From the first, U.S. railroads have carried coal from mines to docks, steel mills, and power plants across the country. In this authoritative book spanning the whole of that history, from the mid-nineteenth century to present, noted rail author Brian Solomon explores the railroads and hardware that have transported the fossil fuels that made America work. Brilliant period and contemporary photographs convey the drama of the enterprise: the very long—and very heavy—trains powering up mountain grades and thundering across barren prairies. At sites from the eastern and western U.S., past and present, readers see giant double-headed Norfolk and Western steam locomotives moving Appalachian coal in Virginia; modern CSX diesels dragging unit coal trains over the well-groomed former Chesapeake & Ohio main line; BNSF’s SD70MACs with more than 100 hoppers in tow; Rio Grande locomotives snaking through the Rocky Mountains; and coal trains working full-throttle up Colorado’s Tennessee Pass, cresting the Continental Divide at 10,000 feet above sea level. Taking up topics ranging from the colorful but now-defunct “anthracite roads” of eastern Pennsylvania to today’s AC-traction diesels that work Wyoming’s thriving Powder River Basin, Solomon reveals how for 150 years the unique demands of coal—and America’s demand for coal—have prompted new railroad technologies.

With previously unpublished photographs documenting merry-go-round coal trains on Britain's railways.

From 1866 until 1979, Erie was one of the largest coal-producing towns in the nation. Numerous settlers contributed to building Old Town and making it one of the liveliest communities in northern Colorado. The Columbine Mine massacre in 1927 incited major changes to coal mining practices, inspiring unionization efforts nationally. The improved rights and working conditions that miners struggled to win benefit employees across America today. Emeritus Professor James B. Stull illuminates Erie's earliest pioneers, houses, schools and churches and the town's enduring evolution.

This book provides you with a handy reference as you choose a prototype to model or create a freelanced railroad. Tony Koester demonstrates how to model coal trains, company towns, coal customers, and more.

The GSR operated all railway lines which lay wholly within Éire, and was the main transport provider during the Emergency. Rigney describes how the company coped to keep trains moving, and challenges the view that Emergency rail service was one of unremitting chaos. In fact, the experience of the GSR in these years was similar to railway companies in other neutral countries. The GSR was Ireland's biggest coal importer, one of its largest single employers, and its biggest owner of engineering workshops. It played a key role in the Anglo-Irish trade diplomacy which helped the Allied war effort, kept the Irish economy ticking over and was the main means of transporting turf to heat homes. The book is based on a wide range of sources such as the British and Irish National Archives; the Archives of the Irish Railway Record Society; national and provincial newspapers; the trade press; and of memoirs written by railwaymen of the period. The author also examines such diverse themes as soap rationing, fuel poverty and desertion from the British forces. He also shows that wartime trade co-operation was much greater than previously thought. The Emergency experience caused Irish railway managers to move towards diesel locomotives earlier than their counterparts in Europe and particularly their counterparts in Britain.