railroads

<p><span class="deck"> <span class="typestyle"> For decades the private railroad car was the great symbol of wealth. Here is what it looked like in its heyday.</span> </span></p>

<p><span class="deck"> <span class="typestyle"> The iron horses that built America are nearly all gathered on the other side of Jordan</span> </span></p>

<p><span class="deck"> <span class="typestyle"> John W. Garrett turned the pioneer Baltimore &amp; Ohio into a great instrument for tapping the treasure of the West</span> </span></p>

<p><span class="deck"> Single-track lines run by one-track minds gave the reformers of Boston their biggest cause since abolition</span> </p>

<p><span class="deck">Opening the mail route to California, the Butterfield coaches flew across the rugged, wild Southwest in twenty-five exhausting days</span> </p>

<p><span class="deck">Snowshed crews on the Central Pacific, battling blizzards and snowslides, built “the longest house in the world”</span></p>

<p><span class="deck"><span class="typestyle">The steamship clerk of Pig’s Eye, Minnesota, built a railroad empire from the Great Lakes to Puget Sound</span> </span></p>

<p><span class="deck"> <span class="typestyle"> To a culinary wilderness Fred Harvey brought civilized cooking—and pretty girls to serve it.</span> </span></p>

<p><span class="deck"><span class="typestyle">The Union Pacific met the Central Pacific at Promontory—and the nation had truly been railroaded</span> </span></p>

<p>Locomotive whistles had a language all their own</p>

<p><span class="deck">Our half-known new western empire was mapped, in a great mass exploration, by the Army’s Pacific Railroad Surveys of 1853</span></p>

<p><span class="deck"> <span class="typestyle"> Mile for mile, it cost more in dollars—and lives—than any railroad ever built</span> </span></p>

<p>It was called “the most extraordinary and astounding adventure of the Civil War”</p>

<p>What it was like for the first travelers</p>

<p><span class="deck"> <span class="typestyle"> The</span> John Bull <span class="typestyle"> Steams Again</span> </span></p>

<p><span class="deck"> <span class="typestyle"> How a Whole Nation Said Thank You</span> </span></p>

<p><span class="deck"><span class="typestyle">Was it science, sport, or the prospect of a round-the-world railroad that sent the tycoon off on his costly Alaskan excursion?</span> </span></p>

<p><span class="deck"> <span class="typestyle"> Today more Americans live in them than in city and country combined. How did we get there?</span> </span></p>

<p><span class="deck"> <span class="typestyle"> A pioneer locomotive builder used pen and ink, watercolor, and near-total recall to re-create the birth of a titanic enterprise</span> </span></p>

<p><span class="deck"> During the 1920s the city spurred local rail traffic with an unparalleled run of superb and stylish posters</span> </p>

<p><span class="deck">Magnificently impractical and obsolete almost as soon as they were built, the cable lines briefly dominated urban transportation throughout the country.</span></p>

<p><span class="deck">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.</span></p>

<p><span class="deck">A trackside album of celebrities from the days when the world went by train</span></p>

<p><span class="deck">The urge to move documents as fast as possible has always been a national preoccupation because it has always been a necessity. Faxes and Federal Express are just the latest among many innovations for getting the message across.</span></p>

<p><span class="deck">In 1820, their daily existence was practically medieval; 30 later, many of them were living the modern life.</span></p>

<p>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</p>
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<p><span class="deck">How Peter Cooper managed to make himself deeply rich and deeply beloved at the same time</span></p>

<p><span class="deck">George Selden never built a car himself, but he <span class="typestyle"> did</span> manage to secure a patent on every auto manufactured.</span></p>

<p><span class="deck">A great and living monument to commerce, engineering, art, and human ingenuity</span></p>

<p><span class="deck">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.</span></p>

<p><span class="deck">Two unique trains provide the chance to relax into the luxury that travel by rail once promised.</span></p>

<p><span class="deck">Building the transcontinental railroad was the greatest engineering feat of the nineteenth century. Was it also the biggest swindle?</span></p>

<p>A century and a half of the U.S. economy, from the railroad revolution to the information revolution</p>

<p><span class="deck">Where two lines raced to drive the last spike In the transcontinental track</span></p>

<p>They created towns and became the center of Western life, enabling wheat, cattle, and minerals to flow out of the West.</p>

<p><span class="deck">When he’s not taking care of a majestic marshaling of toy trains, Graham Claytor gets to play with the real thing.</span></p>