"The first and only complete study of the Southwest's most successful railway is back in print! This book documents a proud history with diagrams, maps, and over 300 photographs. Includes a roster of every steam and diesel locomotive owned by the Cotton Belt and its predecessors up to 1977. A must-have for any locomotive enthusiast." ~ Amazon.com
Crystal River Pictorial
"A detailed photographic record of the shortline railways that once operated in the scenic Crystal River district of Colorado. These railways ran narrow-gauge, standard-gauge steam, an electric tramway line, and a little switchbacking line--Shay operated. Subject matter includes photos of coking operations, coal mining, and the finest marble quarry in the U.S., along with detailed maps."
Dardanelle & Russellville Railroad
"The D&R railroad is the shortest of the shortlines at 5.1 miles in length and has been in constant operation since 1893. This book tells the story through financial reports, company memos, maintenance records, and traffic data. There are many pictures that show rural America railroading at it's best and through the heyday of railroading in the USA. . . Includes tables of locomotives, and freight traffic along the line." ~ Robert E Darr
Delaware and Hudson: The History of an Important Railroad Whose Antecedent Was a Canal Network to Transport Coal - Delaware & Hudson
" ..describes the company that ran the first steam locomotive in this country, and operated the first integrated transportation system in 1828, when it combined the use of a railroad and canal in an audacious scheme to transport Pennsylvania coal to New York City. . . The book is filled with photographs, maps and engravings, with images on virtually every page." ~ Paul Luisada
Denver South Park & Pacific M. C. Poor dsp & p dsp&p railroad railway
"If one railroad were to be chosen as a single outstanding representative of Colorado's mountain railroads, no other choice than the great old Denver South Park & Pacific would be possible. ... how they conquered the defiles of famous Platte River Canon and advanced over Kenosha Pass at an altitude of nearly ten thousand feet; of how they pushed the steel trail across South Park, through Box Canon, crossed the great Arkansas River Valley, climbed Chalk Creek Canon, conquered forbidding Alpine Pass at 11,612 feet above sea level, and crept down the west slope to bring Gunnison traffic back to Denver town. From the division point of Como, the mighty ramparts of the Continental Divide were crossed twice at elevations of more than eleven thousand feet to find a way through the Canons of the Blue and the Tenmile so the railroad could claim its share of the tremendous traffic that was to flow out of the great silver camp of Leadville.
Donner Pass: Southern Pacific's Sierra Crossing
"This volume presents all you ever wanted to know about Southern Pacific's rail passage over California's Donner Pass. At the summit, over 90 feet of snow falls annually. Everything about the Sierra crossing was monumental: the grade, the locomotives required to lift the trains over the Sierra, the helper locomotives, the tonnage handled, and those unique snowsheds that protected the tracks from the record snowfall and rock slides." ~ Golden West Books
Durbin Route
This book chronicles the Greenbrier Division of the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway in West Virginia. "It included passanger service that ranged from parlor cars to "doodlebugs"; timed freight trains that operated between Chicago and the Eastern Seaboard; motive power from 4-4-0s to 2-6-6-2s; timetables that showed as many as 11 scheduled trains per day; and the usual assortment of wrecks and other operating problems over the years."
Denver, Northwestern and Pacific - The Moffat Road DN&P DNP
"David Moffat always had a dream of building a railroad directly west from Denver to reach Salt Lake City, and his Denver, Northwestern and Pacific was his attempt to fulfill that dream. To accomplish this goal, his railroad would have to tunnel under the Continental Divide. Moffat poured most of his fortune into the railroad, but it never reached its destination, nor did he see its tunnel under the Divide."
"On the morning of May 10, 1869, a gang of Irish immigrants met a party of Chinese laborers on a windy bluff northwest of Salt Lake City, Utah. Tired to the bone, the two groups laid down the last of countless wooden ties, bought at the exorbitant cost of six dollars apiece, and thus joined two great rail lines, the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific, to form a single transcontinental route. That rail line made possible the mass settlement of the West, and, as those who conceived it well knew, it changed the course of American history." ~ Empire Express - Building The First Transcontinental Railroad