North American Railroad Family Trees

The history of railroading in North America is as much a story of boardroom intrigue as it is a story of the brute force that stamped thousands of miles of train track across a rugged continent. Today’s nine U.S. and Canadian Class I railroads are the result of well over a century of convoluted bankruptcies, mergers, acquisitions, and expansions. North American Railroad Family Trees marks the first time in book form that this major aspect of railroad history has been presented in a clear, graphic format, helping the railfan make sense of the many smaller train lines that shaped North American rail as it is today. In these pages, renowned rail author Brian Solomon takes a visual and chronological approach, presenting 50 “family trees” in the style of human lineages. The story begins with the railroads of the “Golden Age” (1890–1930), continuing through the second wave of consolidations between the World Wars, the merger mania of the 1950s through the 1970s, the creation of major passenger networks, and the megamergers of the last three decades that have left railroading close to its current incarnation. Solomon even offers a selection of maps tracing the evolution of the North American rail system and diagrams proposing what-if scenarios for the industry’s future. Including chapter-by-chapter narrative overviews of key eras, along with a selection of rare photography and period advertising to lend historical context, North American Railroad Family Trees provides an unprecedented retrospective of the continent’s iconic rail network.

Updated maps, new appendices, a greatly expanded bibliography, detailed discussions of the recent proposed mergers of the Canadian Pacific and the Burlington, of the diesel locomotive, and of railroad electrification make Trains Across the Continent the complete and concise introduction to North American railroads.

The important railroad mergers in the past few years have readers looking for a comprehensive reference. This concise guide covers histories of all North American railroads abandoned or merged since 1930. No other book covers the topic as thoroughly! Great for railfans as well as railroad modelers.

"From Rails to Trails is the fascinating tale of the political rebirth of bicycle advocacy and of what happened to the railroad companies' thousands of abandoned corridors"--

Classic Railroad Signals digs into nearly every piece of train signaling hardware with archival and modern photos showing signals from around America.

This issue contains the following articles and [surnames]: From Central France to Central Illinois: Locating Our "Missing" Families [Risser, Roth, Zimmerman, Bertrand]; From Zimmermann to Zimmerman: Eight Generations of an American Immigrant Family [Zimmerman]; Piecing Together Lives and Family [Kropf, Sommer, Ruch]; Reconnecting the Branches of an Ohio Konig/King Family, 1836-1902 [Konig, King, Eyer, Beck]; The Eyer Family [Eyer]; The Ehresmanns of Dorrmoschel, Part V: A First-Hand Report of Hostilities on the Continent after the Revolutions of 1848 [Ehresmann]; Christian Zug: Industrialist in Pittsburgh [Zug]; Bernhard Kroeker's Texas Years, 1897-1907 [Kroeker]; Five Egli Siblings at Dorrmoschel, Germany, 1797-1824 [Egli, Ehresmann].

Overregulated and displaced by barges, trucks, and jet aviation, railroads fell into decline. Their misfortune was measured in lost market share, abandoned track, bankruptcies, and unemployment. Today, rail transportation is reviving. American Railroads tells a riveting story about how this iconic industry managed to turn itself around.

"An examination of the introduction of streamliners to American railroading, including the technology and styling trends"--