Impeccable scholarship and lavish illustration mark this landmark study of American railroad folksong. Norm Cohen provides a sweeping discussion of the human aspects of railroad history, railroad folklore, and the evolution of the American folksong. The heart of the book is a detailed analysis of eighty-five songs, from "John Henry" and "The Wabash Cannonball" to "Hell-Bound Train" and "Casey Jones," with their music, sources, history, and variations, and discographies. A substantial new introduction updates this edition.

The 19th-century steam railway epitomized modernity's relentlessly onrushing advance. Ian Carter delves into the cultural impact of the train. Why, for example, did Britain possess no great railway novel? He compares fiction and images by canonical British figures (Turner, Dickens, Arnold Bennett) with selected French and Russian competitors: Tolstoy, Zola, Monet, Manet. He argues that while high cultural work on the British steam railway is thin, British popular culture did not ignore it. Detailed discussions of comic fiction, crime fiction, and cartoons reveal a popular fascination with railways tumbling from vast (and hitherto unexplored) stores of critically overlooked genres.

A unique, comprehensive book to be treasured by train and music lovers alike. Contains an exhaustive collection of songs about railroads, railroading, and railroaders, and rare, vintage photographs of great trains from the last 135 years. Arranged for keyboard with lyrics and guitar chords.

Sociologists have suggested that being on the move entails a complex choreography, comprised of passenger comportment, signage, announcements and posters. Employing insights from mobility theory, Transporting moments provides an account of railway culture from a passenger’s perspective. The book uses the context of commuting in Sydney, at a time when elements of its intra-urban rail network were being upgraded as its principal case study. This upgrade covers its rolling stock, infrastructure and linguistic landscape. It is argued that understanding the rationale behind these changes requires an understanding of the historical and policy context in which the railways of Sydney’s, New South Wales and Australia are embedded. This is also the case with the nation’s long distance trains, whose operators have fought hard to stave off competition from airliners and cars. Transporting moments, therefore, presents strong case for preserving public transport as a more equitable and sustainable form of mobility. Governments, Australian or otherwise, can use these insights for productive investment in their rail networks and public transportation service in general, and for reducing the nation’s addiction to the automobile. With its invaluable insights into travelling on trains, Transporting moments is a fascinating addition to the growing corpus of literature on day-to-day mobility.

Since the advent of train travel, railways have compressed space and crossed national boundaries to become transnational icons, evoking hope, dread, progress, or obsolescence in different cultural domains. Spanning five continents and a diverse range of contexts, this collection offers an unprecedentedly broad survey of global representations of trains. From experimental novels to Hollywood blockbusters, the works studied here chart fascinating routes across a remarkably varied cultural landscape.