A history of the railroad in Tucson, Arizona, covers the years of expansion in the late 19th century through the profitable early 20th until the decline of the 1950s, exploring both the passenger and freight industries, the men and women who worked for the railroads in Tucson, and how the railway affected the community.

Railroad Town Jackson, Michigan is a pictorial history of the railroads in Jackson County, Michigan, beginning with the arrival of the first train in the City of Jackson in December 1841 right up to the present.

Offers the collective history of 230 neighborhoods and communities which formed the bustling network of greater Chicagoland--many connected to the city by the railroad. Profiles the people who built these neighborhoods, and the structures they left behind that still stand today.

The familiar image of Los Angeles as a metropolis built for the automobile is crumbling. Traffic, air pollution, and sprawl motivated citizens to support urban rail as an alternative to driving, and the city has started to reinvent itself by developing compact neighborhoods adjacent to transit. As a result of pressure from local leaders, particularly with the election of Tom Bradley as mayor in 1973, the Los Angeles Metro Rail gradually took shape in the consummate car city. Railtown presents the history of this system by drawing on archival documents, contemporary news accounts, and interviews with many of the key players to provide critical behind-the-scenes accounts of the people and forces that shaped the system. Ethan Elkind brings this important story to life by showing how ambitious local leaders zealously advocated for rail transit and ultimately persuaded an ambivalent electorate and federal leaders to support their vision. Although Metro Rail is growing in ridership and political importance, with expansions in the pipeline, Elkind argues that local leaders will need to reform the rail planning and implementation process to avoid repeating past mistakes and to ensure that Metro Rail supports a burgeoning demand for transit-oriented neighborhoods in Los Angeles. This engaging history of Metro Rail provides lessons for how the American car-dominated cities of today can reinvent themselves as thriving railtowns of tomorrow.

Overnight settlements, better known as "Hell on Wheels," sprang up as the transcontinental railroad crossed Nebraska and Wyoming. They brought opportunity not only for legitimate business but also for gamblers, land speculators, prostitutes, and thugs. Dick Kreck tells their stories along with the heroic individuals who managed, finally, to create permanent towns in the interior West.

In 1903 the AT&SF Railroad began laying track on the Belen Cutoff from Belen, New Mexico to Amarillo, Texas. The railroad company encouraged settlement of New Mexico’s eastern plains by sponsoring emigrant trains, a quicker method of transport for settlers moving their belongings and livestock across the country. Towns were founded along the route with the arrival of the railroad. Billy the Kid was shot and killed by Pat Garrett in Fort Sumner. Taiban’s Pink Pony Saloon & Dancehall publicized cock fighting and had a live snake den in the basement. Charles Lindbergh and Amelia Earhart stopped at Portair Field in Clovis while flying across the country in the 1920s. Did you know Mountainair was the Pinto Bean Capital of the World, Negra has one of the last vintage gas stations in the state, Butch Cassidy and his gang trailed cattle to the railhead in Magdalena, and Montague Stevens was one of the last hunters to stalk grizzly bears? This book will give you answers to these questions as well as a glimpse into the history of this fascinating part of New Mexico, “The Land of Enchantment.”