List of Books on United States Railroad History, with comments by David S. Lawyer, June, 2004 This list is only for books on the overall history of railroads in the United States. American Railroads by John F. Stover. University of Chicago Press, 1961. Almost the best book on the subject but outdated. The Transportation Revolution 1815-1860 by George Rogers Taylor. Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1951. See ch. 5 "Railroads" but other chapters touch on railroads as well. Likely the best book on the topic except it ends with 1860. The Story of America's Railroads by Ray Spangenburg. Facts on File, 1991: A short poor book with no depth. No tables. Passenger train oriented. The Story of American Railroads by Stewart Holbrook, 1947. A book seemingly well told and exciting but lacks most of the real history including statistical tables, etc. I had it but discarded it. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- All Aboard: The Railroad in American Life by George H. Douglass, 1992. Critique of Last Chapter "The Lingering Presence" p. 376-7: Comparing the railroad and auto exhibits at the 1939-1940 NY Worlds Fair he claims that the difference between these exhibits "was that the railroads seemed to have a firm grip on the immediate future which these others seemed yet exploratory, tentative, idealistic." False. By the end of the 1920s there was several times as much auto travel as rail travel. It looked like railroads were losers. p.378: For the 1930s he mentions new diesel passenger trains but fails to mention continued loss of modal share by rail. p.380: After World War I, "labor ... exacted painful and potentially lethal tributes". No details given but the history of this is very significant and more elaboration is needed. "Railroads could not handle the complexity of their own rate-making practices" but fails to mention cutthroat competition, etc. p.381: Contrary to what the author wrote, most Americans in the 1920's were aware that the auto, trucks, and buses "posed a serious potential threat to the railroad". And the threat was not just "potential", it was actual for passenger travel. For 1929 he writes "roads available for intercity travel were poor". But actually by 1929 the US was linked from coast-to-coast and border-to-border with a network of paved highways, not nearly as wide and straight as the ones today but much less crowded. p.382: Regarding the World War II era: "It was a time when everybody who had to go anywhere once again rode the rails." Hyperbole. Per "Transportation in America", 18th edition (with historical compendium 1939-1999): Intercity rail passenger travel (in passenger-miles) reached a peak in 1944 of 31.6% modal share with autos at 58.6% p.388: Implies that the Interstate highways caused the railroad's demise. But by 1940, before the Interstates, rail only had 7.5% of the intercity passenger market. When the legislation for the Interstate highway system was passed in 1956, rail's share of intercity travel had slipped to 3.8% while the auto had soared to 89.8%. So rail had lost most of their market share before construction of the interstates had even started. p.392: Fails to mention the high subsidies given to Amtrak p.399 the "railroad gave birth to both our good and bad traits" -------------------------------------------------------------------------- PASSENGER RAIL HISTORY I. The Passenger Train in the Motor Age, by Gregory Lee Thompson. Ohio State Univ. Press, 1993. History of rail passenger trains in California 1910-1941. Argues that Pass. traffic decline was faster than it should have been due to rail management's failure to reduce costs and upgrade routes. Fails to detail just how they should have reduced costs and mostly ignores excessive labor costs (p.61 state that USRA gave in to labor in 1919 but ignores important details like the 100 mile rule, etc.). Alleged General Motor conspiracy per Bradford Snell: Claims RRs conspired with GM and Greyhound to replace trains with GM buses. Conspiracy stated p. 5-6, debunked p. 111-12 (good). Claims that: 1. p. 135-6 (summary) Marginal costs used by managements were too low. So they neglected to cut costs. [But if they had made calc. right, then instead of cutting costs they might just have discontinued trains.] 2. p. 145: Cos. made the mistake of buying trains with high tare weight thus increasing operating costs. Thompson falsely claims that "A train weighing twice what another train weighed per seat cost almost twice as much to move a passenger one mile, if they both had the same load factor." But actually at high speed, the aerodynamic drag is significant and doesn't change. Also, with large and expensive crews, crew cost are independent of train weight. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- II. Off the Track, The Decline of the Intercity Passenger Train in the United States, by Donald M. Itzkoff. Greenwood Press, 1985 p.4: "Rolling a given load on railroad tracks takes one-fourth as much energy as pushing a hull through water and only one-seventh the force as hauling it on rubber tires over a concrete highway" Wrong! It all depends on speed. Better writing style than Greg Thompson. Mentions labor featherbedding a few times: p. 35 bot., p. 38 top., p. 93 middle Critical of both labor and management (good). Covers how railroads neglected passenger trains when they were convinced that there would be only losses. III. Railroad Enginnering by W.W. Hay, Wiley 1982. Price in 2003: $275. It's only at these libraries: UCB, UCD, UCI (not at UCLA). GOVERNMENT OWNERSHIP Railways of Thirty Nations, Gov't vs. Private Ownership, by P. Harvey Middleton, Prentice Hall, 1937. A chapter on each nation. Book sponsored by Rly. Business Assn. and supports private ownership. But contains much useful info. Government Ownership of Railroads (Annual Debater's Help Book, Vol VI) Ed. by E. C. Buehler; Noble and Noble Publishers, New York, 1939. Does a good job of outlining the pros and cons of the United States owning the railroads. The articles written by various authors are not all that great, but are likely represent the best writings available at that time. RAILROAD LIBRARIES: Grainger Engineering Library. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. W.W. Hay Railroad Engineering Collection.