Rival Rails: The Race to Build America's Greatest Transcontinental Railroad
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.33 (575 Votes) |
| Asin | : | B0044X2U9S |
| Format Type | : | |
| Number of Pages | : | 104 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2016-01-19 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
With a meticulous, loving eye, Walter Borneman picks up where most other histories leave off.. More than just a means of transportation, the railroads were a powerful mold, and the presence of a rail line had the power to make - or break - the fledgling towns and cities across the newborn American West. The driving of the golden spike at Promontory Summit, which marked the completion of the country's first transcontinental railroad, was only the beginning of the race for railroad dominance. In the aftermath of this building feat, dozens of railroads, each with aggressive empire builders at their helms, raced one another for the ultimate prize of a southern transcontinental route that was generally free of snow, shorter in distance, and gentler in gradients. While much has been written about the building of the first transcontinental railroad, the bulk of the history of the railroads in the United States has been largely ignored
Another wonderfully readable history book from Walter Borneman. J. L. Floyd I became a fan of Walter Borneman (Alaska, 1812, The French and Indian War, Polk) after reading "1812," and have since then pre-ordered each of his books as they become available through Amazon. "Rival Rails" is another excellent, focused book from this established historian.While touching on a century of railroad expansion and development in the vast southwest territory between Kansas City and the West Coast, this latest book from Borneman focuses on a relatively brief period from the 1860s to the 1880. Readable Railroad History T.F. Cope Until I read Rival Rails, I knew little about transcontinental railroads beyond the famous photograph at Promontory Summit, where the Union Pacific and Central Pacific met in 1869. As Walter Borneman points out, however, that ceremony did not in fact mark completion of the first transcontinental railroad. Gaps remained between Sacramento and Oakland and between Omaha and Council Bluffs. The latter required the Union Pacific to ferry passengers across the Missouri River until completion of a bridge some . Audio CD Review J. Griffiths As an audiobook for listening while you drive I don't recommend it unless you can ignore all the descriptions, statistics, back and forth time and place references, long list of people involved, etc. I found I had to just listen for the various stories that are intermixed with all the data. It probably would make a better book in written form with the maps that reviewers of the hardback book have said it includes. With the map maybe you can figure out all the references to where the gorges and rivers th