Railroad Noir

Culled from the 20 years she spent traveling the American West as a freight brakeman and conductor, Linda Grant Niemann's Railroad Noir delves into the darker side of railroading. The 1990s were a time of crisis for workers caught in the breakup of the Southern Pacific Railroad. Niemann's tales of exhaustion, alcoholism, homelessness, and corporate blundering present a revelatory account of railroading life. Photographer Joel Jensen realizes Niemann's vision of the working West with images of cowboy bars, blue motels, and railroaders working in electrical storms, white-outs, and desert heat waves. The result is an honest, gritty, and striking collaboration.

Born in the Ukraine, photographer Jack Delano moved to the United States in 1923. After graduating from Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in 1937, Delano worked for the Farm Security Administration (FSA) and the Office of War Information (OWI) as a photographer. Best known for his work for the Office of War Information during 1940–1943, Jack Delano captured the face of American railroading in a series of stunning photographs. His images, especially his portraits of railroad workers, are a vibrant and telling portrait of industrial life during one of the most important periods in American history. This remarkable collection features Delano’s photographs of railroad operations and workers taken for the OWI in the winter of 1942/43 and during a cross-country journey on the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railway, plus an extensive selection of his groundbreaking color images. The introduction provides the most complete summary of Delano’s life published to date. Both railroad and photography enthusiasts will treasure this worthy tribute to one of the great photographers of the thirties and forties.

The Indiana Rail Road Company is a story of extraordinary success among the scores of independent short line and regional railroads spawned in the wake of railroad deregulation. Christopher Rund chronicles the development of the company from its origins as part of America's first land grant railroad, the Illinois Central, through the political and financial juggling required by entrepreneur Tom Hoback to purchase the line when it fell into disrepair. Reborn as a robust, profitable carrier, the INRD has become a model for the new American regional railroad. This revised edition, with a new foreword by acclaimed author Fred Frailey and four new chapters, brings readers up to date on Tom Hoback's amazing railroad adventure.

For over one hundred years, Navajos have gone to work in significant numbers on Southwestern railroads. As they took on the arduous work of laying and anchoring tracks, they turned to traditional religion to anchor their lives. Jay Youngdahl, an attorney who has represented Navajo workers in claims with their railroad employers since 1992 and who more recently earned a master's in divinity from Harvard, has used oral history and archival research to write a cultural history of Navajos' work on the railroad and the roles their religious traditions play in their lives of hard labor away from home.

Among the grand antebellum plans to build railroads to interconnect the vast American republic, perhaps none was more ambitious than the Louisville, Cincinnati & Charleston. The route was intended to link the cotton-producing South and the grain and livestock growers of the Old Northwest with traders and markets in the East, creating economic opportunities along its 700-mile length. But then came the Panic of 1837, and the project came to a halt. H. Roger Grant tells the incredible story of this singular example of "railroad fever" and the remarkable visionaries whose hopes for connecting North and South would require more than half a century—and one Civil War—to reach fruition.

The photographer shares over 200 images from his sixty-year career covering railroad tourism across the world, plus the stories behind them. In this lavishly illustrated memoir, William D. Middleton invites readers to climb aboard and share with him sixty years of railroad tourism around the globe. Middleton’s award-winning photography has recorded events such as the final days of American Civil War locomotives in Morocco and the start up of the world’s first high-speed railway in Japan. He has photographed such great civil works as Scotland’s Firth of Forth Bridge and the splendid railway station at Haydarpasa on the Asian side of the Bosporus, while closer to home he has been recognized for his significant contribution to the photographic interpretation of North America’s railroading history. On Railways Far Away presents over 200 of Middleton’s favorite photographs and the personal stories behind the images. It is a book that will delight both armchair travelers and those for whom the railroads still hold romance. Praise for On Railroads Far Away “Few American chroniclers of the international railroad scene have shown the versatility and insight of William D. Middleton. As an author and a photographer (not to mention a professional engineer), he demonstrated an uncanny ability to connect all the dots in railroading, from all corners of the world. In this book he does it with an inimitable personal touch.” —Kevin P. Keefe, publisher, Classic Trains magazine “Middleton will go down as the only producer of popular railroad history . . . who was able to present such a broad coverage of railways during his lifetime. . . . There has never been a person with his wide range of talents (as a researcher, writer, and photographer), his personal discipline to be a steady producer of historical publications, and his unrivaled zeal to record railroad activity in interesting spots around the globe. Many have excelled in one or even two of these categories, but no one has ever come close to his overall record. It will take a generation for the breadth, depth, and significance of his total contribution to be appreciated.” —J. Parker Lamb, author of Railroads of Meridian

Explore the rich history of the legendary railroad that spanned the American Midwest in this beautifully illustrated volume. Beginning operations in the mid-nineteenth century, the Rock Island Line served farms and small-town America for more than 140 years. One of the earliest railroads to build westward from Chicago, it was the first to span the Mississippi, advancing the frontier, bringing settlers into the West, and hauling their crops to market. Rock Island’s celebrated Rocket passenger trains also set a standard for speed and service, with suburban runs as familiar to Windy City commuters as the Loop. For most of its existence, the Rock battled competitors much larger and richer than itself. When it finally succumbed, the result was one of the largest business bankruptcies ever. Today, as its engines and stock travel the busy main lines operated by other carriers, the Rock Island Line lives on in the hearts of those whom it employed and served.

The behind-the-scenes story of the five-year legal battle over a railroad bankruptcy and the formation of Conrail, as told by a lawyer on the case. What happened when the US government stopped investing in railroads and started investing in highways and air travel? By the late 1970s, six major eastern railroads had declared bankruptcy. Although he didn’t like trains, Howard H. Lewis became the primary lawyer for the Reading Railroad during its legendary bankruptcy case. Here, Lewis provides a frank account of the high-intensity litigation and courtroom battles over the US government’s proposal to form Conrail out of the six bankrupt railroads, which meant taking the Reading’s property, leaving the railroad to prove its worth. After five grueling years, the case was ultimately settled for $186 million—three times the original offer from the US government—and Lewis became known as a champion defender of both the railroad industry and its assets. “Should be required reading in every law school, especially for students who aspire to become corporate attorneys . . . valuable insights into the creation of Conrail.” —Rush Loving, Jr., author of The Men Who Loved Trains “For the railfan, you’ll receive an insider view of this historically important period and a better understanding of how and why Conrail came into being and what it meant for rail transportation.” —Model Railroad News