The History Book Club discussion

This is a thread which will focus on the history of trains and locomotives.

Trains were are are important to America. the Transcontinental Railroad opened up the west especially California. They are also important for high weight cargos (e.g., coal). High speed rail is important in Europe and being tested in California.

For sure David - they really are and I wish we were doing more for our infrastructure to improve them and make them better.

I have to ask why should Europe and Asia have bullet trains and a better rail system than America. We should at the very least reach their level or standard.

Nothing Like It In the World: The Men Who Built the Transcontinental Railroad 1863-1869

Stephen E. Ambrose

Synopsis

Nothing Like It in the World gives the account of an unprecedented feat of engineering, vision, and courage. It is the story of the men who built the transcontinental railroad -- the investors who risked their businesses and money; the enlightened politicians who understood its importance; the engineers and surveyors who risked, and sometimes lost, their lives; and the Irish and Chinese immigrants, the defeated Confederate soldiers, and the other laborers who did the backbreaking and dangerous work on the tracks.

The U.S. government pitted two companies -- the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific Railroads -- against each other in a race for funding, encouraging speed over caution. Locomotives, rails, and spikes were shipped from the East through Panama or around South America to the West or lugged across the country to the Plains. In Ambrose's hands, this enterprise, with its huge expenditure of brainpower, muscle, and sweat, comes vibrantly to life.

Thank you Bryan, you were in the wings with a good add.

One of the most famous locomotives in the world, the Flying Scotsman......an icon.

The Flying Scotsman

by Bob Gwynne (no photo)

Synopsis:

Flying Scotsman is probably the most famous railway locomotive in the world. When it was new in 1923 it caused a sensation for its beauty and its speed, and the engine found itself at the center of media attention that continued throughout the decade and made it a household name - to see it was the ambition of every young trainspotter.

But The Flying Scotsman was also a train. Since 1862 the 10am departure from London Kings Cross and Edinburgh Waverley had been the fastest and most comfortable way of travelling the length of the nation, and in 1923 it was officially titled The Flying Scotsman - a nickname it had been given many years earlier - and was confirmed as the most famous and prestigious train in the British timetable. Over the next fifteen years the train got faster and more luxurious, in response to competition from other routes, airlines and the motor car. From 1928 it began running non-stop, an achievement that earned it yet more attention. Until Mallard and its streamlined sisters took the train to even greater heights in the later 1930s, the apple green locomotives and teak carriages of The Flying Scotsman were a national icon, and never more so than when 4472, Flying Scotsman - the first locomotive to achieve an authenticated 100mph - headed the train herself.

This superbly illustrated book introduces the route of The Flying Scotsman the development of the train from 1862 to the present, and the extraordinary story of the locomotive that now forms the centerpiece of the British National Collection.

Playing with Trains: A Passion Beyond Scale

by Sam Posey (no photo)

Synopsis:

Why do grown men play with trains? Is it a primal attachment to childhood, nostalgia for the lost age of rail travel, or the stuff of flat-out obsession? In this delightful and unprecedented book, Grand Prix legend Sam Posey tracks those who share his “passion beyond scale” and discovers a wonderfully strange and vital culture.

Posey’s first layout, wired by his mother in the years just after the Second World War, was, as he writes in his Introduction, “a miniature universe which I could operate on my own. Speed and control: I was fascinated by both, as well as by the way they were inextricably bound together.” Eventually, when Posey’s son was born, he was convinced that building him a basement layout would be the highest expression of fatherhood. Sixteen years and thousands of hours later, this project, “the outgrowth of chance meetings, unexpected friendships, mistakes, illness, latent ambitions, and sheer luck” was completed. But for Posey, the creation of his HO-scale masterpiece based on the historic Colorado Midland, was just the beginning.

In Playing with Trains, Sam Posey ventures well beyond the borders of his layout in northwestern Connecticut, to find out what makes the top modelers tick. He expects to find men “engaged in a genial hobby, happy to spend a few hours a week escaping the pressures of contemporary life.” Instead he uncovers a world of extremes–extreme commitment, extreme passion, and extreme differences of approach. For instance, Malcolm Furlow, holed up on his ranch in the wilderness of New Mexico, insists that model railroading is defined by scenery and artistic self-expression. On the other hand, Tony Koester, a New Jersey modeler, believes his “mission” is to replicate, with fanatical precision and authenticity, the way a real railroad operates. Going to extremes himself, Posey actually “test drives” a real steam engine in Strasburg, Pennsylvania, in an attempt to understand the great machines that inspired the models and connect us to a time when “the railroad was inventing America.” Timeless and original, Playing with Trains reveals a classic, questing American world.

There was nothing prettier than the Streamliner trains that used to criss-cross the country in the age when train travel was the way to go. This book is for the train lover.


Classic American Streamliners

by Mike Schafer(no photo)

Synopsis:

Gorgeous archival photographs combine with original brochures, time tables and menus to illustrate the great story of the streamlined trains that reigned supreme from the 1930s through the 1950s. Union Pacifics City of Salina, Santa Fes Chiefs and Rock Islands Rockets are among the many streamliners featured. Filled with everything pertaining to streamlined trains including their development, rolling stock, motive power, designs, operations, and appointments. Fabulous!

The Great Railroad Revolution: The History of Trains in America

by Christian Wolmar

Synopsis:

America was made by the railroads. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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 to forget them.

In The Great Railroad Revolution, renowned railroad expert Christian Wolmar tells the extraordinary story of the rise and the fall of the greatest of all American endeavors, and argues that the time has come for America to reclaim and celebrate its often-overlooked rail heritage.

Thank you Jerome, Jill and Alisa

The name brings thoughts of mystery and romance.....the famed Orient Express. This book covers the history of that justly famed train.

The Orient Express

by Anthony Burton(no photo)

Synopsis:

The Orient Express is a name that is synonymous with luxury train travel in Europe In 1883, the first train caused a sensation: resplendent in a gleaming livery, each carriage offered the luxury of leather-embossed chairs set in compartments paneled in teak and mahogany detailed with exotic marquetry. -- This book traces the story of the Orient Express service and puts it into historical context by describing the role of European rail travel as well the links with royalty and political figures. It depicts the history of the Orient Express service, from its beginning to its final days. Illustrated with stunning black-and-white photographs, many of them never previously published, it offers an intriguing portrait of the birth, heyday and decline of luxury railroad travel through Europe.

An upcoming book:
Release date: August 5, 2014

To the Edge of the World: The Story of the Trans-Siberian Express, the World's Greatest Railroad

by Christian Wolmar

Synopsis:

Christian Wolmar passionately and expertly chronicles the story of what is often called Siberia’s lifeline. From its improbable conception and construction under Tsar Alexander III to the northern extension ordered by Brezhnev, Wolmar examines its continued success as a vital artery for the expansion of the Russian and subsequently—of the Soviet state. The Trans-Siberian railroad fueled the Russo-Japanese War, the Russian Revolution, Civil War, and the Russian resistance to the Nazi invasion during the Second World War, among other bloody upheavals.

The rousing story of the Trans-Siberian is one of continuous change, extraordinary personalities, and formative political and economic events. This is first general history of the Trans-Siberian railway—the longest rail network in the world, stretching 6,000 miles of bleak winter. The iron tracks sprawl over the bulk of the Asian landmass that’s scarcely populated by disparate and numerous tribes—initially connecting the few who even spoke the official language of the Russian state with the exiled convicts and political prisoners serving out their terms in cruel labor camps where men were regularly beheaded, hanged, starved, or mutilated for minor offenses. And yet, despite this dismal backdrop, the increased stream of people fed into Siberia by the rail led to a drastic transformation through rapid urbanization and migrant settlements. Thanks to the iron road, Siberia has quickly become an inextricable part of Russia’s lore.

But To the Edge of the World is also an adventure in travel, and a journey that will forever evoke the romantic roam through the Russian steppes famously popularized by David Lean’s rich adaptation of Doctor Zhivagoin 1965. It is the portrait of a railway that began as a meandering, single-track line with more curves than an average mountain pass. I would end up as a widely mythologized network of rails that continues to wield a profound influence on the world’s geopolitical system even today.

Good add, Jerome. That looks interesting. Can you imagine the time and labor it took to build the Trans-Siberian?

Empire Express: Building the First Transcontinental Railroad

by David Haward Bain (no photo)

Synopsis:

After the Civil War, the building of the transcontinental railroad was the nineteenth century's most transformative event. Beginning in 1842 with a visionary's dream to span the continent with twin bands of iron, Empire Express captures three dramatic decades in which the United States effectively doubled in size, fought three wars, and began to discover a new national identity. From self--made entrepreneurs such as the Union Pacific's Thomas Durant and era--defining figures such as President Lincoln to the thousands of laborers whose backbreaking work made the railroad possible, this extraordinary narrative summons an astonishing array of voices to give new dimension not only to this epic endeavor but also to the culture, political struggles, and social conflicts of an unforgettable period in American history.

Last Train to Paradise: Henry Flagler and the Spectacular Rise and Fall of the Railroad that Crossed an Ocean

by Les Standiford

Synopsis:

Last Train to Paradise is acclaimed novelist Les Standiford'ss fast-paced and gripping true account of the extraordinary construction and spectacular demise of the Key West Railroad one of the greatest engineering feats ever undertaken, destroyed in one fell swoop by the Labor Day hurricane of 1935. Brilliant and driven entrepreneur Henry Flagler's dream fulfilled, the Key West Railroad stood as a magnificent achievement for more than twenty-two years, heralded as the Eighth Wonder of the World Standiford brings the full force and fury of 1935's deadly Storm of the Century and its sweeping destruction of the railroad that crossed an ocean to terrifying life. Last Train to Paradise celebrates a crowning achievement of Gilded Age ambition in a sweeping tale of the powerful forces of human ingenuity colliding with the even greater forces of nature's wrath.

Rival Rails: The Race to Build America's Greatest Transcontinental Railroad

by Walter R. Borneman (no photo)

Synopsis:

From acclaimed historian Walter R. Borneman comes a dazzling account of the battle to build America’s transcontinental rail lines. Rival Rails is an action-packed epic of how an empire was born—and the remarkable men who made it happen.

After the completion of the first transcontinental railroad in 1869, the rest of the country was up for grabs, and the race was on. The prize: a better, shorter, less snowy route through the corridors of the American Southwest, linking Los Angeles to Chicago. In Rival Rails, Borneman lays out in compelling detail the sectional rivalries, contested routes, political posturing, and ambitious business dealings that unfolded as an increasing number of lines pushed their way across the country.

Borneman brings to life the legendary business geniuses and so-called robber barons who made millions and fought the elements—and one another—to move America, including William Jackson Palmer, whose leadership of the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad relied on innovative narrow gauge trains that could climb steeper grades and take tighter curves; Collis P. Huntington of the Central Pacific and Southern Pacific lines, a magnate insatiably obsessed with trains—and who was not above bribing congressmen to satisfy his passion; Edward Payson Ripley, visionary president of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe, whose fiscal conservatism and smarts brought the industry back from the brink; and Jay Gould, ultrasecretive, strong-armer and one-man powerhouse.

In addition, Borneman captures the herculean efforts required to construct these roads—the laborers who did the back-breaking work, boring tunnels through mountains and throwing bridges across unruly rivers, the brakemen who ran atop moving cars, the tracklayers crushed and killed by runaway trains. From backroom deals in Washington, D.C., to armed robberies of trains in the wild deserts, from glorified cattle cars to streamliners and Super Chiefs, all the great incidents and innovations of a mighty American era are re-created with unprecedented power in Rival Rails.

A Great and Shining Road: The Epic Story of the Transcontinental Railroad

by John Hoyt Williams (no photo)

Synopsis:

he Union Pacific and Central Pacific Railroads were officially joined on May 10, 1869 at Promontory Point, Utah, with the driving of a golden spike. This historic ceremony marked the completion of the first transcontinental railroad. Spanning the Sierras and the “Great American Desert,” the tracks connected San Francisco to Council Bluffs, Iowa. A Great and Shining Road is the exciting story of a mammoth feat that called forth entrepreneurial daring, financial wizardry, technological innovation, political courage and chicanery, and the heroism of thousands of laborers.

Railroaded: The Transcontinentals and the Making of Modern America

by Richard White

Synopsis:

The transcontinental railroads of the late nineteenth century were the first corporate behemoths. Their attempts to generate profits from proliferating debt sparked devastating panics in the U.S. economy. Their dependence on public largess drew them into the corridors of power, initiating new forms of corruption. Their operations rearranged space and time, and remade the landscape of the West. As wheel and rail, car and coal, they opened new worlds of work and ways of life. Their discriminatory rates sparked broad opposition and a new antimonopoly politics.

With characteristic originality, range, and authority, Richard White shows the transcontinentals to be pivotal actors in the making of modern America. But the triumphal myths of the golden spike, robber barons larger than life, and an innovative capitalism all die here. Instead we have a new vision of the Gilded Age, often darkly funny, that shows history to be rooted in failure as well as success.

Blood, Iron And Gold: How The Railways Transformed The World

by Christian Wolmar

Synopsis:

The opening of the world's first railroad in Britain and America in 1830 marked the dawn of a new age. Within the course of a decade, tracks were being laid as far afield as Australia and Cuba, and by the outbreak of World War I, the United States alone boasted over a quarter of a million miles. With unrelenting determination, architectural innovation, and under gruesome labor conditions, a global railroad network was built that forever changed the way people lived. From Panama to Punjab, from Tasmania to Turin, Christian Wolmar shows how cultures were enriched, and destroyed, by one of the greatest global transport revolutions of our time, and celebrates the visionaries and laborers responsible for its creation.

Thank you Jerome

The workhorses of the early railroad era.

American Steam Locomotives

by Brian Solomon (no photo)

Synopsis:

A powerful collection of yesterdays iron workhorses captured in a variety of nostalgic photographs. Solomon's thoroughly-researched text details the origins, development and growth of the steam locomotive from its earliest days right up to its final futile battles to compete with the diesel. Witness the intimate workings of old steam engines that used 20,000 gallons of water per hour! And look inside fireboxes large enough to host a dinner for 12! See these iron behemoths inside and out, in photographs of them on the tracks, as well as in shots of them being rebuilt. An action-packed profile of the mighty steam trains that once ruled the tracks.

Yuri Lomonosov was a Russian train engineer who played a major role in building the Russian railroad system. After the revolution, he went abroad to Berlin to run a program that spent a third of the Russian gold reserve to buy hundreds of locomotives in Germany and Sweden to restore transportation. It also bought ships to deliver them.

At the same time, he developed the first running diesel locomotive. He refused to return to Russia fearing execution. Tony Heywood studied Russian sources and Lomonosov's diaries to write this book. It is a history book rather than a novel, but both the man and events described in it make it very engaging, and the story of inventing the diesel train makes it a must - read if you are serious about train history.

Thanks, Laura. Be sure to give the author link too.

by Anthony Heywood (no photo)

An in-depth look at steam locomotives for the enthusiast.

How Steam Locomotives Really Work

by P.W.B. Semmens(no photo)

Synopsis:

Following the pioneering work of Trevithick, Stephenson, and many others, steam locomotives continued to evolve and be refined until overtaken by diesel and electric traction technology. Although the last main-line steam service was operated by British Rail in 1968, there is still immense interest in steam traction, as demonstrated by the increasing numbers of privately renovated and preserved locomotives and heritage railways around the world. In How Steam Locomotives Really Work, the authors, both railway experts, cover the design of locomotives, the many processes in the conversion of fuel to tractive effort, the dynamic characteristics of the locomotive as a vehicle, the braking equipment, and a host of other systems, major and minor, that make up a working locomotive. They also explain the reasons for running and maintenance practices. Their explanations will fascinate enthusiasts, whether practical or armchair. Steam locomotive design may have started in the United Kingdom, but it quickly developed parallel and sometimes diverging techniques in other countries, leading to many distinct developments that contribute to the national characteristics of some locomotives.

Jill, thank you very much for all of the posts in this folder.

Railways helped to bring backward areas into contact with the modern world as happened when the railway came to the Scottish Highlands. Because of its mountainous topography it came rather late. No longer has cattle to be driven to market; farmers has ready access to markets to sell grain, pototoes and they could branch out into new crops. Scotch whisky distilleries opened up with access to the railway and so it goes on.

How very true, Anne-Mary. In my own state, we used and continue to use the locomotive to move coal. We have more railroads tracks than we have roads!!!

Dear Jill

The supermarket stocks come by rail from the Scottish Central Belt. Their trucks used to be a pain in the neck on the A9 the main road from the south.

Seems like the same congested road problems in both the US and the UK!!!!

Anne-Mary is in Scotland and I know all about the A9 (scary road for me)

The author tells a humorous tale of his trip from Northern North America to the southern tip of South America....by train. An armchair travelers delight.

The Old Patagonian Express: By Train Through the Americas

by Paul Theroux

Synopsis:

Beginning his journey in Boston, where he boarded the subway commuter train, and catching trains of all kinds on the way, Paul Theroux tells of his voyage from ice-bound Massachusetts and Illinois to the arid plateau of Argentina's most southerly tip. Sweating and shivering by turns as the temperature and altitude shoot up and down, thrown in with the appalling Mr. Thornberry in Limon and reading nightly to the blind writer, Borges, in Buenos Aires, Theroux vividly evokes the contrasts of a journey to the end of the line.

The Angola Horror: The 1867 Train Wreck That Shocked the Nation and Transformed American Railroads

by Charity Vogel (no photo)

Synopsis:

On December 18, 1867, the Buffalo and Erie Railroad s eastbound New York Express derailed as it approached the high truss bridge over Big Sister Creek, just east of the small settlement of Angola, New York, on the shores of Lake Erie. The last two cars of the express train were pitched completely off the tracks and plummeted into the creek bed below. When they struck bottom, one of the wrecked cars was immediately engulfed in flames as the heating stoves in the coach spilled out coals and ignited its wooden timbers. The other car was badly smashed. About fifty people died at the bottom of the gorge or shortly thereafter, and dozens more were injured. Rescuers from the small rural community responded with haste, but there was almost nothing they could do but listen to the cries of the dying and carry away the dead and injured thrown clear of the fiery wreck. The next day and in the weeks that followed, newspapers across the country carried news of the Angola Horror, one of the deadliest railway accidents to that point in U.S. history.

In a dramatic historical narrative, Charity Vogel tells the gripping, true-to-life story of the wreck and the characters involved in the tragic accident. Her tale weaves together the stories of the people some unknown; others soon to be famous caught up in the disaster, the facts of the New York Express s fateful run, the fiery scenes in the creek ravine, and the subsequent legal, legislative, and journalistic search for answers to the question: what had happened at Angola, and why? The Angola Horror is a classic story of disaster and its aftermath, in which events coincide to produce horrific consequences and people are forced to respond to experiences that test the limits of their endurance. Vogel sets the Angola Horror against a broader context of the developing technology of railroads, the culture of the nation s print media, the public policy legislation of the post Civil War era, and, finally, the culture of death and mourning in the Victorian period. The Angola Horror sheds light on the psyche of the American nation. The fatal wreck of an express train nine years later, during a similar bridge crossing in Ashtabula, Ohio, serves as a chilling coda to the story.

All over the world in many situations civil engineers met with challenging problems - weather, topography, shortage of money, landowners who did not want their land to be desecrated, etc, etc. The Scottish Highlands was one of these areas in a land of severe gradients, bogs, weather, etc. My great granduncles, William & Murdoch Paterson successfully managed to build railways in there conditions. One, Dingwall to Kyle of Lochalsh is a Great Train Journey of the World.

Anne Mary - having been to the Scottish Highlands - I can agree that is challenging and tough terrain and weather conditions.

Interesting, Anne-Mary. And I agree with Bentley....a tough place to build a railroad having been there myself.

Hear That Lonesome Whistle Blow: The Epic Story of the Transcontinental Railroads

by Dee Brown

Synopsis:

In February 1854 the first railroad from the East reached the Mississippi; by the end of the nineteenth century five major transcontinental railroads linked the East Coast with the Pacific Ocean and thousands of miles of tracks criss-crossed in the West, a vast and virginal land just a few years before.

The story of this extraordinary undertaking is one of breathtaking technological ingenuity, otherwordly idealism, and all-too-wordly greed. The heroes and villains were Irish and Chineselaborers, intrepid engineers, avaricious bankers, stock manipulators, and corrupt politicians. Before it was over more than 155 million acres (one tenth of the country) were given away to the railroad magnates, Indian tribes were decimated, the buffalo were driven from the Great Plains, millions of immigrants were lured from Europe, and a colossal continental nation was built.

Woven into this dramatic narrative are the origins of present-day governmental corruption, the first ties between powerful corporations and politicians who "enjoyed the frequent showers of money that fell upon them from railroad stock manipulators, and gave away America." How the people of that time responded to a sense of disillusionment remarkably similar to our own adds a contemporary dimension to this story.

Thank you Jerome

The Encyclopedia of Trains and Locomotives

by Dave Ross

Synopsis:

All aboard!

Get ready to take an exhilarating journey through the history of the world's greatest trains with this comprehensive encyclopedia.

Everything you ever wanted to know about various types of locomotives is profiled here, including electric, diesel, steam, passenger, and freight trains.

New fans, as well as long-time train aficionados will enjoy this thorough look at one of the most thrilling forms of travel and transportation.

With full-color photographs of each featured locomotive on every page, this book is a visual delight for train enthusiasts! Each entry presents detailed information on each train, including boiler pressure, cylinders, driving wheels, grate area, heating surface, tractive effort, and total weight.

With international coverage, train buffs can learn about everything from British railways to Japanese railways to South American railways to the Prussian railway system.

Written for the train enthusiast as well as the general reader, The Encyclopedia of Trains and Locomotives delivers an accessible and enjoyable guide to the world of locomotives.

Empire Express

by David Haward Bain (no photo)

Synopsis:

After the Civil War, the building of the transcontinental railroad was the nineteenth century's most transformative event. Beginning in 1842 with a visionary's dream to span the continent with twin bands of iron, Empire Express captures three dramatic decades in which the United States effectively doubled in size, fought three wars, and began to discover a new national identity.

From self--made entrepreneurs such as the Union Pacific's Thomas Durant and era--defining figures such as President Lincoln to the thousands of laborers whose backbreaking work made the railroad possible, this extraordinary narrative summons an astonishing array of voices to give new dimension not only to this epic endeavor but also to the culture, political struggles, and social conflicts of an unforgettable period in American history.

The Berlin-Baghdad Express: The Ottoman Empire and Germany's Bid for World Power

by Sean McMeekin (no photo)

Synopsis:

The modern Middle East was forged in the crucible of the First World War, but few know the full story of how war actually came to the region.

As Sean McMeekin reveals in this startling reinterpretation of the war, it was neither the British nor the French but rather a small clique of Germans and Turks who thrust the Islamic world into the conflict for their own political, economic, and military ends.

"The Berlin-Baghdad Express" tells the fascinating story of how Germany exploited Ottoman pan-Islamism in order to destroy the British Empire, then the largest Islamic power in the world. Meanwhile the Young Turks harnessed themselves to German military might to avenge Turkey s hereditary enemy, Russia.

Told from the perspective of the key decision-makers on the Turco-German side, many of the most consequential events of World War I Turkey s entry into the war, Gallipoli, the Armenian massacres, the Arab revolt, and the Russian Revolution are illuminated as never before.

Drawing on a wealth of new sources, McMeekin forces us to re-examine Western interference in the Middle East and its lamentable results.

It is an epic tragicomedy of unintended consequences, as Turkish nationalists give Russia the war it desperately wants, jihad begets an Islamic insurrection in Mecca, German sabotage plots upend the Tsar delivering Turkey from Russia s yoke, and German Zionism midwifes the Balfour Declaration.

All along, the story is interwoven with the drama surrounding German efforts to complete the Berlin to Baghdad railway, the weapon designed to win the war and assure German hegemony over the Middle East.

John Ford movie on building the Union Pacific and Central Pacific Railroad

Silent Movie - The Iron Horse - A Western
Link: https://youtu.be/554o9FLjvqk

Note: Accurate and faithful in every particular fact and atmosphere is this silent movie depicting the pictorial history of the building of the first transcontinental railroad.


Springfield, Illinois. Brandon, a surveyor, dreams of building a railway to the west, but Marsh, a contractor, is sceptical.

Abraham Lincoln looks on as their children, Davy Brandon and Miriam Marsh, play together. Brandon sets off with Davy to survey a route. They discover a new pass which will shave 200 miles off the expected distance, but they are set upon by a party of Cheyenne.

One of them, a white renegade with only two fingers on his right hand, kills Brandon and scalps him. Davy buries his father... Years pass.

It is 1862 and Lincoln signs the bill authorizing construction of the Union Pacific and Central Pacific railways. Marsh is principal contractor and Miriam is engaged to Jesson, the chief engineer...

Crews of Chinese, Italians, and Irish work to build the railway while resisting Indian attack. When the pay train is delayed by Indian ambush, the Italians go on strike. Miriam persuades them to return to work... Marsh needs to find a shortcut through the Black Hills.

Denver and Rio Grande Steam Train 315 - Durango and Silverton

Link: https://youtu.be/WGKvQavBsOE

Denver and Rio Grande Western steam locomotive number 315 is a C-18 class locomotive built in 1895 by the Baldwin Locomotive works.

It was purchased new by the Florence and Cripple Creek Railroad but was later sold to the DRGW (then DRG) in 1917.

It received its current number in the 1920's when the Denver and Rio Grande was reorganized. During its career on the DRGW, 315 ran throughout the Narrow Gauge system. It spent its final days on the DRGW roster in Durango, CO as a yard switcher.

315 was loaned and later donated to the Durango Chamber of Commerce for static display following its retirement in 1949.

The 315 was also a "movie star" of the rails, being used in the movie Colorado Territory (1949) and Around the World in 80 Days (1956).

Today, DRGW 315 has been fully restored to its former glory after a 7 year restoration by the Durango Railroad Historical Society (DRHS) and makes occasional trips for the public on the Durango and Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad and the Cumbres and Toltec Scenic Railroad.

Come along as we follow the locomotive from Durango to Silverton and return on a few special trips that were made in 2010 and 2013 on the Durango and Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad. Scenes from on the ground and on the train are included.

Enjoy the sights and sounds of this classic Colorado narrow gauge steam locomotive!

Source: Youtube

Colorado Territory (1949) Western - Joel McCrea, Virginia Mayo, Dorothy Malone Part 1

Link: ://dai.ly/x5f84yx

Colorado Territory (1949) Western - Joel McCrea, Virginia Mayo, Dorothy Malone Part 2

Link: https://dai.ly/x5f86ed

Around the World in 80 Days

https://youtu.be/YNVMiiphsx0

Set in 1872, the story focuses on Passepartout, a Chinese thief who steals a valuable jade Buddha and then seeks refuge in the traveling companionship of an eccentric London inventor and adventurer, Phileas Fogg, who has taken on a bet with members of his gentlemen's club that he can make it around the world in a mere 80 days, using a variety of means of transportation, like boats, trains, balloons, elephants, etc.

Along the way, Passepartout uses his amazing martial arts abilities to defend Fogg from the many dangers they face.. One major threat to their adventure is a detective that's following them. Why?

Just as Fogg and Passeportout left London, a major bank was robbed, with Fogg suspected of using the "around the world" trip as an excuse to escape.. Their path from London and back includes stops in Paris, Turkey, India, China and USA...

Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat (The Lumière Brothers, 1895)

Link: https://youtu.be/1dgLEDdFddk

Excerpt regarding this film segment:

"Trains and cinema are so closely intertwined: the very first story that we have of an audience reaction is of the Lumière Brothers’ film of the train arriving. Reading the history of railways is like reading a transmogrified version of the history of cinema, I think. - Frank Cottrell Boyce, acclaimed British screenwriter and author - interview with Five Books

More:
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles...

An upcoming book:
Release date: May 12, 2020

Iron Empires: Robber Barons, Railroads, and the Making of Modern America

by Michael Hiltzik (no photo)

Synopsis:

In 1869, when the final spike was driven into the Transcontinental Railroad, few were prepared for its seismic aftershocks. Once a hodgepodge of short, squabbling lines, America’s railways soon exploded into a titanic industry helmed by a pageant of speculators, crooks, and visionaries. The vicious competition between empire builders such as Cornelius Vanderbilt, Jay Gould, J. P. Morgan, and E. H. Harriman sparked stock market frenzies, panics, and crashes; provoked strikes that upended the relationship between management and labor; transformed the nation’s geography; and culminated in a ferocious two-man battle that shook the nation’s financial markets to their foundations and produced dramatic, lasting changes in the interplay of business and government.

Spanning four decades and featuring some of the most iconic figures of the Gilded Age, Iron Empires reveals how the robber barons drove the country into the twentieth century—and almost sent it off the rails.

Thank you, Jerome this looks wonderful. It is now on my TBR list.

That sounds like a great book Jerome - thank you so much for the add and how you keep up our threads.

Group Members - please follow along in Jerome's shoes and add books that you like - just follow his format.

An upcoming book:
Release date: June 1, 2021

From the River to the Sea: The Untold Story of the Railroad War That Made the West

by John Sedgwick (no photo)

Synopsis:

It is remarkable now to imagine, but during the 1870s, the American West, for all its cloud-topped peaks and endless coastline, might have been barren tundra as far as most Americans knew. In 1869, the first transcontinental railroad had made history by linking East and West, but, relying heavily on federal grants, it left an opening for two brash new railroad men, the Civil War hero behind the Rio Grande and the corporate chieftain of the Santa Fe, to build the first transcontinental to make money by creating a railroad empire across the Southwest to the sea.

The railroad companies were governments on wheels: they set the course, chose the route, and built up cities and towns along their tracks. Their choices brought life to such out-of-the-way places as San Diego, Santa Fe, Albuquerque, Denver, and to Los Angeles most of all: The Santa Fe turned a sleepy backwater of 30,000 into a booming metropolis of 150,000 in three years—the most explosive growth of any city in the history of the United States.

By then, the two men behind the Rio Grande and the Santa Fe had fought all across the west to lay claim to the routes that would secure the most profitable territory and the richest silver mines. But they often led through narrow mountain passes or up treacherous canyons with room for only a single set of tracks. To win them, each side turned hundreds of their train workers into private armies backed by local militia and paid mercenaries like Dodge City’s Bat Masterson. The war left one of the two lines reeling in a death spiral and sent the other on to a greatness unequaled by any other railroad in the world.

From the River to the Sea is the epic story of the greatest railroad war of all time, fought by two railroad men for glory and fortune—and the right to shape the future of the West.

Well that is an interesting book and add - thank you Jerome.