New Book Releases

The arrival of the railroad in South Dakota is directly responsible for the population boom and town development the state experienced in the early 1900s. Enticed by the promise of opportunity, many immigrants and East Coast residents hopped on the train and headed west, many settling in South Dakota. Railroads opened the doorway and made the West what it has become. Using over 200 images, authors Mike Wiese and Tom Hayes take the reader on a historic tour of the depots, trains, and wrecks that defined South Dakota railroading in the early part of the 20th century. Drawing on their immense collections of images and postcards, they tell a story of railroad development and local history in South Dakota.

The Boston & Maine Railroad serviced most of New England as a primary mode of transportation during the 19th and 20th centuries.

The birth of this railroad spurred the growth and development of industry in New England. This heritage is captured in Boston & Maine Trains and Services, the fourth volume in Arcadia's Images of Rail series to focus on the history of this railroad. The trains and services included in this book are the Pullman passenger cars, work trains with flatcars, boxcars, circus trains, plows, stock, cabooses, as well as the Boston & Maine bus service, trucks, and air service.

The Wiregrass Region of southeast Alabama, southwest Georgia, and north Florida--named for the perennial grass that covered the long-leaf pine forest floor--is a product of the railroads that arose with the New South. All kinds of railroads served all kinds of purposes in the Wiregrass. Shortlines and even temporary tracks moved timber and pine resin from forest to mill a century ago--they move raw materials and manufactured goods between ports and factories today. Longer lines created business links between Wiregrass towns and the cities of Alabama, Georgia, Florida, and the world. Some of these roads lasted only a few years; others merged into complex systems connecting the Wiregrass Region with the rest of the world in a way early settlers could not even imagine.

As general manager for Erwin, Tennessee-based Clinchfield Railroad, Thomas D. Moore found an eighty-six-year-old vintage 4-6-0 ten-wheeler steam engine--the Clinchfield No. 1. Miraculously, the engine had escaped the cutter's torch when, in the mid-1950s, the railroad retired its steam fleet, shuttered passenger service and embraced the diesel era. Moore wanted the No. 1 fully restored and its long life on the rails--which had included being the first train to reach the victims of the 1889 Johnstown, Pennsylvania flood--celebrated as a goodwill ambassador for the railroad. The revived Clinchfield No. 1 led beloved excursion trains that visited seven state capitals, bringing joy to passengers from the Appalachian Mountains to Tampa, Florida. Join authors Mark A. Stevens and A.J. Alf Peoples on the journey of the real-life little engine that could.

Explore the facts and mysteries surrounding the history and collapse of Richmond, Virginia's Church Hill Tunnel. A must for fans of railroad and Richmond history.

Richmond, the capital of the Confederacy, was in shambles after the Civil War. The bulk of Reconstructionbecame dependent on the railways, and one of the most important links in the system was the Church Hill Tunnel.

The tunnel was eventually rendered obsolete by an alternative path over a viaduct, and it was closed for regular operation in 1902. However, the city still used it infrequently to transport supplies, and it was maintained with regular safety inspections. The city decided to reopen the tunnel in 1925 due to overcrowding on the viaduct, but the tunnel needed to be strengthened and enlarged. On October 2, 1925, 190 ft. of the tunnel unexpectedly caved in, trapping construction workers and an entire locomotive inside.

In recent years, there has been a renewed interest in the tunnel and the mystery surrounding its collapse. There were cave-ins and sink holes above the surface for decades after the tunnel was sealed up, and in 1998, a reporter from the Richmond Times-Dispatchdid an investigation, trying to determine the current condition of the tunnel. In 2006, the Virginia Historical Societyannounced its efforts to try and excavate the locomotive and remaining bodies.

The Long Island Rail Road (LIRR), the oldest railroad in the country still operating under its original name, was chartered in 1834 for the purpose of running trains from the Brooklyn waterfront to the eastern terminal at Greenport. The east end of the LIRR main line consists of a 70-mile stretch of track from Hicksville to Greenport. At one time, there were 29 passenger stations along this east end route, 14 of which are active today. A decommissioned signal tower and obsolete turntable are located on this route. Two stations, Riverhead and Greenport, are locations of the Railroad Museum of Long Island. The 23 miles of track between Hicksville and Ronkonkoma is electrified by third rail current, the electrification having been completed in 1987. Single-track territory since 1844, the line is currently being double-tracked as far east as Ronkonkoma.

Streetcar lines grew and prospered in Dallas from 1872 until the 1920s. Automobile competition siphoned many of their riders away, but ridership soared again during World War II. After the war, the trolleys entered an era of gradual attrition, and they were abandoned by 1956. Amazingly, in 1989, the nonprofit McKinney Avenue Transit Authority (MATA) returned restored vintage trolley cars to the city in the Uptown neighborhood near downtown. MATA evolved from a tourist attraction into a true transit company and became the M-Line. Since then, the area has experienced rapid growth and is now home to midrise office buildings and upscale apartments.

While Cincinnati intended their new subway, started in 1920, to be a shining jewel for public transportation, the story of its origin and ultimate failure show the history of the Queen City.

Cincinnati emerged from a tumultuous 19th century as a growing metropolis committed to city planning. The most ambitious plan of the early twentieth century, the Cincinnati Subway, was doomed to failure. Construction began in 1920 and ended in 1927 when the money had run out. Today, two miles of empty subway tunnels still lie beneath Cincinnati, waiting to be used. The Cincinnati Subway tells the whole story, from the turbulent times in the 1880s to the ultimate failure of ""Cincinnati's White Elephant."" Along the way, the reader will learn about what was happening in Cincinnati during the growth of the subway-from the Courthouse Riots in 1884 to life in the Queen City during World War II.

No area of Portland, Oregon, played a more important role in street railway history than Northwest Portland and the neighborhood known as Slabtown. In 1872, the city's first streetcars passed close to Slabtown as they headed for a terminus in the North End. Slabtown was also home to the first streetcar manufacturing factory on the West Coast. In fact, until locally built streetcars began to be replaced by trolleys from large national builders in the 1910s, more than half of all rolling stock was manufactured in shops located at opposite ends of Northwest Twenty-third Avenue. All streetcars operating on the west side of the Willamette River, including those used on the seven lines that served Northwest Portland, were stored in Slabtown. When the end finally came in 1950, Slabtown residents were riding two of the last three city lines.

In 1880, the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad was hard-pressed to find a suitable rail route from Grand Junction to Salt Lake City. With the coal deposits of eastern Utah luring them on, railroad officials chose a difficult route over Soldier Summit. The railroad established the town where "helper" engines were attached to the heavy trains, and Helper grew into a division point with branch operations that reached into the nearby canyons to serve the blossoming coal industry. Numerous smaller towns sprang up to service the railroad, and in 1912, the newly incorporated Utah Railway laid tracks to share the right-of-way with the Denver and Rio Grande. The
town of Helper is still a mecca for rail fans, and the story of its past lives on.

The Delaware & Hudson Canal and the Gravity Railroad tells the story of an American industrial masterpiece.

From the anthracite mines of Pennsylvania at Carbondale to the Hudson River in New York near Kingston, the Delaware & Hudson Canal Company and the Gravity Railroad transformed long tracks of wilderness into thriving economic areas. Conceived as an inexpensive way to transport anthracite coal, the canal began hauling loads in 1828 to the Hudson River, where barges to New York City took over. A leader in the technologies of the time, the canal company used the first telegraph system in America, and when Delaware & Hudson engineer Horatio Allen ran the locomotive Stourbridge Lion in Honesdale, he became the first to run a commercial steam locomotive on tracks in the Western Hemisphere. The Delaware & Hudson Canal was privately funded, and when stock was offered for sale in 1825, it soon became the first American company capitalized at $1 million. The Delaware & Hudson Canal and the Gravity Railroad uses fascinating vintage photographs to tell an amazing piece of American history. It shows the mules, the canal boats, the locomotives, and the men who ran this technological wonder, boasting one hundred eight locks over one hundred eight miles, plus four suspension aqueducts built by John A. Roebling of Brooklyn Bridge fame. The Gravity Railroad is shown as well, hauling coal from Carbondale to Honesdale over the Moosic Mountains, a rise of more than one thousand feet.

From 1901 to 1969, Angels Flight was America's most famous incline railway, familiar from its many appearances on postcards and in pulp fiction and film noir. It inspired the titles of five novels, including a 1999 best seller, and three films. Angels Flight's two colorful trolleys glided up and down the side of Bunker Hill in the heart of Los Angeles, carrying 100 million passengers between a downtown business district and a Victorian aerie that gradually deteriorated into a gritty slum. When the city turned Bunker Hill into an acropolis of skyscrapers, Angels Flight was packed up like a boy's electric train set and stored away for nearly 30 years. After a restoration in the mid-1990s that led to a fatal accident, Angels Flight has reopened and is now ready to claim its next chapters in Los Angeles history.

Between 1849 and 1859, Virginia raced to pierce the Blue Ridge Mountains by rail and reach the Ohio River. At least 300 enslaved people labored involuntarily toward that goal, along with 1,500 Irish immigrants. The state leased the labor of enslaved Virginians from local slaveholders, including four connected with nearby University of Virginia. Blue Ridge Tunnel and Blue Ridge Railroad historian Mary E. Lyons explored hundreds of primary documents to write the first nonfiction book about slave labor on a specific antebellum railroad. She shares hundreds of enslaved people's names, traces where they toiled along the line and describes their backbreaking--and sometimes fatal--tasks.

Many residents of Union and Essex Counties in New Jersey fondly recall the whistles of the Rahway Valley Railroad trains that rolled through the picturesque stations of Roselle Park, Kenilworth, Union, Springfield, and Summit. The Rahway's steam and diesel locomotives supported local commerce, provided passenger service, and carried a vast array of goods to and from local businesses. It connected the area with larger railroads, such as the Central Railroad of New Jersey, the Lehigh Valley, and the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western. One of the shortest yet most prosperous of American railroads, the Rahway Valley helped transform a rural region into one of New Jersey's most vital and populous areas. The Rahway Valley Railroad presents the story of this colorful short line with rare, vintage photographs of locomotives, passengers, stations, and train crews. It recounts how the Rahway Valley evolved from the New York and New Orange Railroad, linking Union County towns with Newark Heights (Maplewood), in adjoining Essex County. Images in this book include passengers riding Rahway Valley trains to picnics, church outings, and Springfield's world-famous Baltusrol Golf Club. Readers will learn how this feisty little line competed successfully for many years against the trucking industry and the interstate highway system during a time when many small railroads were dying out. The Rahway Valley Railroad tells the distinctively American story of a proud short line that competed with forces larger than itself and faithfully served the local merchants and residents who now remember it so fondly.

In 1984, the former Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad yard became the home to a millionaire's train collection. Nine years and many improvements later, the Steamtown National Historic Site opened its door to welcome over 100,000 visitors annually. Steamtown occupies an estimated 65 acres of the old Scranton railroad yard with several of its original structures remaining on the site. It also includes a visitor's center, two museums, a restored roundhouse, and a plethora of exhibits and locomotives much to the delight of railfans of all ages. The Steamtown National Historic Site is an integral part of the preservation of railroad history, as it is representative of a steam-era gone by.

The surpsing story of the Cog Railway on Mount Washington, and how one eccentric man's dream paved the way.

On July 3, 1869, the three-and-one-third-mile track leading to the summit of picturesque Mount Washington opened for public use. Once, only those daring enough to scale the 6,288 feet could enjoy the splendor of the scenery, but now everyone could journey to the summit using the invention of retired businessman Sylvester Marsh, who dreamed of this mountainous mode of transportation. Created at the height of the age of rail, the Cog Railway continues to chug up the mountain and into the hearts of tourists each year. Local historian Bruce D. Heald ties the history of its construction together with the grand romance of the railway as they triumphantly converge at the top of Mount Washington.

Johnson City's growth was transformed through development of transportation in East Tennessee. Trails first blazed by migrating buffalo and Native Americans evolved into trails for stagecoaches, tracks for rail lines, and paved roads for automobiles. Henry Johnson realized the potential for the area and took a risk in 1854 when he bought a parcel from Abraham Jobe at the junction of the proposed East Tennessee & Virginia Railroad and the stage road to build a home, store, and depot. The community that arose around this complex was known by many names in its early days, including Blue Plum, Haynesville, and Johnson's Depot. However, on December 1, 1869, Johnson City received its first charter of incorporation from the State of Tennessee. As Johnson City approaches the 2019 sesquicentennial of the city's incorporation, this collection of postcards provides a look back at the people, places, and scenery around Johnson City.