Showing titles in Railroads

UPDATED 2015 EDITION. Whether dashing through the Plains, creeping over the Rockies, hurtling across the Great Basin, or threading the Sierra Nevada, the California Zephyr is an earthbound cruise ship bearing as many as 300 passengers, each with a story to tell. One hears tales of trysts in showers and sleepers, of charming serendipities in dining cars, of smuggling drugs and pets (including an elusive boa constrictor), and of a small child's tragic death on the tracks. The California Zephyr remains America's most exhilarating train, traversing breathtaking mountain scenery and retracing ...

Follow the Flag offers the first authoritative history of the Wabash Railroad Company, which in its heyday reached the principal gateways of Chicago, Des Moines, Detroit, Kansas City, St. Louis, Boston and New York City. Immortalized in the popular folk song "Wabash Cannonball", the Midwestern railroad has left important legacies. Today, 40 years after becoming a "fallen flag" carrier, key components of the former Wabash remain busy rail arteries and terminals, attesting to its historic value to American transportation.

Why do people love trains so much? Tom Chesshyre is on a mission to find the answer by experiencing the world through train travel - on both epic and everyday rail routes, aboard every type of ride, from steam locomotives to bullet trains, meeting a cast of memorable characters who share a passion for train travel. Join him on the rails and off the beaten track as he embarks on an exhilarating whistle-stop tour around the globe, on journeys on celebrated trains and railways.

What is it that fascinates so many people about Ronnie Biggs and makes him a household name sixty years on from the crime that made his name? Is it the man or the myth that makes Ron a latter-day Robin Hood, and the odd man out who is best remembered from a gang of sixteen who held up a mail train in August 1963? This book covers Ron's entire life including the Great Train Robbery, his conviction and subsequent escape from HMP Wandsworth. Ron tells how he managed to outrun and outthink the posse of law enforcement officers and the media that chased him around the world.

Rosie Schaap has always loved bars: the wood and brass and jukeboxes, the knowing bartenders, and especially the sometimes surprising but always comforting company of regulars. Starting with her misspent youth in the bar car of a regional railroad, where at age 15 she told commuters’ fortunes in exchange for beer, and continuing today as she slings cocktails at a neighborhood joint in Brooklyn, Schaap has learned her way around both sides of a bar and come to realize how powerful the fellowship among bar patrons can be.

L.T.C. Rolt was one of a small group of amateur railwaymen who made their dream of running their own railway come true. His vivid and often amusing account of this unique achievement is a record of individual enterprise and creative effort as refreshing as it is rare. Established by Act of Parliament in 1865 and unaffected by mergers and nationalisation, the Talyllyn Railway has been serving a remote and beautiful valley in the Merioneth mountains ever since.

THE TRAINS OF THE HOLOCAUST | ANOTHER TOOL IN THE EXECUTION OF THE JEWISH HOLOCAUST EUROPE A look at how the European railway transport companies acted in agreement and assisted the operation of the Second and Final Phase of the Jewish Holocaust; for the implementation of the "Final Solution" EDITORIAL NOTE “Europe died at Auschwitz” | Sebastián Vivar Rodriguez Writer, Barcelona (Spain), receiver of the International Literatura Prize. THE ACTIVE COOPERATION OF EUROPE’S RAILWAYS IN THE “FINAL SOLUTION” THIS STUDY, is about how a modern railways system and the largest enterprise at...

The Green Hornet Streetcar Disaster tells the riveting tale of this calamity. Combing through newspaper accounts as well as the Chicago Transit Authority’s official archives, Craig Cleve vividly brings to life this horrific catastrophe. Going beyond the historical record, he tracks down individuals who were present on that fateful day on State and 62nd: eyewitnesses, journalists, and even survivors whose lives were forever changed by the accident.

Pamela Mulloy has always loved train travel. Whether returning to the Maritimes every year with her daughter on the Ocean, or taking her family across Europe to Poland, trains have been a linchpin of her life. As COVID locked us down, Mulloy began an imaginary journey that recalled the trips she has taken, as well as those of others.

"George and Robert Stephenson" is a biographical novel about the two railway pioneers and famous engineers, written by their close friend Samuel Smiles. George Stephenson (1781-1848) was an English civil engineer and mechanical engineer who built the first public inter-city railway line in the world to use steam locomotives, the Liverpool and Manchester Railway which opened in 1830.

Many have often thought that they would have liked to work for a railroad. This volume (the third in a series) will take a prospective employee through the transition era (from steam locomotives to diesel) and right up through our modern era. The pros and cons of a job in the railroad industry are discussed and documented through the true accounts of former and current railroad employees in the format of over 80 short stories. This book, written in the style of O. Henry, is particularly relevant to historians, railfans, and anyone else considering making the railroad or transportation ...

Built for speed and to conquer the Allegheny and Blue Ridge Mountains, at the time of her arrival – and still to this day - she was the most technologically advanced and the last commercially built mainline passenger steam locomotive in the United States. This is the story and celebration of the 75-year legacy of Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad’s No. 614 ‘Greenbrier’ Class J-3a, 4-8-4 steam locomotive.

Author Geletzke has compiled a collection of 81 short stories (and 35 b&w photos), all about the railroad, and all true. Written in the style of one of his favorite authors (O. Henry) with their suspenseful endings, these selections will keep the reader right on the edge of his or her seat right to the end! Mr. Geletzke retired in 2011 from a 45-year railroad career; but actually got his start as a small child riding steam locomotives, switching the coal yards at the end of his block. While Mr. Geletzke has written most of these stories, many too have been written or told by his friends and...

The shipping container is all around: whizzing by on the highway, trundling past on rails, unloading behind a big box store even as you shop there, clanking on the docks just out of sight…. 90% of the goods and materials that move around the globe do so in shipping containers. It is an absolutely ubiquitous object, even if most of us have no direct contact with it. But what is this thing? Where has it been, and where is it going? Craig Martin’s book illuminates the “development of containerization”...

Escaping the rat race for a few happy weeks, Tom Chesshyre indulges in the freedom of the tracks. From France (dogged by rail worker strikes) through Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany and Poland he goes, travelling as far east as Odessa by the Black Sea in Ukraine. With no set plans, simply a desire to let the trains lead the way, his trip takes him onwards via Hungary, the Balkans and Austria. Along the way he enjoys many an encounter, befriending fellow travellers as well as a conductor or two. This is a love letter to Europe, written from the trackside.

This book does not pretend to be a corporate history and certainly not the author's personal autobiography. Rather its purpose is to convey a close-up, ground-level look at a once very prosperous American railroad's mid-twentieth century struggle for survival - from the prospective of a rookie operating officer. For those of us fortunate enough to serve the "Delay, Linger and Wait" there remains a nostalgic affection for this well-run eastern railroad icon.

Sometimes you come across a lofty railway viaduct marooned in the middle of a remote country landscape. Or a crumbling platform from some once-bustling junction buried under the buddleia. If you are lucky you might be able to follow some rusting tracks or explore an old tunnel leading to...well, who knows where? Listen hard. Is that the wind in the undergrowth? Or the spectre of a train from a golden era of the past panting up the embankment?

Great Continental Railway Journeys is now a firmly established series on BBC2, following in the illustrious tracks of its predecessor - Great British Railway Journeys. Both series are fronted by ex-politician Michael Portillo, and in this European odyssey he travels around continental Europe using George Bradshaw's 1913 Continental Railway Guide.

Conducting Chaos: A Hilarious Commuter Railroad Experience Get ready to laugh and be entertained with "Conducting Chaos: A Hilarious Commuter Railroad Experience". Written from the perspective of a train conductor, this book takes you on a journey through the chaotic and often absurd world of commuter rail life. Filled with humorous anecdotes and real-life experiences, this book delves into the behind-the-scenes antics of daily rail operations, from the mischief and sensuality to the unexpected events and crisis management. From the interactions with coworkers, management, and passengers, ...

Eric Stathers knew the Pacific Great Eastern Railway all too well. In the 1920s and 30s, the PGE was a struggling, backwoods railway if ever there was one, and it presented endless challenges to those whose job it was to keep it running. Eric was Car Foreman at the railway's Squamish shops and he was often called out with his crew to recover wrecked locomotives, cars and equipment all along the tough and mountainous line between Squamish and Lillooet, British Columbia. Heavy rain, snow, rock slides, collapsed bridges, washouts and floods were all too frequent occurrences. Not only that, but...