When he’s not taking care of a majestic marshaling of toy trains, Graham Claytor gets to play with the real thing
They created towns and became the center of Western life, enabling wheat, cattle, and minerals to flow out of the West
Where Two Lines Raced To Drive The Last Spike In Transcontinental Track
Building the transcontinental railroad was the greatest engineering feat of the nineteenth century. Was it also the biggest swindle?
Light rail was an attractive, economical, and environmentally sound technology— until the auto companies crushed it. That, at any rate, is what a lot of people believe, and now the nation is spending billions to re-create an imaginary past.
In a classic model of government corruption, the promoters placed shares of the company's stock “where it will do most good"—in the pockets of key Congressmen
In 1820 their daily existence was practically medieval; thirty years later many of them were living the modern life
The urge to move documents as fast as possible has always been a national pre-occupation, because it has always been a necessity. Fax and Federal Express are just the latest among many innovations for getting the message across.
A trackside album of celebrities from the days when the world went by train
A lot of people still remember how great it was to ride in the old Pullmans, how curiously regal to have a simple, well-cooked meal in the dining car. Those memories are perfectly accurate—and that lost pleasure holds a lesson for us that extends beyond mere nostalgia.
Magnificently impractical and obsolete almost as soon as they were built, the cable lines briefly dominated urban transportation throughout the country
During the 1920s the city spurred local rail traffic with an unparalleled run of superb and stylish posters
A pioneer locomotive builder used pen and ink, watercolor, and near-total recall to re-create the birth of a titanic enterprise
Today more Americans live in them than in city and country combined. How did we get there?
Was it science, sport, or the prospect of a round-the-world railroad that sent the tycoon off on his costly Alaskan excursion?
How a Whole Nation Said Thank You
The John Bull Steams Again
What it was like for the first travelers
It was called “the most extraordinary and astounding adventure of the Civil War”
Mile for mile, it cost more in dollars—and lives—than any railroad ever built
Our half-known new western empire was mapped, in a great mass exploration, by the Army’s Pacific Railroad Surveys of 1853
Locomotive whistles had a language all their own
The Union Pacific met the Central Pacific at Promontory—and the nation had truly been railroaded
To a culinary wilderness Fred Harvey brought civilized cooking—and pretty girls to serve it.
The steamship clerk of Pig’s Eye, Minnesota, built a railroad empire from the Great Lakes to Puget Sound