincy; Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul & Pacific; and Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific. In addition to these seven core carriers, Donovan covered the state's less prominent railroads: Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe; Great Northern; and Union Pacific and Wabash. Moreover, he contributed an issue on Iowa's principal interurbans, most of which survived into the 1950s as electric-powered freight-only short lines. In uniting Donovan's articles into a single volume, Iowa Railroads provides the most complete history of Iowa's rail heritage.
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 ...