This is a loving look at a special place and its railroads that carried people from small town to town, and sometimes to Boston. And from there on the Dude Train. The islands has railroads and they are here with the island steamers, the ferries. People came to New England on the famous night boats of the Fall River Line and on direct trains from New York. The Cape Codders and the Neptune. Hundreds of anectodes help the story. This heavily illustrated volume includes trains, locomotives, stations, bridges, wrecks, snow and storm damage, maps, railroad workers, broadsides and steamboats. A major book on trains that was thirteen years of research and writing,. Three paintings reproduced in color by Ted Rose America's finest railroad artist. Cape Cod Historical Publications Address: Winter: November-May, 3200 Binnacle Drive, C-1, Naples, Fl. 34103. Phone: 239-403-8224. Summer: May-November: P.O. Box 281, Yarmouth Port, MA 02675. Phone: 508-362-4761. Pay by check or money order. No credit cards accepted. Please add $4.75 for shipping/handling.

In 1848, the railroad extended to Cape Cod to serve the Boston & Sandwich Glass Company. By 1887, fourteen of the fifteen towns on Cape Cod were connected by the railroad. For a short time, even the islands of Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard had railroad lines. As the highways expanded in the years following World War II, the automobile became the primary mode of transportation. By 1959, year-round Cape Cod passenger service had been discontinued. Today, many miles of track have been removed to accommodate recreational bike paths.Using hundreds of historic images, Railroads of Cape Cod and the Islands illustrates the rich heritage of passenger and freight rail transportation on Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard, and Nantucket. Mainland connections once involved transfer between ship and rail at wharves in Provincetown, Hyannis, and Woods Hole. Since 1935, trains have crossed the Cape Cod Canal on the world's second longest vertical-lift bridge.