Showing titles in Railroads

This audiobook will take the listener on the slow train to another era when travel meant more than hurrying from one place to the next, the journey meaning nothing but time lost in crowded carriages, condemned by broken timetables. On the Slow Train will reconnect with that long-missed need to lift our heads from the daily grind and reflect that there are still places in Britain where we can stop and stare. It will tap into many things: a love of railways, a love of history, a love of nostalgia.

This book does not pretend to be a corporate history and certainly not the author's personal autobiography. Rather its purpose is to convey a close-up, ground-level look at a once very prosperous American railroad's mid-twentieth century struggle for survival - from the prospective of a rookie operating officer. For those of us fortunate enough to serve the "Delay, Linger and Wait" there remains a nostalgic affection for this well-run eastern railroad icon.

Transportation is the unsung hero in America's story. Stagecoaches, waterways, canals, railways, busses, and airplanes revolutionized much more than just the way people got around; they transformed the economic, political, and social aspects of everyday life. In Transportation and the American People, renowned historian H. Roger Grant tells the story of American transportation from its slow, uncomfortable, and often dangerous beginnings to the speed and comfort of travel today.

Sometimes you come across a lofty railway viaduct marooned in the middle of a remote country landscape. Or a crumbling platform from some once-bustling junction buried under the buddleia. If you are lucky you might be able to follow some rusting tracks or explore an old tunnel leading to...well, who knows where? Listen hard. Is that the wind in the undergrowth? Or the spectre of a train from a golden era of the past panting up the embankment?

Michael Williams has spent the past year travelling along the fascinating rail byways of Britain for this new collection of journeys. Here is the 'train to the end of the world' running for more than four splendid hours through lake, loch and moorland from Inverness to Wick, the most northerly town in Britain. He discovers a perfect country branch line in London’s commuterland, and travels on one of the slowest services in the land along the shores of the lovely Dovey estuary to the far west of Wales. Here is a unique travel companion celebrating the treasures of our railway heritage....

Eric Stathers knew the Pacific Great Eastern Railway all too well. In the 1920s and 30s, the PGE was a struggling, backwoods railway if ever there was one, and it presented endless challenges to those whose job it was to keep it running. Eric was Car Foreman at the railway's Squamish shops and he was often called out with his crew to recover wrecked locomotives, cars and equipment all along the tough and mountainous line between Squamish and Lillooet, British Columbia. Heavy rain, snow, rock slides, collapsed bridges, washouts and floods were all too frequent occurrences. Not only that, but...

L.T.C. Rolt was one of a small group of amateur railwaymen who made their dream of running their own railway come true. His vivid and often amusing account of this unique achievement is a record of individual enterprise and creative effort as refreshing as it is rare. Established by Act of Parliament in 1865 and unaffected by mergers and nationalisation, the Talyllyn Railway has been serving a remote and beautiful valley in the Merioneth mountains ever since.

Follow the Flag offers the first authoritative history of the Wabash Railroad Company, which in its heyday reached the principal gateways of Chicago, Des Moines, Detroit, Kansas City, St. Louis, Boston and New York City. Immortalized in the popular folk song "Wabash Cannonball", the Midwestern railroad has left important legacies. Today, 40 years after becoming a "fallen flag" carrier, key components of the former Wabash remain busy rail arteries and terminals, attesting to its historic value to American transportation.

Are you ready to embark on an extraordinary journey through the fascinating world of trains? Step aboard as we roll beyond the horizon, uncovering the awe-inspiring history, mind-blowing technology, and captivating stories that have shaped these incredible machines. Rolling Beyond the Horizon: Fascinating Facts About Trains is your ticket to a thrilling adventure filled with wonder, knowledge, and an insatiable passion for the rails.

In the seven decades since the darkest moments of the Second World War it seems every tenebrous corner of the conflict has been laid bare, prodded and examined from every perspective of military and social history. But there is a story that has hitherto been largely overlooked. It is a tale of quiet heroism, a story of ordinary people who fought, with enormous self-sacrifice, not with tanks and guns, but with elbow grease and determination. It is the story of the British railways...

The matter-of-fact descriptive title of this interesting little volume on railroading in the pre-Civil War South does not do justice to Alvarez's coverage of the subject. Along with his full account of trains and train accommodations, he manages to encompass a number of social, political, and even ideological subjects.

Moving to a plant-based diet is one of the most important choices you can make to improve your health, increase energy levels and also avoid chronic disease. Science shows that eating healthy will help you live longer, help the environment as well as increasing the risk of getting sick. This book also benefits those people who wondered about the plant-based diet but had no idea where to start. A healthy cookbook focused on plants looks forward to helping people make changes in their lives, beginning with their diet. When you begin your weight loss journey, nothing will ever stop you.

Great Continental Railway Journeys is now a firmly established series on BBC2, following in the illustrious tracks of its predecessor - Great British Railway Journeys. Both series are fronted by ex-politician Michael Portillo, and in this European odyssey he travels around continental Europe using George Bradshaw's 1913 Continental Railway Guide.

Imagine you are traveling west from Independence, Missouri, on a 2,000 mile trip to Oregon in the mid 1800s. Since there are no cars, trains, or passenger jet services you take the most reliable and speedy form of transportation available at the time: a wagon. After completing this dangerous trip you hear about the new cutting edge technology that has just reduced the dangerous 2,000 mile trip down to a week, all for the price of one ticket. In 1869, after decades of travel, the Oregon Trail fell into disuse.

What is it that fascinates so many people about Ronnie Biggs and makes him a household name sixty years on from the crime that made his name? Is it the man or the myth that makes Ron a latter-day Robin Hood, and the odd man out who is best remembered from a gang of sixteen who held up a mail train in August 1963? This book covers Ron's entire life including the Great Train Robbery, his conviction and subsequent escape from HMP Wandsworth. Ron tells how he managed to outrun and outthink the posse of law enforcement officers and the media that chased him around the world.

From the earliest steam engine to the high-speed bullet trains of today, A Short History of Trains reveals the hidden stories of railway history across the world - the inspired engineering; the blood, sweat, and tears that went into the construction of the tracks; the ground-breaking innovations behind the trains that travelled along them; and the triumphs and tragedies of the people who made the railway what it is.

When Felix arrived at Huddersfield Railway Station as a kitten, no-one knew how important she would become. She has a vital job as 'Senior Pest Controller' - but Felix is more than just an employee of TransPennine Express. She has changed her colleagues' lives and saved the day time and again: from bringing a boy with autism out of his shell to comforting a runaway child. When tragedy hits the team, they rely on Felix to pull them together. But it is a chance friendship with a commuter that catapults her to international stardom....

No. 1472 was the third of a class of steam locomotives that was eventually to number 79 engines, and did not originally even carry a name. The Great Northern Railway A1 4-6-2, though, was the biggest express steam engine ever to have been seen in Britain at the time. It was chosen to be displayed at a major exhibition at Wembley in 1924, and for this it was given the name Flying Scotsman.

During the course of the 1950s, England lost confidence in its rulers and convinced itself to modernise. The bankrupt steam-powered railway, run by a retired general, symbolised everything that was wrong with the country; the future lay in motorways and high speed electric - or even atomic - express trains. But plans for a gleaming new railway system ended in failure and on the roads traffic ground to a halt. Along came Dr Beeching, forensically analysing the railways’ problems and delivering an expert’s diagnosis that a third of the nation’s railways must go.

Ode an die Schönheit des langsamen Reisens. Sein Großvater war Weichensteller, sein Onkel Fahrdienstleiter und sein Cousin Lokführer. Klar, dass Jaroslav Rudiš so oft wie möglich Zug fährt. In seinem Buch begibt er sich im Takt der Schienen durch Europa: von Berlin aus bis zum Gotthardtunnel und von Sizilien bis nach Lappland; im Nachtzug durch Polen und die Ukraine sowie im Speisewagen von Hamburg nach Prag. Leidenschaftlich berichtet er davon, wie er vor seinem Waggonfenster zwischen Felsen und Bäumen zum ersten Mal die Adria erblickt. Wie er mit der Schmalspurbahn die Wälder im Harz erkundet.