America was made by the railroads. The opening of the Baltimore & Ohio line -- the first American railroad -- in the 1830s sparked a national revolution in the way that people lived thanks to the speed and convenience of train travel. Promoted by visionaries and built through heroic effort, the American railroad network was bigger in every sense than Europe's, and facilitated everything from long-distance travel to commuting and transporting goods to waging war. It united far-flung parts of the country, boosted economic development, and was the catalyst for America's rise to world-power status. Every American town, great or small, aspired to be connected to a railroad and by the turn of the century, almost every American lived within easy access of a station. By the early 1900s, the United States was covered in a latticework of more than 200,000 miles of railroad track and a series of magisterial termini, all built and controlled by the biggest corporations in the land. The railroads dominated the American landscape for more than a hundred years but by the middle of the twentieth century, the automobile, the truck, and the airplane had eclipsed the railroads and the nation started to forget them. In The Great Railroad Revolution, renowned railroad expert Christian Wolmar tells the extraordinary story of the rise and the fall of the greatest of all American endeavors, and argues that the time has come for America to reclaim and celebrate its often-overlooked rail heritage.

An “extraordinarily informative and profusely illustrated” history of how a town built a railway, and a railway built a town (Midwest Book Review). On September 27, 1825, the first public railway steam train left New Shildon for Stockton-on-Tees, England. The driver was George Stephenson and the engine he was driving was the “Locomotion No.1.” It set off from a settlement that consisted of just a set of rails and four houses, none of which had been there a year before. The four houses became a town with a five-figure population, a town that owed its existence to the railway that made its home there—the Stockton and Darlington (S&DR). Some of the earliest and greatest railway pioneers worked there, including George and his son Robert; the Hackworth brothers, Timothy and Thomas; and the engineer William Bouch. Their story is part of New Shildon’s story. The locomotive works, created to build and maintain steam locomotives, morphed into the world’s most innovative works, whose demise had more to do with politics than productivity. This book covers Shildon’s years between 1820 and today, including the war interludes when the Wagon Works was manned by women and the output was mostly intended for the Ministry of Defense. The story of the creation of the town’s railway museum and the arrival of Hitachi at Newton Aycliffe brings the history up to date and, to complete the picture, there is also a description of the ongoing new build G5 steam locomotive project on Hackworth Industrial Estate, the very site where the S&DR locomotive and wagon works was located. It is the story of a railway town—and also the story of the people who lived there and made it what it is today.

This masterful, richly illustrated account of the planning and building of the most important and influential early American railroad contributes not only to the railway history but to the history of the development of the United States in the 19th century. 80 illustrations.

Lancashire has always counted itself among the pioneers of Britain's railway network. As early as 1826 George Stephenson was apppointed to build the Liverpool and Manchester Railway. From the beginning, though, the county's railways were constructed not for the purpose of passenger traffic but to move freight, principally coal, direct from the mines to its customers. As the demand for coal expanded to power the ever-increasing new industrial machines so the need for good railway connections grew to match it. By the mid 1850s some 250,000 navvies were working across the county on railway projects. In this well-researched and highly readable book local author Mark Jones offers a feast of nostalgia as he tells the story of Lancashire's railways in their heyday.

An insider’s “indispensible” behind-the-scenes history of the transit system of San Francisco and surrounding counties (Houston Chronicle). In the first-ever history book about BART, longtime agency spokesman Michael C. Healy gives an insider’s account of the rapid transit system’s inception, hard-won approval, construction, and operations, warts and all. With a master storyteller’s wit and sharp attention to detail, Healy recreates the politically fraught venture to bring a new kind of public transit to the West Coast. What emerges is a sense of the individuals who made (and make) BART happen. From tales of staying up until 3:00 a.m. with BART pioneers Bill Stokes and Jack Everson to hear the election results for the rapid transit vote to stories of weathering scandals, strikes, and growing pains, this look behind the scenes of an iconic, seemingly monolithic structure reveals people at their most human—and determined to change the status quo. “The Metro. The T. The Tube. The world's most famous subway systems are known by simple monikers, and San Francisco's BART belongs in that class. Michael C. Healy delivers a tour-de-force telling of its roots, hard-fought approval, and challenging construction that will delight fans of American urban history.”—Doug Most, author of The Race Underground: Boston, New York, and the Incredible Rivalry That Built America's First Subway