Classic American Railroad Terminals

A blend of archival photos combine with modern color shots to relate the stories behind the design, the architecture, and the use of terminals like Grand Central Station and Pennsylvania Station in New York City, and Washington, D.C.'s Union Station. 150 photos.

This book picks up where the previous two Classic American titles left off, focusing on the golden age of American railroading from 1945 to the early 1970s. It extends to the present day where applicable, providing a colorful look at locomotives, passenger and freight operations, development, and, in some cases, demise. Full color.

Presents capsule histories of a selected group of railway stations located throughout the United States by examining their architecture and their importance to their local communities

Time has run out for many railroad terminals and depots, but their history and photos of dozens of these buildings is presented here.

In the latest mystery from New York Times bestselling author Charles Todd, World War I nurse and amateur sleuth Bess Crawford investigates an old murder that occurred during her childhood in India, a search for the truth that will transform her and leave her pondering a troubling question: How can facts lie? Bess Crawford enjoyed a wondrous childhood in India, where her father, a colonel in the British Army, was stationed on the Northwest Frontier. But an unforgettable incident darkened that happy time. In 1908, Colonel Crawford's regiment discovered that it had a murderer in its ranks, an officer who killed five people in India and England yet was never brought to trial. In the eyes of many of these soldiers, men defined by honor and duty, the crime was a stain on the regiment's reputation and on the good name of Bess's father, the Colonel Sahib, who had trained the killer. A decade later, tending to the wounded on the battlefields of France during World War I, Bess learns from a dying Indian sergeant that the supposed murderer, Lieutenant Wade, is alive—and serving at the Front. Bess cannot believe the shocking news. According to reliable reports, Wade's body had been seen deep in the Khyber Pass, where he had died trying to reach Afghanistan. Soon, though, her mind is racing. How had he escaped from India? What had driven a good man to murder in cold blood? Wanting answers, she uses her leave to investigate. In the village where the first three killings took place, she discovers that the locals are certain that the British soldier was innocent. Yet the present owner of the house where the crime was committed believes otherwise, and is convinced that Bess's father helped Wade flee. To settle the matter once and for all, Bess sets out to find Wade and let the courts decide. But when she stumbles on the horrific truth, something that even the famous writer Rudyard Kipling had kept secret all his life, she is shaken to her very core. The facts will damn Wade even as they reveal a brutal reality, a reality that could have been her own fate.

A photographic survey of 31 railroad stations around the state of Michigan with architectural observations and short histories of each. When the railroad revolutionized passenger travel in the nineteenth century, architects were forced to create from scratch a building to accommodate the train's sudden centrality in social and civic life. The resulting depots, particularly those built in the glory days from 1890 to 1925, epitomize the era's optimism and serve as physical anchors to both the past and the surrounding urban fabric. In Michigan's Historic Railroad Stations writer and photographer Michael H. Hodges presents depots ranging from functioning Amtrak stops (Jackson) to converted office buildings (Battle Creek) and spectacular abandoned wrecks (Saginaw and Detroit) to highlight the beauty of these iconic structures and remind readers of the key role architecture and historic preservation play in establishing an area's sense of place. Along with his striking contemporary photographs of the stations, Hodges includes historic pictures and postcards, as well as images of "look-alike" depots elsewhere in the state. For each building Hodges provides a short history, a discussion of its architectural style, and an assessment of how the depot fits with the rest of its town or city. Hodges also comments on the condition of the depot and its use today. An introduction summarizes the functional and stylistic evolution of the train station in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and surveys the most important academic works on the subject, while an epilogue considers the role of the railroad depot in creating the American historic-preservation movement. The railroad station's decline parallels a decrease in the use of public space generally in American life over the last century. Michigan's Historic Railroad Stations will reacquaint readers with the building type that once served as the nation's principal crossroads, and the range of architectural styles it employed both to tame and exalt rail transportation. Readers interested in Michigan railroad history as well as historic preservation will not want to miss this handsome volume.

Ride the rails with famed railroad historian, Brian Solomon, and learn about the incredible architecture and history of stations across America.

An evocative and stunning photographic tribute to America's railroad stations. For much of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the railroad station or depot was the communal hub of every American town that could boast of train service. There, citizens gathered before they sent loved ones off to college, marriage, or war-and where they greeted them on their return. Most of these buildings were architectural gems, and while many are still in service, certain others now house museums, banks, restaurants, and more. In fact, in cities like Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia, renovated stations are destinations unto themselves even for those not boarding the train. And in other places, whole sections of towns have been remade around these structures, restoring their vitality in novel and interesting ways long after the last train has left the station. In America's Great Railroad Stations, award-winning photographer Roger Straus III, and two lifelong railroad buffs, Ed Breslin and Hugh Van Dusen, join forces to tell the astonishing story of these enduring structures and the important role they still play in the country's landscape. Journeying from the Pennsylvania Railroad to the Union Pacific to Michigan Central and more, readers will be dazzled by the Beaux Arts monuments of New York and the adobe buildings of the Southwest. Filled with both new and archival photographs and drawings, this volume is a glorious salute to the institution that transformed our nation.