Hop aboard a freight train to see what it's like.

In simple, powerful words and vibrant illustrations, Donald Crews evokes the rolling wheels of that childhood favorite: a train. This Caldecott Honor Book features bright colors and bold shapes. Even a child not lucky enough to have counted freight cars will feel he or she has watched a freight train passing after reading Freight Train. Donald Crews used childhood memories of trains seen during his travels to his grandparents' farm in the American South as the inspiration for this timeless favorite. New York magazine's The Strategist chose Freight Train as one of the "Best (Nonobvious) Baby Books to Bring to a Shower." As The Strategist stated: "The Caldecott Honor Book is spare and minimal in both art and text and follows the journey of a freight train and all its cars until it rolls off the page and into the distance. It’s a good way to learn all the different names of train cars, too." Red caboose at the back, orange tank car, green cattle car, purple box car, black tender and a black steam engine . . . freight train.

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.

From the first locomotive built in 1804 to the high-speed bullet train, The Big Book of Trains is the perfect ebook for kids who love trains. Includes amazing facts and photographs of trains around the world, The Big Book of Trains covers the history of trains and train travel. Different types of trains are featured on their own spreads, and each page features multiple images to give a close-up view as well as informative text about each train. See the differences among monorails, passenger trains, and TGVs. Learn about pistons, fireboxes, boilers, and coupling rods, and find out exactly what they do to help the train travel down on the tracks. See key features of each train model and discover the difference between steam trains and diesels. Find out how trains are designed for certain jobs and tasks, including mountain trains, snow trains, and freight trains. Look at the biggest and fastest trains in the world. With incredible pictures and informative text, The Big Book of Trains is the essential ebook for young readers who want to know everything about trains.

The unforgettable story of one woman who leaves behind her hardscrabble childhood in Alaska to travel the country via freight train—a beautiful memoir about forgiveness, self-discovery, and the redemptive power of nature, perfect for fans of Wild or Educated. NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER • “An urgent read. A courageous life. Quinn’s story burns through us and bleeds beauty on every page.”—Noé Álvarez, author of Spirit Run: A 6,000-Mile Marathon Through North America’s Stolen Land After a childhood marked by neglect, poverty, and periods of homelessness, with a mother who believed herself to be the reincarnation of the Virgin Mary, Carrot Quinn moved out on her own. She found a sense of belonging among straight-edge anarchists who taught her how to traverse the country by freight trains, sleep in fields under the stars, and feed herself by foraging in dumpsters. Her new life was one of thrilling adventure and freedom, but still she was haunted by the ghosts of her lonely and traumatic childhood. The Sunset Route is a powerful and brazenly honest adventure memoir set in the unseen corners of the United States—in the Alaskan cold, on trains rattling through forests and deserts, as well as in low-income apartments and crowded punk houses—following a remarkable protagonist who has witnessed more tragedy than she thought she could ever endure and who must learn to heal her own heart. Ultimately, it is a meditation on the natural world as a spiritual anchor, and on the ways that forgiveness can set us free.

Discover the story of Amtrak, America's Railroad, 50 years in the making. In 1971, in an effort to rescue essential freight railroads, the US government founded Amtrak. In the post–World War II era, aviation and highway development had become the focus of government policy in America. As rail passenger services declined in number and in quality, they were simultaneously driving many railroads toward bankruptcy. Amtrak was intended to be the solution. In Amtrak, America's Railroad: Transportation's Orphan and Its Struggle for Survival, Geoffrey H. Doughty, Jeffrey T. Darbee, and Eugene E. Harmon explore the fascinating history of this popular institution and tell a tale of a company hindered by its flawed origin and uneven quality of leadership, subjected to political gamesmanship and favoritism, and mired in a perpetual philosophical debate about whether it is a business or a public service. Featuring interviews with former Amtrak presidents, the authors examine the current problems and issues facing Amtrak and their proposed solutions. Created in the absence of a comprehensive national transportation policy, Amtrak manages to survive despite inherent flaws due to the public's persistent loyalty. Amtrak, America's Railroad is essential reading for those who hope to see another fifty years of America's railroad passenger service, whether they be patrons, commuters, legislators, regulators, and anyone interested in railroads and transportation history.

A revision of the classic text on railroad engineering, considered the ``bible'' of the field for three decades. Presents railroad engineering principles quantitatively but without excessive resort to mathematics, and applies these principles to day-by-day design, construction, operation, and maintenance. Relates practice to principles in an orderly, sequential pattern (subgrade, ballast, ties, rails). Applicable to both conventional railroads and rapid transit systems.

The Caldecott Medal Winner, Sibert Honor Book, and New York Times bestseller Locomotive is a rich and detailed sensory exploration of America’s early railroads, from the creator of the “stunning” (Booklist) Moonshot. It is the summer of 1869, and trains, crews, and family are traveling together, riding America’s brand-new transcontinental railroad. These pages come alive with descriptive details of the journey: the sounds, speed, and strength of the mighty locomotives; the work that keeps them moving; and the thrill of travel from plains to mountain to ocean. Come sit inside the caboose, feel the heat of the engine, watch the landscape race by. Come ride the rails, come cross the young country!

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