A fully illustrated survey of Iowa's railroad experience.

A fully illustrated survey of Iowa's railroad experience.

For over 25 years, the creatively led Railroad Development Corporation (RDC) has rejuvenated a series of down-and-out and even defunct railroads. Launched in 1987 by Henry Posner III, this investment and management company has demonstrated that it is possible both to have a conscience and to earn a profit in today's railroad industry. With ventures on four continents, RDC has created an admirable record of long-term commitments, respect for local cultures, and protection of the public interest. H. Roger Grant presents a firsthand look at this unique business operation and its triumphs and disappointments.

The Indiana Rail Road Company is a story of extraordinary success among the scores of independent short line and regional railroads spawned in the wake of railroad deregulation. Christopher Rund chronicles the development of the company from its origins as part of America's first land grant railroad, the Illinois Central, through the political and financial juggling required by entrepreneur Tom Hoback to purchase the line when it fell into disrepair. Reborn as a robust, profitable carrier, the INRD has become a model for the new American regional railroad. This revised edition, with a new foreword by acclaimed author Fred Frailey and four new chapters, brings readers up to date on Tom Hoback's amazing railroad adventure.

A definitive history of the railroads of Iowa, featuring over four hundred black-and-white photographs. At one point in time, no place in Iowa was more than a few miles from an active line of rail track. In this splendid companion volume to Steel Trails of Hawkeyeland (IUP, 2005), H. Roger Grant and Don L. Hofsommer explore the pivotal role that railroads played in the urban development of the state as well as the symbiotic relationship Iowa and its rails shared. With more than four hundred black-and-white photographs, a solid inventory of depots and locations, and new information that is sure to impress even the most well-versed railfan, this detailed history of the state’s railroads—including the Chicago & North Western, Cedar Rapids & Iowa City, and the Iowa Northern—will be an essential reference for railroad fans and historians, artists, and model railroad builders. “Iowa’s Railroads is a solid visual introduction to the railroad history of the state.” —Industrial Archeology “With more than 400 black and white photographs, an inventory of depots and locations, and new information that will please railroad fans, [Iowa’s Railroads] will be an essential reference for historians, fans, and model railroad builders.” —Abstracts of Public Administration, Development, and Environment,2010 “This excellent volume is sure to appeal to anyone with an interest in Midwest railway history.” —The Michigan Railfan, March-April 2010 “Grant and Hofsommer, both native Iowans and respected railroad historians, have mined a wide variety of public and private photo collections, and the result is a visual feast of Iowa’s railroad experience.” —The Annals of Iowa, 69, Number 2

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.

Explore the rich history of the legendary railroad that spanned the American Midwest in this beautifully illustrated volume. Beginning operations in the mid-nineteenth century, the Rock Island Line served farms and small-town America for more than 140 years. One of the earliest railroads to build westward from Chicago, it was the first to span the Mississippi, advancing the frontier, bringing settlers into the West, and hauling their crops to market. Rock Island’s celebrated Rocket passenger trains also set a standard for speed and service, with suburban runs as familiar to Windy City commuters as the Loop. For most of its existence, the Rock battled competitors much larger and richer than itself. When it finally succumbed, the result was one of the largest business bankruptcies ever. Today, as its engines and stock travel the busy main lines operated by other carriers, the Rock Island Line lives on in the hearts of those whom it employed and served.

“A fascinating mix of fact, history, self-confession, self-accusation, and self-forgiveness—a diary of both emotional relationships and travel.” —Pasatiempo This classic account of self-discovery and railroad life describes Linda Grant Niemann’s travels as an itinerant brakeman on the Southern Pacific. Boomer combines travelogue, Wild West adventure, sexual memoir, and closely observed ethnography. A Berkeley Ph.D., Niemann turned her back on academia and set out to master the craft of railroad brakeman, beginning a journey of sexual and subcultural exploration and traveling down a path toward recovery from alcoholism. In honest, clean prose, Niemann treks off the beaten path and into the forgotten places along the rail lines, finding true American characters with colorful pasts—and her true self as well. “Ma[kes] the railroad experience come alive with all its grit, danger, romance, and general outrageousness . . . Possibly the finest book I’ve ever read about the actual experience of working on the railroad.” —Trains Magazine “Niemann has a taut, lyrically restrained but vividly descriptive style, with an observational vigilance befitting a brakeman’s mindset, and her narrative clips along like a boxcar rolling through the yard.” —Bloom Magazine “A remarkable adventure tale, the occupational odyssey of the Ph.D. in literature who immerses herself in blue-collar America.” —Library Journal

One of America's foremost civil engineers of the past 150 years, John Frank Stevens was a railway reconnaissance and location engineer whose reputation was made on the Canadian Pacific and Great Northern lines. Self-taught and driven by a bulldog tenacity of purpose, he was hired by Theodore Roosevelt as chief engineer of the Panama Canal, creating a technical achievement far ahead of its time. Stevens also served for more than five years as the head of the US Advisory Commission of Railway Experts to Russia and as a consultant who contributed to many engineering feats, including the control of the Mississippi River after the disastrous floods of 1927 and construction of the Boulder (Hoover) Dam. Drawing on Stevens's surviving personal papers and materials from projects with which he was associated, Clifford Foust offers an illuminating look into the life of an accomplished civil engineer.

A railway history expert “vividly portrays a way of life no longer seen. A fascinating insight into historical American railroading” (Railways Illustrated). In this visually stunning and comprehensive photographic essay, railroad historian and photographer Donovan L. Hofsommer records the end of branchline passenger service, the demise of electric railroads, the transition from steam to diesel power, as well as the end of common carrier freight service on the Colorado narrow gauge. Off the MainLines carries readers along out-of-the-way railways in Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Colorado, Oklahoma, Texas, Montana, and South Dakota to see the changes that occurred on these lines from the 1940s to the 1990s. “If you miss the Milwaukee, recall the Rock Island, suffer from the loss of the Soo Line, maintain sadness for the Santa Fe, can’t forget the Frisco, absent-mindedly buried the Burlington Route in oblivion or still maintain romantic recollections of the Katy, you’ll find Dr. Hofsommer’s Off the Main Lines exactly where you need to be!”—Lexington Quarterly “A fitting tribute to its subject; railroad enthusiasts across the upper Midwest and beyond will find Hofsommer’s personalized history to be both edifying and immensely rewarding.”—The Annals of Iowa “An interesting blend of historical fact and personal reminiscence, and traces the author’s own personal 60-year rail odyssey to a variety of ‘off the beaten path’ locations.”—Michigan Railfan “All in all this is a good photographic essay of some lesser known routes and, as usual, I picked up a few more pieces of information to use at a railroad trivia night.”—The Villager