Rival Rails: The Race to Build America's Greatest Transcontinental Railroad [Hardcover]

Walter R. Borneman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 28, 2010

From acclaimed historian Walter R. Borneman comes a dazzling account of the battle to build America’s transcontinental rail lines. Rival Rails is an action-packed epic of how an empire was born—and the remarkable men who made it happen.
 
After the completion of the first transcontinental railroad in 1869, the rest of the country was up for grabs, and the race was on. The prize: a better, shorter, less snowy route through the corridors of the American Southwest, linking Los Angeles to Chicago. In Rival Rails, Borneman lays out in compelling detail the sectional rivalries, contested routes, political posturing, and ambitious business dealings that unfolded as an increasing number of lines pushed their way across the country.

Borneman brings to life the legendary business geniuses and so-called robber barons who made millions and fought the elements—and one another—to move America, including William Jackson Palmer, whose leadership of the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad relied on innovative narrow gauge trains that could climb steeper grades and take tighter curves; Collis P. Huntington of the Central Pacific and Southern Pacific lines, a magnate insatiably obsessed with trains—and who was not above bribing congressmen to satisfy his passion; Edward Payson Ripley, visionary president of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe, whose fiscal conservatism and smarts brought the industry back from the brink; and Jay Gould, ultrasecretive, strong-armer and one-man powerhouse.

In addition, Borneman captures the herculean efforts required to construct these roads—the laborers who did the back-breaking work, boring tunnels through mountains and throwing bridges across unruly rivers, the brakemen who ran atop moving cars, the tracklayers crushed and killed by runaway trains. From backroom deals in Washington, D.C., to armed robberies of trains in the wild deserts, from glorified cattle cars to streamliners and Super Chiefs, all the great incidents and innovations of a mighty American era are re-created with unprecedented power in Rival Rails.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Railroads might seem outmoded today, but they were originally dynamic, cutthroat enterprises, according to this byzantine business history of track laying in the American West. Independent historian Borneman (Polk) chronicles the post–Civil War scramble to build a web of transcontinental railroads, lavish land grants, and government subsidies. Dozens of railroads and their executives are featured, but the melee eventually gels into a showdown between the Southern Pacific, intent on monopolizing the routes into California, and the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe, determined to reach the Pacific by a prized snow-free southerly route. The regionÖs rugged topography forces railroads to compete for a handful of one-track-wide mountain passes and river crossings; rivals throw down miles of track per day to reach strategic junctions and occasionally send armed gangs to seize choke points. BornemanÖs evocations of railroad culture--the construction feats, boom-and-bust railhead towns, train robbers, and luxury cars--add color but are skimpy. He centers the story instead on boardroom maneuverings, and while railroad tycoons are a colorful lot, their deal-making begins to blur. As empire-building bequeaths corporate consolidation, BornemanÖs narrative runs out of steam before reaching the terminal. 16 pages of photos, 30 maps.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Before the Civil War, the most logical route for the planned transcontinental railroad was across the southern plains and the deserts of the southwest. Instead, for reasons more political than economic, the more northerly route was selected, and the two strands were joined at Promontory Point, Utah, in 1868. Almost immediately, the competition began for the rights to build a web of lines across the southern route. Borneman, a historian and attorney, has written an interesting, if uneven, chronicle of the political as well as physical struggles to complete these tasks. He profiles numerous competing companies and their sponsors, and he describes their often cutthroat tactics and greed. Eventually, two large companies, the Southern Pacific and the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe, squeezed out or absorbed other competitors. When he sticks to the actual process of construction, Borneman’s narrative is brisk, colorful, and exciting. It drags and confuses when it deals with the machinations in corporate board rooms. Still, this is a worthy look at a less-publicized aspect of railroad construction. --Jay Freeman

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 432 pages
• Publisher: Random House (September 28, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1400065615
• ISBN-13: 978-1400065615
• Product Dimensions: 6.3 x 1.2 x 9.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #273,827 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Another wonderfully readable history book from Walter Borneman., October 12, 2010

By 

J. L. Floyd "johnfloyd" (CEDAR RAPIDS, IOWA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Rival Rails: The Race to Build America's Greatest Transcontinental Railroad (Hardcover)

I became a fan of Walter Borneman (Alaska, 1812, The French and Indian War, Polk) after reading "1812," and have since then pre-ordered each of his books as they become available through Amazon. "Rival Rails" is another excellent, focused book from this established historian.

While touching on a century of railroad expansion and development in the vast southwest territory between Kansas City and the West Coast, this latest book from Borneman focuses on a relatively brief period from the 1860s to the 1880s during which a network of thousands of miles of railroad was built westward from Chicago and Kansas City to the west coast, with the dramatic accompanying population shifts and development of agricultural, mining, and other resources of these vast new western lands. Through these rail connections, Texas, Oklahoma, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, and California were rapidly incorporated into the commercial, social, and political sphere of the greater United States. The arrival of the railroads dramatically transformed the West Coast. Once connected with Chicago, Los Angeles rapidly grew from a sleepy coastal town into one of America's great cities.

This expansion of a network of railroads westward was complex in its engineering challenges as well as in its political-financial processes, as entrepreneurs like Huntington, Gould, and Crocker, east coast and European investors, Congress, and even state and federal courts were regularly involved. Many players (some successful, some not) were involved in this expansion, and keeping these sorted out was a bit challenging as the book progressed. Fortunately, Borneman was kind enough to provide the reader not only with a series of railroad route maps within appropriate chapters, but also with two list, one of the Railroads and another of the Railroaders, just after the introduction. My coherent reading was greatly aided by my bookmarking to maintain easy reference to these list and to the maps. A substantial section of historical photographs adds to the enjoyment of the book

Though largely consolidated today, the trains still run over the rail beds originally laid down by these entrepreneurs, builders and engineers, and many, many thousands of workers who almost entirely by hand dug tunnels, built rail beds, and laid the tracks. Railroads are still vital to the U.S. economy (ask Warren Buffett), and Amtrack's ridership is at record levels. "Rival Rails" gives an excellent and readable overview of this brief but critical phase of U.S. development from a country largely operating east of the Mississippi to a country socially, politically, and commercially integrated from the Atlantic to the Pacific Coast.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Readable Railroad History, November 29, 2010

By 

T.F. Cope - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Rival Rails: The Race to Build America's Greatest Transcontinental Railroad (Hardcover)

Until I read Rival Rails, I knew little about transcontinental railroads beyond the famous photograph at Promontory Summit, where the Union Pacific and Central Pacific met in 1869. As Walter Borneman points out, however, that ceremony did not in fact mark completion of the first transcontinental railroad. Gaps remained between Sacramento and Oakland and between Omaha and Council Bluffs. The latter required the Union Pacific to ferry passengers across the Missouri River until completion of a bridge some three years later. Transcontinental travel entirely by rail first became possible in August 1870, when the Kansas Pacific--one of the "rival rails" whose history Borneman recounts--reached Denver.

Rival Rails is an engrossing history of the less well known southern transcontinental lines. Generally snow-free, they were, and are, significant components of the national transportation infrastructure between the west coast and the rest of the country. Their building is a complex story, and Borneman provides sufficient detail without overwhelming the reader. He describes the political, corporate, financial, legal, and engineering obstacles that had to be overcome and includes vivid portraits of the men who overcame them and who struggled against each other to build "America's greatest transcontinental railroad." The specialist can find additional details in the endnotes, some of which are quite extensive.

As a part time Santa Fean, I was fascinated to read about the history of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe--even though it bypasses Santa Fe at Lamy--and was more than a little bit gratified that it rose to the "top of the heap" over its arch rival, the Southern Pacific. This it accomplished by judicious expansion, prudent management, and the food and lodging of the Fred Harvey Company.

Borneman's writing is eminently readable and full of delightful turns of phrase. If one needed proof that sound scholarship can be entertaining as well, Rival Rails furnishes that proof.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing, July 24, 2011

By 

John Vaillancourt (New York City, NY) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Rival Rails: The Race to Build America's Greatest Transcontinental Railroad (Hardcover)

Being a huge Bourneman fan and having loved 1812, French Indian War, and Polk, I was very enthusiastic about his newest book. Coming away from it, underwhelmed is an understatement. The recurring thought I had as I forced my way through this mess was "so what and who cares?" Bourneman does a poor job of keeping separate the various railroad companies and magnates behind them, and an even poorer job of making the reader care about what they're reading. Slogging through it I almost had the feeling Bourneman owed his publisher another book on his contract and he just mailed this one it, putting below par effort into it. The other three outstanding books I've read by him all conveyed the passion he had in his subject matter. This one completely fell flat.

That being said, you can't hit a homerun every time, and I look forward to his next historial project and will gladly read his work again. But for this I have to say, unless you're a hardcore rail enthusiast, avoid it.