An award-winning account of a crisis in railroad history: “This absorbing book takes you on an entertaining ride.” —Chicago Tribune A saga about one of the oldest and most romantic enterprises in the land—America’s railroads—The Men Who Loved Trains introduces the chieftains who have run the railroads, both those who set about grabbing power and big salaries for themselves, and others who truly loved the industry. As a journalist and associate editor of Fortune magazine who covered the demise of Penn Central and the creation of Conrail, Rush Loving often had a front-row seat to the foibles and follies of this group of men. He uncovers intrigue, greed, lust for power, boardroom battles, and takeover wars and turns them into a page-turning story. He recounts how the chairman of CSX Corporation, who later became George W. Bush’s Treasury secretary, managed to make millions for himself while his company drifted in chaos. Yet there were also those who loved trains and railroading—and who played key roles in reshaping transportation in the northeastern United States. This book will delight not only the rail fan, but anyone interested in American business and history. Includes photographs

The story of the men who build the transcontinental railroad in the 1860's.

A “sweeping and grand epic on the renaissance of American railroading” from the Fortune journalist and author of The Men Who Loved Trains (The Baltimore Sun). After decades of covering the railroad industry for Fortune magazine, journalist Rush Loving Jr. offers his unique insider’s view into the many dramas, triumphs, failures, and adventures of the great American railroads. Loving has shared meals and journeys with everyone from the industry’s greatest leaders to conductors, brakemen and even a few hobos. Now, in this fascinating combination of history and memoir, he recalls the many colorful people he’s met on the rails. Loving shares stories he collected in locomotive cabs, business cars, executive suites and even the White House. They paint a compelling, intimate portrait of the railroad industry and its leaders, both inept and visionary. Above all, Loving tells stories of the dedicated men and women who truly love trains and know the industry from the rails up.

An Edgar Award finalist for Best Fact Crime, this “impressive…open-eyed investigative inquiry wrapped within a cultural history of rural America” (The Wall Street Journal) shows legendary statistician and baseball writer Bill James applying his analytical acumen to crack an unsolved century-old mystery surrounding one of the deadliest serial killers in American history. Between 1898 and 1912, families across the country were bludgeoned in their sleep with the blunt side of an axe. Some of these cases—like the infamous Villisca, Iowa, murders—received national attention. But most incidents went almost unnoticed outside the communities in which they occurred. Few people believed the crimes were related. And fewer still would realize that all of these families lived within walking distance to a train station. When celebrated true crime expert Bill James first learned about these horrors, he began to investigate others that might fit the same pattern. Applying the same know-how he brings to his legendary baseball analysis, he empirically determined which crimes were committed by the same person. Then after sifting through thousands of local newspapers, court transcripts, and public records, he and his daughter Rachel made an astonishing discovery: they learned the true identity of this monstrous criminal and uncovered one of the deadliest serial killers in America. “A suspenseful historical account” (Publishers Weekly, starred review), The Man from the Train paints a vivid, psychologically perceptive portrait of America at the dawn of the twentieth century, when crime was regarded as a local problem, and opportunistic private detectives exploited a dysfunctional judicial system. James shows how these cultural factors enabled such an unspeakable series of crimes to occur, and his groundbreaking approach to true crime will convince skeptics, amaze aficionados, and change the way we view criminal history. “A beautifully written and extraordinarily researched narrative…This is no pure whodunit, but rather a how-many-did-he-do” (Buffalo News).

The rocking motion of the train as it speeds along, the sound of its wheels on the rails . . . There’s something special about this form of travel that makes for easy conversation, which is just what happens to the four strangers who meet in Trains and Lovers. As they journey by rail from Edinburgh to London, the four travelers pass the time by sharing tales of trains that have changed their lives. A young, keen-eyed Scotsman recounts how he turned a friendship with a female coworker into a romance by spotting an anachronistic train in an eighteenth-century painting. An Australian woman shares how her parents fell in love and spent their life together running a railroad siding in the remote Australian Outback. A middle-aged American patron of the arts sees two young men saying goodbye in a train station and recalls his own youthful crush on another man. And a young Englishman describes how exiting his train at the wrong station allowed him to meet an intriguing woman whom he impulsively invited to dinner—and into his life. Here is Alexander McCall Smith at his most enchanting, exploring the nature of love—and trains—in a collection of romantic, intertwined stories. This eBook edition includes a Reading Group Guide.

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.

A former Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway CEO tells the behind-the-scenes story of the transformation and resurgence of America’s ailing railroads. When Robert D. Krebs joined the ranks of Southern Pacific Railroad in 1966, the industry had been in decline for decades, and the future of trains was in peril. Despite these obstacles, Krebs fell in love with the rugged, competitive business of railroads and was determined to overcome its resistance to change and put rail transportation back on track. By the age of forty, Krebs was president of the Southern Pacific Railroad and had also served as chief executive of both the Santa Fe Railway and Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway companies. Riding the Rails: Inside the Business of America’s Railroads details Krebs’s rise to a position of influence in the recovery of America’s railroads—and offers a unique insider’s view into the boardrooms where executives and businessmen reimagined transportation in the United States.