All aboard for the history of one of the most audacious and innovative railroad engineering feats in history from the celebrated Floridian author. Although several people had considered constructing a railroad to Key West beginning in the early 1800s, it took a bold industrialist with unparalleled vision to make it happen. In 1902, Henry Flagler made the decision to extend the Florida East Coast Railway to “the nearest deepwater American port.” In this book, renowned Florida historian Seth H. Bramson reveals how the Key West Extension of the Flagler-owned FEC became the greatest railroad engineering and construction feat in United States, and possibly world, history, an accomplishment that would cement Flagler’s fame and legend for all time. Join Bramson as he recounts the years of operation of this great railroad, what it did for the Florida Keys and what it meant to the resident conchs. Includes photos

Aaron W. Marrs challenges the accepted understanding of economic and industrial growth in antebellum America with this original study of the history of the railroad in the Old South. Drawing from both familiar and overlooked sources, such as the personal diaries of Southern travelers, papers and letters from civil engineers, corporate records, and contemporary newspaper accounts, Marrs skillfully expands on the conventional business histories that have characterized scholarship in this field. He situates railroads in the fullness of antebellum life, examining how slavery, technology, labor, social convention, and the environment shaped their evolution. Far from seeing the Old South as backward and premodern, Marrs finds evidence of urban life, industry, and entrepreneurship throughout the region. But these signs of progress existed alongside efforts to preserve traditional ways of life. Railroads exemplified Southerners' pursuit of progress on their own terms: developing modern transportation while retaining a conservative social order. Railroads in the Old South demonstrates that a simple approach to the Old South fails to do justice to its complexity and contradictions. -- Dr. Owen Brown and Dr. Gale E. Gibson

A veteran railroad columnist takes readers on a wild ride through the American train industry with remembrances that crisscross the country and the world. In Last Train to Texas, author Fred W. Frailey examines the workings behind the railroad industry and captures incredible true stories along the way. He vividly portrays the industries larger-than-life characters, such as William “Pisser Bill” F. Thompson, who weathered financial ruin, bad merger deals, and cutthroat competition, all while racking up enough notoriety to inspire a poem titled “Ode to a Jerk.” Whether he’s riding the Canadian Pacific Railway through a blizzard, witnessing a container train burglary in the Abo Canyon, or commemorating a poem to Limerick Junction in Dublin, Frailey’s journeys are rife with excitement, incident, and the spirit of the rails. Filled with humorous anecdotes and thoughtful insights into the railroading industry, Last Train to Texas is a grand adventure for the railroad connoisseur.

From Pulitzer Prize-winner Michael Hiltzik, the epic tale of the clash for supremacy between America's railroad titans.

“Anyone who is interested in Civil War logistics, wartime railroads, and the Cumberland Valley of Pennsylvania needs to read this study.” —Eric J. Wittenberg, award-winning historian and author The Civil War was the first conflict in which railroads played a major role. Although much has been written about their role in general, little has been written about specific lines. The Cumberland Valley Railroad, for example, played an important strategic role by connecting Hagerstown, Maryland to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Its location enhanced its importance during some of the Civil War’s most critical campaigns. Because of its proximity to major cities in the Eastern Theater, the Cumberland Valley Railroad was an enticing target for Confederate leaders and an invaluable resource for the Union Army. In October 1859, abolitionist John Brown used the CVRR in his fateful Harpers Ferry raid. The line was under direct threat by invading Confederates during the Antietam Campaign, and the following summer suffered serious damage during the Gettysburg Campaign. In 1864, Rebel raiders burned much of its headquarters town, Chambersburg, including the homes of many CVRR employees. The railroad was as vital to residents of the bustling and fertile Cumberland Valley as it was to the Union war effort. Targeted Tracks is grounded on the railway’s voluminous reports, the letters and diaries of local residents and Union and Confederate soldiers, official reports, and newspaper accounts. The primary sources, combined with the expertise of the authors, bring this largely untold story to life. “Mingus and Wingert have done a splendid job telling the story of the industrial, economic, social, and military history of the CVRR . . . engaging.” —Ted Alexander, chief historian (ret.), Antietam National Battlefield

In 1869, Jay Cooke, the brilliant but idiosyncratic American banker, decided to finance the Northern Pacific, a transcontinental railroad planned from Duluth, Minnesota, to Seattle. M. John Lubetkin tells how Cooke’s gamble reignited war with the Sioux, rescued George Armstrong Custer from obscurity, created Yellowstone Park, pushed frontier settlement four hundred miles westward, and triggered the Panic of 1873. Staking his reputation and wealth on the Northern Pacific, Cooke was soon whipsawed by the railroad’s mismanagement, questionable contracts, and construction problems. Financier J. P. Morgan undermined him, and the Crédit Mobilier scandal ended congressional support. When railroad surveyors and army escorts ignored Sioux chief Sitting Bull’s warning not to enter the Yellowstone Valley, Indian attacks—combined with alcoholic commanders—led to embarrassing setbacks on the field, in the nation’s press, and among investors. Lubetkin’s suspenseful narrative describes events played out from Wall Street to the Yellowstone and vividly portrays the soldiers, engineers, businessmen, politicians, and Native Americans who tried to build or block the Northern Pacific.

From the author of the best-selling Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, Dee Brown's classic account of the building of the transcontinental railroad. In February 1854 the first railroad from the East reached the Mississippi; by the end of the nineteenth century five major transcontinental railroads linked the East Coast with the Pacific Ocean and thousands of miles of tracks criss-crossed in the West, a vast and virginal land just a few years before. The story of this extraordinary undertaking is one of breathtaking technological ingenuity, otherwordly idealism, and all-too-wordly greed. The heroes and villains were Irish and Chineselaborers, intrepid engineers, avaricious bankers, stock manipulators, and corrupt politicians. Before it was over more than 155 million acres (one tenth of the country) were given away to the railroad magnates, Indian tribes were decimated, the buffalo were driven from the Great Plains, millions of immigrants were lured from Europe, and a colossal continental nation was built. Woven into this dramatic narrative are the origins of present-day governmental corruption, the first ties between powerful corporations and politicians who "enjoyed the frequent showers of money that fell upon them from railroad stock manipulators, and gave away America." How the people of that time responded to a sense of disillusionment remarkably similar to our own adds a contemporary dimension to this story.

**2022 Will Rogers Medallion Award Silver Winner for Western Non-Fiction** When the last spike was hammered into the steel track of the Transcontinental Railroad on May 10, 1869, at Promontory Point, Utah, Western Union lines sounded the glorious news of the railroad’s completion from New York to San Francisco. For more than five years an estimated four thousand men mostly Irish working west from Omaha and Chinese working east from Sacramento, moved like a vast assembly line toward the end of the track. Editorials in newspapers and magazines praised the accomplishment and some boasted that the work that “was begun, carried on, and completed solely by men.” The August edition of Godey’s Lady’s Book even reported “No woman had laid a rail and no woman had made a survey.” Although the physical task of building the railroad had been achieved by men, women made significant and lasting contributions to the historic operation. However, the female connection with railroading dates as far back as 1838 when women were hired as registered nurses/stewardesses in passenger cars. Those ladies attended to the medical needs of travelers and also acted as hostesses of sorts helping passengers have a comfortable journey. Beyond nursing and service roles, however, women played a larger part in the actual creation of the rail lines than they have been given credit for. Miss E. F. Sawyer became the first female telegraph operator when she was hired by the Burlington Railroad in Montgomery, Illinois, in 1872. Eliza Murfey focused on the mechanics of the railroad, creating devices for improving the way bearings on a rail wheel attached to train cars responded to the axles. Murfey held sixteen patents for her 1870 invention. In 1879, another woman inventor named Mary Elizabeth Walton developed a system that deflected emissions from the smoke stacks on railroad locomotives. She was awarded two patents for her pollution reducing device. Their stories and many more are included in this illustrated volume celebrating women and the railroad.

The cause and aftermath of the horrific railway disaster, examined by an award-winning historian. With Fast Mail train No. 97 an hour behind schedule, locomotive engineer Steve Broady, according to legend, swore to “put her in Spencer on time” or “put her in Hell.” Through eyewitness reports and court testimonies, historian Larry Aaron expertly pieces together the events of September 27, 1903, at Danville, Virginia, when the Old 97 plummeted off a forty-five-foot trestle into the ravine below. With more twists and turns than the railroad tracks on which the Old 97 ran, this book chronicles the story of one of the most famous train wrecks in American history, as well as the controversy surrounding “The Wreck of the Old 97,” that most famous ballad, which secured the Old 97 a place within the annals of American folklore.