Image: Simon & Schuster · source
Simon & Schuster · Budget
Stephen E. Ambrose's account of the men who built the transcontinental railroad, from investors and engineers to the Irish and Chinese immigrants who laid the track.
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The publisher describes the book as the story of an unprecedented feat of engineering, vision and courage. It follows the investors who risked their businesses, the politicians who understood the line's importance, the engineers and surveyors who risked and sometimes lost their lives, and the Irish and Chinese immigrants, defeated Confederate soldiers and other laborers who did the backbreaking work on the tracks. The publisher adds that, in Ambrose's hands, the enterprise with its huge expenditure of brainpower, muscle and sweat comes vibrantly to life. The publisher's excerpt of the first chapter opens in Council Bluffs, Iowa, where Abraham Lincoln asks a twenty-eight-year-old railroad engineer, Grenville Dodge, for the best route for a Pacific railroad. Dodge answers that it runs out the Platte Valley, citing the railroads building from Chicago and the uniform grade to the Rocky Mountains. The excerpt goes on to describe the early railroads as rickety, with wood-fired boilers whose sparks set cars on fire, brakemen stationed on each car and wooden bench seats, and says American engineers invented the swiveling truck that lets a locomotive run around curves of almost any radius.
This is a book for the armchair or a long journey. The publisher explains that the U.S. government pitted the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific Railroads against each other in a race for funding, encouraging speed over caution, and that locomotives, rails and spikes were shipped from the East through Panama or around South America to the West, or lugged across the country to the Plains. The trade paperback runs 432 pages. The publisher files it under United States history, the Civil War period and railroad history.
Strengths
Weaknesses
| Specification | Value |
|---|---|
| Author | Stephen E. Ambrose |
| Format | Trade paperback |
| Length | 432 pages |
| ISBN-13 | 9780743203173 |
| Subject | Transportation > Railroads > History |
| Publisher | Simon & Schuster |
It suits an adult who likes railroad history and wants one narrative of how the first line across the continent was financed, surveyed and built. A reader who wants locomotive specifications should look at a reference book such as Train: The Definitive Visual History, already in this catalogue. The publisher's page quotes Time calling it a magnificent tale of high finance, low finagling, and workers hacking through 2,000 miles. Its author biography says Ambrose was a retired Boyd Professor of History at the University of New Orleans and the author of more than thirty books, among them Band of Brothers, D-Day and Undaunted Courage, so a reader who liked those will know his style. Reviews reprinted on the page include Henry Kisor in The New York Times Book Review calling it richly readable, Conn Nugent in the New York Post calling it a colorful, edifying story of U.S. history, and Bob Minzesheimer in USA Today saying Ambrose should be read as much for his muscular prose as for his research.
Train: The Definitive Visual History (DK) is already in this catalogue for readers who want pictures and locomotive detail rather than one narrative. 100 Train Journeys of a Lifetime (National Geographic) is already in this catalogue for readers who want to ride.
Image: National Geographic (Penguin Random House) · source
National Geographic · Mid-range
A National Geographic hardcover that profiles 100 railway journeys around the world, with notes on when and where to go, which cabins to book and what to see off the train.
Image: Lorenz Books / Simon & Schuster · source
Lorenz Books · Mid-range
A hardcover guide to the golden age of train engines by Colin Garratt, with 700 photographs covering the first designs to modern high-speed trains.
Image: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers · source
Little, Brown Books for Young Readers · Budget
A board book by Kevin Lewis, with pictures by Daniel Kirk, that follows a busy toy steam locomotive through a playroom from sunrise until all its freight has been delivered.
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