Landmarks on the Iron Road: Two Centuries of North American Railroad Engineering (Railroads Past and Present) [Hardcover]

William D. Middleton (Author), William D. Middleton (Author)

Book Description

Series: Railroads Past and Present | Publication Date: September 1999

Although railroad engineering began in England, railroad builders on this side of the Atlantic developed uniquely American ways suitable to the tasks of building a railroad system across the North American Continent. American civil engineers were unsurpassed in their ability to build railroads over great distances and across high mountain passes, to erect great bridges, or to bore tunnels of prodigious length. There is a remarkable story of the application of engineering to the building of a transportation system that civilised and settled America, and then supported an industrial revolution and created a world power. This is also the story of the development of the new profession of civil engineering in the 19th century. Our engineers were schooled at West Point, the technical schools in Europe, or technical institutes in America, while some were self taught: these early civil engineers soon acquired the skills needed for the construction of railroads that could be rapidly and economically built. Their innovation and daring developed the methods and machines to transform tunnelling from hand drilling to black powder blasting art to a modern technology of shields and tunnel-boring machines. The needs of the railroads changed bridge design from trial and error art to science, fathered modern structural engineering practices, and advanced the development of structural materials. This book, for the first time, calls adequate attention to the physical plant over which railroads operate - the roadbed, track, bridges, and tunnels, subjects that are often taken for granted. It is a book no rail fan or student of engineering can be without.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

England and France may have been the birthplaces of the railroad, but America was its nursery and playground. The need to link the already far-flung territory of the United States in the early 19th century spurred significant advances in civil engineering, transportation historian William Middleton writes, especially in the design and construction of railroad bridges.

These spans needed to cross great rivers and deep canyons as well as bear weights unknown to earlier bridges. Bridges until that time were built much as they had been in Roman antiquity; to develop safe load-bearing bridges required much trial and error. It also required vision and experience, and Middleton's text is populated by a cast of brilliant, practical-minded men who figure little in standard histories of westward expansion but who were as important as any explorer or military leader in uniting the country. One such man was Wendel Bollman, a carpenter who developed a patented "suspension and trussed bridge" that was widely used along the Potomac, Ohio, and Mississippi rivers; another was J. E. Schwitzer, who adapted Swiss designs to the daunting conditions of the Rocky Mountains; still another was Theodore Dehone Judah, who built the first railroad along the tortuous California coast.

Middleton celebrates these and other bridge builders and their remarkable creations, many of which are still in use today. His text, illustrated with historic photographs and drawings, will be of much interest to railroad buffs. --Gregory McNamee

Review

William D. Middleton is the author of more than 20 books and many hundreds of articles on rail transportation, engineering, and travel topics. He is editor (with George M. Smerk and Roberta L. Diehl) of Encyclopedia of North American Railroads (IUP, 2007) and co-author of Frank Julian Sprague: Electrical Inventor and Engineer (IUP, 2009).

"It's [Middleton's] ability to clearly explain the intricacies of civil engineering to a general-interest audience that really makes Landmarks on the Iron Road soar.... a must-read for anyone touched by the greatness of railroading." -- Trains

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 216 pages
• Publisher: Indiana University Press (September 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0253335590
• ISBN-13: 978-0253335593
• Product Dimensions: 11.1 x 8.5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,345,569 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An outstanding work on railway civil engineering, October 13, 1999

By 

Joseph Swanson "[e-mail]" (Milwaukee, WI) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Landmarks on the Iron Road: Two Centuries of North American Railroad Engineering (Railroads Past and Present) (Hardcover)

This is a descriptive history of the major civil engineering projects in the development of North American railroads. Bill Middleton is unusually suited to the task at his hand. He is by academic training a civil engineer (R.P.I.), and a journalist (U. Wisc.). With a career that spans both military and academic times, he brings a special appreciation for this subject.

Landmarks of the Iron Road is something to be appreciated by civil engineers, railway historians, and those with an concern for the history of North American economic development. It is a careful collection of photographs and essays, supplemented with "how to find" these special locations. Middleton's book constitutes a "landmark" in the literary sense.

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars wow!, January 13, 2000

By 

Gary E. Hoover "serial entrepreneur" (Austin, Texas) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Landmarks on the Iron Road: Two Centuries of North American Railroad Engineering (Railroads Past and Present) (Hardcover)

If you have any sense of wonder in you at all, this book should capture it. It is amazing the lengths people will go to to accomplish their goals. The great engineering feats of American history are ample evidence, and many of those feats were accomplished by private capital via the railroads. The illustrations in this book are excellent and really show how much work and ingenuity went into these projects. This book makes a nice complement to the Routledge Historical Atlas of American Railroads, which is also new.