Kategoria BISAC: Transportation >> Railroads - History

ArtIculos de prensa y fotografIas; de Glenn Burgess; editados por Don Burgess: El ferrocarril Chihuahua al PacIfico de MExico es una de las obras de ingenierIa que mAs retos ha presentado en la construcciOn de caminos y ferrocarriles: Concebido desde mediados del Siglo 19, no fue posible terminarlo e inaugurarlo sino hasta 1961. Glenn Burgess, fotoperiodista, realizO reportajes a lo largo de la construcciOn final, para periOdicos de Texas, explorando la zona desde Ojinaga hasta Topolobampo, conociendo los retos de ingenierIa y construcciOn, y las posibilidades que abrIa...

World War II marked the zenith of railway gun development. Although many of the railway guns initially deployed at the start of the conflict were of World War I vintage, Germany's ambitious development program saw the introduction of a number of new classes, including the world's largest, the 80cm-caliber Schwerer Gustav and Schwerer Dora guns, which weighed in at 1,350 tons and fired a huge 7-ton shell.

This book provides an overview of the types of railway guns in service during World War II, with a special focus on the German railway artillery used in France, Italy, and on the...

As rush hour came to a close on the evening of May 25, 1950, one of Chicago s new fast, colorful, streamlined streetcars known as a Green Hornet slammed into a gas truck at State Street and 62nd Place. The Hornet s motorman allegedly failed to heed the warnings of a flagger attempting to route it around a flooded underpass, and the trolley, packed with commuters on their way home, barreled into eight thousand gallons of gasoline. The gas erupted into flames, poured onto State Street, and quickly engulfed the Hornet, shooting flames two hundred and fifty feet into the air. More than half of...

Desperate for laborers to keep the trains moving during World War II, the U.S. and Mexican governments created a now mostly forgotten bracero railroad program that sent a hundred thousand Mexican workers across the border to build and maintain railroad lines throughout the United States, particularly the West. Although both governments promised the workers adequate living arrangements and fair working conditions, most bracero railroaders lived in squalor, worked dangerous jobs, and were subject to harsh racial discrimination.

Making matters worse, the governments held a percentage...

George Henry Atkinson (1819-89) was a son of New England who arrived in the Oregon Territory in 1848, sent by the American Home Missionary Society. Although his commission from the Society specified that his work was to be ecclesiastical and educational, he took an approach to that assignment which went well beyond his mandate. Well-informed and energetic, he made an impact on the Congregational churches of the Northwest, while using that base of action to spread his influence far beyond the churches that were his primary area of responsibility.

He believed that a successful future...

Significant Images of Railroading presents an overview of the Center for Railroad Photography & Art's collections. Of the nearly 200,000 images in those collections, 93 are presented here in vibrant color and rich, quadtone black-and-white. Those images come from 10 principal collections, including the work of Wallace W. Abbey, whose circa 1950 photograph from Chicago Union Station is featured on the cover. A preservation award from Trains magazine helped fund processing of the Abbey Collection. Other major holdings include the works of Fred M. Springer, John F. Bjorklund, and Ted Rose. In...

World War I was the Golden Age of the railway gun. More railway artillery pieces were used during this war than in any other conflict, even though at the start of the war none of the armies had railway guns and the very idea of railway artillery was comparatively new. The impetus to build and field railway-mounted guns came from the stalemate of trench warfare. The first railway guns--fielded by the French army in early 1915--were simple, improvised designs made by mounting surplus coastal defense, fortress, and naval guns onto existing commercial railway carriages. These first guns were...

From the late 1940s onward, Wallace W. Abbey masterfully combined journalistic and artistic vision to transform everyday transportation moments into magical photographs. Abbey, a photographer, journalist, historian, and railroad industry executive, helped people from many different backgrounds understand and appreciate what was taken for granted: a world of locomotives, passenger trains, big-city terminals, small-town depots, and railroaders. During his lifetime he witnessed and photographed sweeping changes in the railroading industry from the steam era to the era of diesel locomotives...