Covering legendary and obscure intercity passenger trains in a dozen Southeastern states, this book details the golden age of train travel. The story begins with the inception of steam locomotives in 1830 in Charleston, South Carolina, continuing through the mid-1930s changeover to diesel and the debut of Amtrak in 1971 to the present. Throughout, the book explores the technological achievements, the romance and the economic impact of traveling on the tracks. Other topics include contemporary museums and excursion trains; the development of commuter rails, monorails, light rails, and other intracity transit trains; the social impact of train travel; and historical rail terminals and facilities. The book is supplemented with more than 160 images and 10 appendices.

An overview of railroads in the United States and Canada from the 1830s to the present day.

Oklahoma was in the throes of the Great Depression when Preston George acquired a cheap Kodak folding camera and took his first photographs of steam locomotives. As depression gave way to world war, George kept taking pictures, now with a Graflex camera that could capture moving trains. In this first book devoted solely to George’s work, his black-and-white photographs constitute a striking visual documentary of steam-driven railroading in its brief but glorious heyday in the American Southwest. The pictures also form a remarkable artistic accomplishment in their own right. Prominent among the magnificent action images collected here are the engines that were George’s passion—steam locomotives pulling long freights or strings of gleaming passenger cars through open country. But along with the fireworks of the heavier steam engines slogging through the mountains near the Arkansas border on the Kansas City Southern or climbing Raton Pass in New Mexico on the Santa Fe, George’s photographs also record humbler fare, such as the short trains of the Frisco and Katy piloted by ancient light steamers, and the final years of that state’s interurban lines. Augustus J. Veenendaal Jr.’s brief history of railroads in the Sooner State puts these images into perspective, as does a reminiscence by George’s daughter Burnis on his life and his pursuit of railroad photography. With over 150 images and a wealth of historical and biographical information, this volume makes accessible to an audience beyond the most avid railfans the extent of Preston George's extraordinary achievement.

In 1836, Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas agreed on one thing: Illinois needed railroads. Over the next fifty years, the state became the nation's railroad hub, with Chicago at its center. Speculators, greed, growth, and regulation followed as the railroad industry consumed unprecedented amounts of capital and labor. A nationwide market resulted, and the Windy City became the site of opportunities and challenges that remain to this day. In this first-of-its-kind history, full of entertaining anecdotes and colorful characters, Simon Cordery describes the explosive growth of Illinois railroads and its impact on America. Cordery shows how railroading in Illinois influenced railroad financing, the creation of a national economy, and government regulation of business. Cordery's masterful chronicle of rail development in Illinois from 1837 to 2010 reveals how the state's expanding railroads became the foundation of the nation's rail network.