Phillip Barnes, his brother Paul, and their best friend, Barry McAlister, each join the Central Pacific Railroad for different reasons, but they are all searching. Their terms in the military during the Vietnam War are finished, their love lives are in varying states of disrepair, and their futures are wide open. What follows for them is a railroad life and a set of incredibly unique destinies. The rails Phillip, Paul, and Barry choose to rideor the rails that choose themlead the three men in various directions, but their destinies intertwine for years as they wrestle with love, heartbreak, parenthood, marriage, survival, faith, and the elements of nature and manmade machine. The career they choose is as demanding, dangerous, and disruptive as any on the planet, but they strive to make it their own. Over time, they meet many exceptional, talented railroaders whose philosophies on life impact their own forever, for better or worse. Mark Twain said, Experience is an authors most valuable asset; experience is the thing that puts the muscle and breath and the warm blood in the book he writes. Author Charles F. Mori writes from over thirty-five years on the railroad, living and working with men whose lives made truer, more pure stories than any seen in Hollywood.

Where Rails Meet the Sea chronicles the American railroads' fascinating maritime history through vividly detailed descriptions and 230 beautiful color and black-and-white photographs depicting the railroads' waterfront operations, buildings and facilities, trains, and majestic sea-faring fleets. Written with keen insight by historian Michael Krieger, this wonderful book portrays the lively character and activities of America's seaports from 1830 to 1960.

Discover how important railroads once were to Michigan's Thumb region in this wonderful collection of images. Although the area is best known for its agrarian roots, the railroad operations were involved in so much more, from light industries that fed the auto industry to shipments of fish from Saginaw Bay into eastern markets. Return to a time when everyone knew the route of the "Polly-Ann," local citizens identified the time of day by the sound of a train whistle, and the arrival of a train crew nearly doubled a town's population. Many of the images in this book have never been seen before, or, if so, only in a family's living room, soon to be returned to grandpa's trunk in the attic. These images surfaced to introduce future generations to what railroading in the Thumb once was. In an age when many of these railroad lines have disappeared, it can be hard to believe how many once crisscrossed this area.

The RailsTM 3 Way is a comprehensive resource that digs into the new features in Rails 3 and perhaps more importantly, the rationale behind them. —Yehuda Katz, Rails Core The Bible for Ruby on Rails Application Development Ruby on Rails strips complexity from the development process, enabling professional developers to focus on what matters most: delivering business value via clean and maintainable code. The RailsTM 3 Way is the only comprehensive, authoritative guide to delivering production-quality code with Rails 3. Pioneering Rails expert Obie Fernandez and a team of leading experts illuminate the entire Rails 3 API, along with the idioms, design approaches, and libraries that make developing applications with Rails so powerful. Drawing on their unsurpassed experience and track record, they address the real challenges development teams face, showing how to use Rails 3 to maximize your productivity. Using numerous detailed code examples, the author systematically covers Rails 3 key capabilities and subsystems, making this book a reference that you will turn to again and again. He presents advanced Rails programming techniques that have been proven effective in day-to-day usage on dozens of production Rails systems and offers important insights into behavior-driven development and production considerations such as scalability. Dive deep into the Rails 3 codebase and discover why Rails is designed the way it is—and how to make it do what you want it to do. This book will help you Learn what’s new in Rails 3 Increase your productivity as a web application developer Realize the overall joy in programming with Rails Leverage Rails’ powerful capabilities for building REST-compliant APIs Drive implementation and protect long-term maintainability using RSpec Design and manipulate your domain layer using Active Record Understand and program complex program flows using Action Controller Master sophisticated URL routing concepts Use Ajax techniques via Rails 3 support for unobtrusive JavaScript Learn to extend Rails with popular gems and plugins, and how to write your own Extend Rails with the best third-party plug-ins and write your own Integrate email services into your applications with Action Mailer Improve application responsiveness with background processing Create your own non-Active Record domain classes using Active Model Master Rails’ utility classes and extensions in Active Support

The sign on the Calcutta train station platform warned, incredibly, "NO Sleeping Between the Rails!" But it was too late. Carroll had already done that, and would again. She couldn't help it. "Sleeping Between the Rails: A Woman's Odyssey" traces a young New Orleanian's two interwoven journeys--external and internal. Both begin with her passion to know the world and to live an uncommon life. It is 1967. Enticed by a former boyfriend's romantic promise, she sails on a freighter to meet him in Spain. Without a scheme for survival, almost no money, and led only by the prevailing winds, the couple journey in four continents for five and a half years. The odyssey is suffused with ridiculous risk and peril as they hitchhike through Europe and North Africa, and otherwise travel mostly third or abominable class. Challenged often along the way, she prompts a near riot in Iran, almost drowns, gets left in the desert, fends off sexual predators, and more. Yet, as she treks in the Himalayas, witnesses sublime beauty, living history, and the heights of the human spirit, Carroll gains strength, even as she questions all she ever thought she knew about life, humanity, and herself.

Summary Rails 4 in Action is a comprehensive introduction to Rails that guides you hands-on through all you'll need to become a competent and confident Rails developer. In it, you'll master Rails 4 by developing a ticket-tracking application that includes RESTful routing, authentication and authorization, file uploads, email, and more. Purchase of the print book includes a free eBook in PDF, Kindle, and ePub formats from Manning Publications. About the Book Rails is a full-stack, open source web framework powered by Ruby. Now in version 4, Rails is mature and powerful, and to use it effectively you need more than a few Google searches. You'll find no substitute for the guru's-eye-view of design, testing, deployment, and other real-world concerns that this book provides. Rails 4 in Action is a hands-on guide to the subject. In this fully revised new edition, you'll master Rails 4 by developing a ticket-tracking application that includes RESTful routing, authentication and authorization, file uploads, email, and more. Learn to design your own APIs and successfully deploy a production-quality application. You'll see test-driven development and behavior-driven development in action throughout the book, just like in a top Rails shop. What's Inside Creating your own APIs Using RSpec and Capybara Emphasis on test-first development Fully updated for Rails 4 About the Reader For readers of this book, a background in Ruby is helpful but not required. No Rails experience is assumed. About the Authors Ryan Bigg, Yehuda Katz, Steve Klabnik, and Rebecca Skinner are contributors to Rails and active members of the Rails community. Table of Contents Ruby on Rails, the framework Testing saves your bacon Developing a real Rails application Oh, CRUD! Nested resources Authentication Basic access control Fine-grained access control File uploading Tracking state Tagging Sending email Deployment Designing an API Rack-based applications