Train: Riding the Rails That Created the Modern World - from the Trans-Siberian to the Southwest Chief - Hardcover

Zoellner, Tom

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0670025283 ISBN 13: 9780670025282

Publisher: Viking Pr, 2014

Synopsis

A revelatory, entertaining account of the world's most indispensable mode of transportation Tom Zoellner loves trains with a ferocious passion. In his new book he chronicles the innovation and sociological impact of the railway technology that changed the world, and could very well change it again. From the frigid trans-Siberian railroad to the antiquated Indian Railways to the futuristic MagLev trains, Zoellner offers a stirring story of man's relationship with trains. Zoellner examines both the mechanics of the rails and their engines and how they helped societies evolve. Not only do trains transport people and goods in an efficient manner, but they also reduce pollution and dependency upon oil. Zoellner also considers America's culture of ambivalence to mass transit, using the perpetually stalled line between Los Angeles and San Francisco as a case study in bureaucracy and public indifference. Train presents both an entertaining history of railway travel around the world while offering a serious and impassioned case for the future of train travel.

About this title

Product Description:

Our modern world is built on one indispensable form of transport: the railway. Its gifts are everywhere, in the shape of our cities,coal-fired power, and the food we eat. In this captivating book, the author rides from the birthplace of the locomotive in Britain, crosses Russia on the Trans-Siberian, crests the Andes on a rattling coal train and jams with blues musicians across the USA as he explores the history, geography, cultural resonance and sheer romance of the railroad.

Review:

Praise for "Train: " "Tom Zoellner's writing is never less than engaging; in Train "he has made himself a veritable Walt Whitman of rail travel. It's a great read." --Richard Rhodes, Pulitzer prize-winning author of "The Making of the Atomic Bomb" "Train "is such a pleasure to read, elegant, deeply informed and smart, full of knowledge-bearing sentences, and prose so companionable and rich in insight that it is as if its author were at your shoulder, taking you along with him. What an enjoyable journey. I will never hear the far off moan of a train in the night without thinking of it, and I know of no higher praise one can give a book. Tom Zoellner is quickly making himself a reputation as a man of wide and eclectic interests, and oh, my! Can he write!" --Richard Bausch, author of "Peace" "Spirited and bighearted...Zoellner enlightens us about an industry that's hiding in plain sight."--"San Francisco Chronicle" "Highly entertaining, lucid and perceptive....It's a train lover's celebration of the great epic story of rail travel itself."--"Los Angeles Times" "This is one of those all-too-rare books that have so much to them"--"The Washington Times" "["Train"] is a gracefully written, densely detailed meditation of trains--past, present and future....[P]art travelogue, as he rides seven train that shaped the modern world; part personal memoir, as he describes the people he met along the way; and part history of trains, from their origin to their impact on societies around the world and their vital role in the fast-forward 21st century."--"LA Weekly" "An absorbing and lively reflection on an enduring marvel of modern industrial technology."--"Booklist" ""Train" makes for fascinating reading....The author's easy, breezy style will keep readers chugging along."--"The St. Louis Post-Dispatch" "Zoellner illustrates how the modern era was ushered in and strapped in place by railroads, and how trains--the realit

About this edition

• Publisher: Viking Pr
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 0670025283
• ISBN 13: 9780670025282
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 346