Excerpt from Private Freight Cars and American Railways My work has been hampered by a lack of material due to the reluctance of private-car companies to divulge facts concerning their earnings or their relations with the rail roads. What data I have been able to secure in regard to the earnings of private cars and similar questions have come from various sources and contain many con icting statements. For these reasons I have been compelled in many instances to resort to approximations. In dividing my work into chapters I have found the different phases of the question so closely related that I have been forced to repeat certain facts in different connections, but I trust that what is gained in clearness will more than counter balance any tediousness resulting from such repetition. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works."

During the tumultuous year of 2008--when gas prices reached $4 a gallon, Amtrak set ridership records, and a commuter train collided with a freight train in California--journalist James McCommons spent a year on America's trains, talking to the people who ride and work the rails throughout much of the Amtrak system. Organized around these rail journeys, Waiting on a Train is equal parts travel narrative, personal memoir, and investigative journalism. Readers meet the historians, railroad executives, transportation officials, politicians, government regulators, railroad lobbyists, and passenger-rail advocates who are rallying around a simple question: Why has the greatest railroad nation in the world turned its back on the very form of transportation that made modern life and mobility possible? Distrust of railroads in the nineteenth century, overregulation in the twentieth, and heavy government subsidies for airports and roads have left the country with a skeletal intercity passenger-rail system. Amtrak has endured for decades, and yet failed to prosper owing to a lack of political and financial support and an uneasy relationship with the big, remaining railroads. While riding the rails, McCommons explores how the country may move passenger rail forward in America--and what role government should play in creating and funding mass-transportation systems. Against the backdrop of the nation's stimulus program, he explores what it will take to build high-speed trains and transportation networks, and when the promise of rail will be realized in America.

Classic Speedsters: The Cars, The Times, and The Characters Who Drove Them chronicles the most significant vehicles ever to have traveled American roads and racetracks. Speedsters were the pizzazz cars of their era. Speedsters were owned by entertainers, captains of industry, the wealthy, and in some cases, the everyday guy or gal. They were often expensive, but always fast and sexy. Speedsters were America's first sports cars.Each chapter frames the birth and evolution of a company that produced a speedster model in its lineup and includes a biography of a famous owner of the period. This book traces the journey of the speedster concept across several time periods and among twelve automotive companies. It answers three fundamental questions:· Why were these cars so important and influential?· Why did so many prominent people own them?· What message do they have for modern design?

In simple, powerful words and vibrant illustrations, Donald Crews evokes the rolling wheels of that childhood favorite: a train. This Caldecott Honor Book features bright colors and bold shapes. Even a child not lucky enough to have counted freight cars will feel he or she has watched a freight train passing after reading Freight Train. Donald Crews used childhood memories of trains seen during his travels to his grandparents' farm in the American South as the inspiration for this timeless favorite. New York magazine's The Strategist chose Freight Train as one of the "Best (Nonobvious) Baby Books to Bring to a Shower." As The Strategist stated: "The Caldecott Honor Book is spare and minimal in both art and text and follows the journey of a freight train and all its cars until it rolls off the page and into the distance. It’s a good way to learn all the different names of train cars, too." Red caboose at the back, orange tank car, green cattle car, purple box car, black tender and a black steam engine . . . freight train.