Trains and railways Books

The Shelf2Life Trains & Railroads Collection provides a unique opportunity for researchers and railroad enthusiasts to easily access and explore pre-1923 titles focusing on the history, culture and experience of railroading. From the revolution of the...

Pennsylvania Rivers and Rails focuses on the abundance of waterways and rail lines found within the borders of the second state that entered the Union on December 12, 1787. Stories of human inhabitants utilizing these bodies of water and means of...

“David Gibson’s reality was altered in a moment on September 18, 2013. His eloquent and poignant requiem chronicles his efforts to re-orient himself to a world whose boundaries and reference points abruptly disappeared…he chronicles...

Hailed by the Sunday Times as "one of the best man-managers and strategists in the rail business", Richard Brown's book is part memoir and part critique. Through the lens of his many, varied roles over a 43 year career, two thirds spent in senior...

It is Sunday morning; Brian is standing on the railway line looking over a canal where once there was a bridge. Alongside him is a huge steam crane that snorts fire and smoke and shakes the ground as it picks up the first new beam. He has been planning...

The year 2014 marks the centennial of the completion of the Northwestern Pacific Railroad (NWP), celebrated by driving a "golden spike" at Cain Rock in October 1914. This achievement was the culmination of a massive, six-year engineering effort to...

The Western Maryland Railway was never a large Class 1 rail carrier, but during its 131 colorful years of existence, it provided extremely fast, efficient, and reliable freight; coal-hauling; and passenger service in the states it served. This book...

The Big Bend area had its start with a land grant given by President Lincoln to the Northern Pacific Railway. As such, the railway company heavily promoted the area to encourage settlement and populate the station sites along the way. Towns began to...

Staten Island's first railroad began in 1860 as a passenger line connecting towns along the island's eastern shore, with ferry service from Vanderbilt's Landing to Manhattan. The Staten Island Rapid Transit was a second line, built in 1885. During the...

Having whistled its first "all aboard" in 1988, the Blue Ridge Scenic Railway now rambles alongside the Toccoa's clear waters, treating 50,000-plus sightseers annually to verdant mountain scenery. This former Cherokee land's pioneers carved homesteads...

The Long Island Rail Road is the oldest railroad in the country still operating under its original name. As the busiest railroad in North America, it carries 265,000 customers each weekday aboard 735 trains on 11 different branches. The Port Jefferson...

The Grand Rapids, Grand Haven & Muskegon (GRGH&M) Railway was part of a network of electric railroads that spread across southern Michigan in the early part of the 20th century. For nearly 30 years, the railway connected Grand Rapids with Muskegon and...

With today's America dominated by the automobile, it is difficult to believe that until the 1920s nearly 100 percent of the US population traveled via rail. Conventional passenger-train service spread rapidly by the 1850s, but another form of rail...

In the 1800s, railroad development was instrumental in enabling Cleveland to become an industrial center. By 1920, Cleveland was the nation's fifth-largest city, with an economy dependent on the iron and steel, petroleum-refining, automotive, and...

California's northeastern corner is dominated by the 14,162-foot-tall presence of Mount Shasta. On the southeastern flank of the great mountain lies the picturesque town of McCloud. The McCloud River Railroad established its operational headquarters in...

Located at the confluence of Will's Creek and the Potomac River, Cumberland, Maryland, is known as the Queen City of the Alleghenies. Because of the unique geography of the mountain passes, Cumberland became a transportation nexus between the Eastern...

Michigan has a rich railroad history, which began in November 1836, when the Erie and Kalamazoo Railroad initiated service between Toledo, Ohio, and Adrian, Michigan. That first Erie and Kalamazoo train consisted of stagecoach-like vehicles linked...

The first rail lines in northeast Ohio opened for business in July 1850, and by the 1890s, northeast Ohio was laced with railroad tracks. Cleveland was the hub of railroad activity, and important rail-served lake ports developed at Ashtabula, Conneaut,...

On May 16, 1853, the first passenger train steamed out of Toronto from a wooden depot that was located near the site of today's Union Station. Over the next century, the railways had a profound impact on the geography and economic fortunes of Toronto and...

By the mid-1850s, the railroad craze had hit central Ohio. Pioneer railroads that were to evolve into portions of the Baltimore and Ohio, New York Central, and Pennsylvania Railroads connected the state capital, Columbus, with the canals, Lake Erie, and...

On a summer evening, the overlook at the Rookwood Pottery in Mount Adams will be visited by at least a few, as it is one of the most romantic and fascinating hilltop vantage points in Cincinnati. One hundred years ago, though, this was the place to see...

The Philadelphia Suburban Transportation Company prospered through the hard times of the 1930s and was the last privately-owned trolley system in the United States. Aerodynamically designed Bullet cars of the Philadelphia and Western Railway dramatically...

At the height of America's post-Civil War expansion, Colorado Territory was a land of great hope and opportunity. Forged at the confluence of commerce and geography, Colorado became a state in 1876, and Denver, the Queen City of the Plains. To address...

Local rail-borne transit in Los Angeles began with horsecars in 1874, evolving with cable-powered and later electric-powered passenger vehicles. "Yellow Cars" describes the principal local transit system in and around Los Angeles in the first half of the...

Across the great bay from San Francisco, the city of Alameda evolved into an island hometown of fine Victorian and Craftsman architecture and a port containing a naval air station, shipbuilding center, and the winter home of the long-gone Alaska Packers...

The Chicago Great Western Railway (CGW) was a Midwestern line that operated in Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, Minnesota, Kansas, and Nebraska. Although this territory was served by much larger systems, the CGW was able to retain its share of passenger and...

The city of Dubuque, settled on the west side of the Mississippi River in 1833, has historically been home to four major railways and numerous trolleys and passenger trains. Dubuque's railroad legacy was precipitated by local resident John Plumbe Jr.,...

By 1900, the scenic beauty of the Pike's Peak region had become well known, making it a popular destination with visitors from across the nation. This influx of tourism along with the apex of the Cripple Creek mining boom saw El Paso and Teller Counties...

Following on the heels of Images of Rail: The Southern Railway, this volume takes a more detailed look at a historic railroad that has served the South for over 100 years and continues to serve as the Norfolk Southern Railway. Included in these pages are...

Use of big data has proven to be beneficial within many different industries, especially in the field of engineering; however, infiltration of this type of technology into more traditional heavy industries, such as the railways, has been limited...

The rail-based transit system is a popular public transportation option, not just with members of the public but also with policy makers looking to install a form of convenient and rapid travel. Even for moving bulk freight long distances, a rail-based...

The Railway Years is Laurie Driver's second book, his first being This Truckin' Life. This second book is about the life and times when Laurie worked for British Rail, as a road vehicle driver, for the London Midland Region and then National Carriers...

Waifs From The Way-Bills Of An Old Expressman is a book written by T. W. Tucker and published in 1872. The book is a collection of stories and anecdotes from the author's experiences as an expressman, a person who transported goods and packages for a...

The Flushing Middelburgh, Venloo, And Macstricht Railway: Connecting The Mouth Of The Scheidt With The Meuse And The Rhine is a book written by George Rennie and originally published in 1846. The book provides a detailed account of the railway that...

Romantic Realities is a historical account of the building of the Pacific railroad in the late 19th century. Written by Grenville Mellen Dodge, a prominent engineer and Union army general during the American Civil War, the book provides a detailed...

""Reminiscences Of A Railroad Engineer"" is a memoir written by William Hasell Wilson in 1896. Wilson was a railroad engineer who worked on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad during the mid-19th century. In this book, Wilson shares his experiences and...

The railway systems of Nigeria were not just railways replacing another mode of transport. They were pioneers in the opening up of the country to development and contact with the outside world. This prodigious three-volume narrative sets out to explore...