He has a special talent: he can sing overwrought locomotives to sleep. Before long, parents get wind of Niccolini's skill and bring their crying babies, sleepless children, and barking dogs to the rail yard, hoping to soothe them into slumber. But how will Niccolini's gentle song be heard in all this racket? Gorgeously brought to life with dramatic oil paintings, Niccolini's Song is music so sweet, and a story so comforting, even the most restless young listeners will drift off to peaceful dreams.

    Also examined is the period from 1976 to 1991, when Amtrak finally established an image, buying new equipment and refurbished old and grew its ridership despite a severely limited budget. Modern and period color photos illustrate such aspects of Amtrak as its motive power, including the high-speed Acela Express; its diverse array of rolling stock and equipment, famous long-distance trains past and present; short-haul corridors.Against all odds, the passenger train survives in the United States. The formation of Amtrak in 1971 heralded the end of privately operated passenger train service and ushered in an era of intercity train travel financed on a budget that has vacillated between the virtually non-existent and the barely adequate.- The only extant pictorial history of America's only passenger rail network- Amtrak ridership in 2001 topped 24 million, the highest in its history- Passenger rail travel may be a concept whose time has come in this country, considering the woeful state of the airline industry and the efforts of prominent belt way politicians like Tom Harkin to make Amtrak a viable national passenger railwayAbout the AuthorBrian Solomon has authored several books about railroads and motive power, including MBI's recent Modern Locomotives and GE Locomotives. His writing and photography have been featured in the world's most prominent railfan publications, including TRAINS and RailNews. He splits his time between Monson, Massachusetts, and Dublin, Ireland.

    There's post to deliver, rails and sleepers for the new track, a flock of sheep for Hilltop Farm, and lots of passengers for Barnacle Bay!Keep your eyes peeled on the journey - there's lots of added fun! Peek inside the Little Red Train's engine and East Sidings station with fun cut-aways!Can you spot the landmarks, bridges, tunnels and signals along the way?Count all the sheep at Hilltop Farm and . . . use the map to follow the the Little Red Train on his very busy day! You'll never have a dull journey with the Little Red Train!

    Vintage magazine covers from Railroad, The New Yorker, and The Saturday Evening Post and original Lionel Train advertisements dating from the 1950s are only a few of the nostalgia-filled images, many never before published, that illustrate this Yuletide anthology.

    - Perfect for model railroaders of all skills- Written by Jeff Wilson, former associate editor of Model Railroader Magazine

    They have fueled this country's growth, transporting people and goods over its vast spaces. They epitomize the freedom to travel and explore, to go beyond the bounds. Now this breathtaking full-color celebration of trains, with nearly 100 new and historic photographs, brings the beauty and glory of these engines to life. From the Southern Pacific line of California and the Southwest to the Green Mountain Railway of Vermont, from the Louisiana and Delta line of the South to the Wisconsin Central of the Midwest, here are trains from all over America. Evocative pictures of trains climbing mountains, crossing prairies, stopping in small towns, and penetrating deep into the heart of our cities capture nearly two hundred years of railroading history. Even in an age of jet travel, trains carry an aura of glamour and adventure. This is your ticket to be transported by the most amazing trains of our country. You can almost hear the whistle blow.

    In stunning artwork and through a fascinating narrative, you will enter the subterranean realm of workers who dug miles of tunnels by hand. Using pick and shovels to create new routes, you'll discover how these workers burrowed deep below Boston Harbor, under Beacon Hill and the Old State House, and built the Longfellow Bridge to carry the trains over the Charles River to the center of Cambridge. You'll read lively first-hand accounts of the turn-of-the-century public's perception of the underground public transportation, including their fears (expressed fantastically through the gruesome image of a fanged and tentacled "subway microbe"), and learn how the system served as a model for the rest of the country in its ability to relieve traffic, mitigate congestion (which was even more severe a hundred years ago than today) and get people anywhere they wanted to go for only a nickel.

    Many emigrants perished before reaching Oregon Territory. Only recently have railways bridged the wide gap formed millions of years ago. Today the gorge remains the major commercial route through the Cascades, and the tracks are a shining example of human engineering and a mecca for rail enthusiasts. Mount Hood, Union Pacific, and Burlington Northern Santa Fe trains seem to connect in a magical way with the land, blasting out of raw, rock-faced tunnels, gliding under bridges, snaking along the edges of towns and along the big river, always rolling somewhere distant, symbolic of our national connectedness and our restlessness."

    Dozens of black-and-white archival images and period color photographs depict Zephyrs along routes throughout the Midwest, Rocky Mountains, Pacific Coast, and Texas, as well as Burlington uniforms, dinnerware, stations and terminals, and interior views of cars. In the process, the book provides a dramatic visual account of train travel's decline throughout the century. Also featured are period advertisements, and route maps, timetables, and menus.

    

    Based on original material by Caroline Young.

    Its roots stretch back to 1827, when the South Carolina Canal & Rail Road Company was founded in Charleston to provide freight transportation and America's first regularly scheduled passenger service. Through the Civil War, Reconstruction, and the Great Depression, rail lines throughout the South continued to merge, connecting Washington, D.C. to Atlanta and Charleston to Memphis. The Southern Railway was born in 1893 at the height of these mergers. It came to an end in 1982, merging with Norfolk and Western Railway to become Norfolk Southern Railway. The history of the railway lives on, however, and Norfolk Southern continues to "serve the South." In 2003, the Southern Railway Historical Association selected the Southern Museum of Civil War and Locomotive History as the repository for their extensive archives. Included in this collection are hundreds of professional quality, black-and-white photographs taken by company photographers throughout the railway's history. These photographs not only capture the transition from steam to diesel and the pinnacle of rail travel, but also the development of the South through much of the 20th century. While a few of these images have been seen by the public, the vast majority have not.

    From the perspective of both urban history and the history of transportation, this book is an important primary source.Building the city's first subway in the early years of the twentieth century required delicate collaboration between public and private interests and called for the expenditure of considerable sums of both public and private money. The book introduces us to Abram S. Hewitt, a late nineteenth-century mayor of New York City. It was Hewitt who realized that, while private capital alone had been perfectly adequate for building elevated rapid transit lines in New York as early as the 1870s, the more costly construction of underground rapid transit lines was far beyond the ability of private corporations to finance. Hewitt set in motion a chain of events that sanctioned the use of public funds for subway construction, with the completed facility then to be leased to a private company for day-to-day operation.The private firm that emerged, both to build and to operate the first subway in New York, was called the Interborough Rapid Transit Company, a name that would later be rendered more crisply as the IRT. The City of New York and the Interborough Rapid transit Company inaugurated service over the city's first subway line on Thursday afternoon, October 27, 1904. Mayor George B. McClellan, son of the Civil War general, took the controls of the first ceremonial train at City Hall Station in downtown Manhattan and headed north. In one way or another, the subway has been going ever since.The book also presents important tabular and statistical information, as well as clear and concise narrative descriptions of technical details.

    Highlights include an overview of product development, 20 track plans for the floor and tabletop, advice on building scenery and structures, wiring and track how-to, help in choosing locomotives and freight or passenger operations, maintenance and restoration tips and techniques, and instructions for all kinds of prototypes. - Hobby Merchandiser, September 2004Author and hobby veteran Robert Schleicher presents an illustrated treasury of practical advice for the Lionel enthusiast. Included in this volume are: an overview of product development, track plans for the floor and tabletop, advice on building scenery and structures, wiring and track how-to, help in choosing steam or diesel locomotives and freight or passenger operations, maintenance and restoration tips techniques, and instructions for operations that best emulate prototype railroads.Officially Licensed by Lionel- Only comprehensive, hands-on Lionel book to take technological developments of the last decade into consideration.- Schleicher's previous Lionel Train Book was published by Lionel in 1986 and has sold an estimated 20,000 copies LTD.- All techniques and topics discussed are fully illustrated.- 2004 will mark the 25th anniversary of General Mills' resuscitation of the Lionel name.About the AuthorBob Schleicher of Niwot, Colorado, is a veteran hobby industry writer and publisher, and the author of several MBI titles, most recently 101 Projects for Your Model Railroad and Slot Car Bible.

    This nostalgic look back at what was essentially a rolling hotel company contracted by the nation's railroads to provide guest accommodations, covers every aspect of Pullman operations, from the emerging popularity of steam-powered rail travel in the early twentieth century to its diesel-powered zenith and its eventual nadir in the 1950s and 1960s. Pullman's entire complex network of employees and services is featured, from the ticket offices that manually handled millions of reservations each year to the six car shops spread across the nation to perform heavy maintenance and repairs, and all of Pullman's porters, mechanics, cleaners, electricians, cooks, barbers, shoeshiners, and more. Illustrated with both black-and-white and color period views depicting Pullman interiors and facilities, as well as memorabilia and sales literature.