Trains Grosset All Color Guide By John Day 159 Pages 125 Illustrations DUST Jacket Copyright 1970
Contents
4 How and Why the Railroads Came
15 The Railroads Take Over
24 The Railroad Age
34 Trains for People
44 Freight Trains
54 Tracks
65 Train Safety
74 Tractive Power
88 Handling Passengers
100 Handling Freight
112 Trains for Cities
124 The Rail Way Ahead
134 Trains for Special Jobs
146 The Future—Trains Without Rails?
156 Museums to Visit
157 Books to Read
158 Index
There is much talk these days of automated highways. RaiIroads anticipated this idea by some four hundred years, and possibly several thousand if we are to count the parallel lines of grooved stone blocks laid by ancient Greeks to move ships across the Isthmus of Corinth.
Comprehensively, concisely and entertainingly, the author, a professional railroad man and journalist, tells the story of trains. One hundred and twenty-five full-color, specially created pieces of art complement the engrossing text point-for-point.
The reader becomes aware of how and why railroads came into existence, and how trains really began to take over transportation with the invention of steam power.
In a world wide survey of trains, the author describes the Great Railroad Age which began toward the middle of the nineteenth century, and included the opening of the West, the Civil War, the laying of the Trans-Siberian Railroad, and as late as 1910 the completion of a line across the Andes.
Developments in the handling of passengers and freight, the many kinds of tractive power and specialized jobs for trains are described in detail.
There is also fascinating information about the latest experiments with monorail systems for urban and interurban services, and the planned concrete surface tracks controlled by central computer that promise even more for the future of trains.
