Railroads Triumphant: The Growth, Rejection, and Rebirth of a Vital American Force 1st Edition

by Albro Martin (Author)

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ISBN-13: 978-0195038538

ISBN-10: 0195038533

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In 1789, when the First Congress met in New York City, the members traveled to the capital just as Roman senators two thousand years earlier had journeyed to Rome, by horse, at a pace of some five miles an hour. Indeed, if sea travel had improved dramatically since Caesar's time, overland
travel was still so slow, painful, and expensive that most Americans lived all but rooted to the spot, with few people settling more than a hundred miles from the ocean (a mere two percent lived west of the Appalachians). America in effect was just a thin ribbon of land by the sea, and it wasn't
until the coming of the steam railroad that our nation would unfurl across the vast inland territory.
In Railroads Triumphant, Albro Martin provides a fascinating history of rail transportation in America, moving well beyond the "Romance of the Rails" sort of narrative to give readers a real sense of the railroad's importance to our country. The railroad, Martin argues, was "the most fundamental
innovation in American material life." It could go wherever rails could be laid--and so, for the first time, farms, industries, and towns could leave natural waterways behind and locate anywhere. (As Martin points out, the railroads created small-town America just as surely as the automobile created
the suburbs.) The railroad was our first major industry, and it made possible or promoted the growth of all other industries, among them coal, steel, flour milling, and commercial farming. It established such major cities as Chicago, and had a lasting impact on urban design. And it worked hand in
hand with the telegraph industry to transform communication. Indeed, the railroads were the NASA of the 19th century, attracting the finest minds in finance, engineering, and law.
But Martin doesn't merely catalogue the past greatness of the railroad. In closing with the episodes that led first to destructive government regulation, and then to deregulation of the railroads and the ensuing triumphant rebirth of the nation's basic means of moving goods from one place to
another, Railroads Triumphant offers an impassioned defense of their enduring importance to American economic life. And it is a book informed by a lifelong love of railroads, brimming with vivid descriptions of classic depots, lavish hotels in Chicago, the great railroad founders, and the famous
lines. Thoughtful and colorful by turn, this insightful history illuminates the impact of the railroad on our lives.

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

As his title suggests, Martin ( Enterprise Denied ) here writes a highly upbeat history of railroads in the U.S. before driving home a gold spike for their future. Starting in 1828 with the formation of the Baltimore & Ohio, the author sets out to answer what he calls "the Grand Paradox," or why, with all its potential, the railroad fell on such hard times after WW II. Sprinkling anecdotes throughout, Martin details the early years of invention and then, after the Civil War, glory and profit. The railroad created such cities as Chicago and Atlanta, helped to mold management organization and abetted the growth of the telegraph in addition to playing a key role in the development of the steel and coal industries. Last century's Credit Mobilier scandal pales, in Martin's eyes, beside today's villains--politics, over-regulation and greedy unions. For history buffs, this long ride is essential, if inconclusive. Photos not seen by PW. History Book Club main selection.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Railroads were America's first big business, setting patterns of organization, management, finance, and technology that have been followed by most other businesses for 150 years. Martin's business history covers the railroads' rise to power in the 19th century, their decline for most of the 20th, and what he sees as their return to glory in the last decade; he regards government regulation as the chief villain and deregulation as the railroads' salvation. A synthesis (the bibliography lists mostly secondary sources), the work is mildly but not controversially revisionist. Its topical rather than chronological organization is effective but does lead to some repetition. It belongs in most business history collections. History Book Club main selection.
- Paul B. Cors, Univ. of Wyoming Lib., Laramie
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Oxford University Press; 1st edition (January 2, 1992)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 448 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0195038533
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0195038538
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.72 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 9.6 x 6.48 x 1.57 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #1,541,167 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #674 in History of Railroads
- #3,270 in United States History (Books)
- #3,809 in Economic History (Books)

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Top reviews from the United States

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D. Ruth

Nicely organized and author periodically provides context of where he's ...

Reviewed in the United States on February 22, 2015

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Well documented and well written. Nicely organized and author periodically provides context of where he's at in the history line so you can pick up after some time away from the book and still have context.

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Warren Meyer

Best Railroad General History

Reviewed in the United States on March 19, 2006

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I read a lot of railroad history, and this is the best general history of American railroading that I know of.

One person found this helpful

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Charles L Innis Jr.

Readable, but treat his "facts" with caution.

Reviewed in the United States on June 1, 2022

Very readable, but some of his "facts" are dubious, and it is uncertain which is which. He takes pride in giving no references, which is suspicious in a "history" book. What is he being careless with? For instance, he has Ben Franklin running away from New York to Philadelphia at 17 as an example of difficult travel. Ben ran away at 17, but it was from BOSTON to Philadelphia, which was a relatively simple journey by ship. That discrepancy in what should be a relatively well known fact triggered my sense of "what is and is not accurate?" for the rest of the book.

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an academic perspective of US railroad business history

Reviewed in the United States on June 23, 2011

I was born in 1945 and for the next 18 years lived within 200 yards of a railroad freight yard and a major commuter line. The sounds, smells and vibrations of rail traffic and yard switching were part of the invisible fabric of my family's life. I ignored this "rail environment" as much as I did the car and truck traffic that ran outside my bedroom window on the state highway. Certainly I have sometimes waxed nostalgic about the steam locomotives I watched with rap fascination as a child and our occasional trip by rail coach. Nonetheless I had never given the history of railroads, how they came to be, what problems they encountered and what they meant to our Country any thought whatsoever.

The book "Railroads Triumphant" by Albro Martin was a revelation to this reader. The subtitle of this book is "The Growth, Rejection & Rebirth of a Vital American Force". I was quite amazed by the fascinating history of railroads in the U.S. As the author makes very clear prior to, say, 1945, if you wanted to go somewhere, see something interesting, visit someone distant, conduct business, deliver or obtain goods your only true option was rail travel. The fact that this means of transportation was relatively inexpensive, reasonable safe and went practically everywhere did not happen by serendipity and that is the story related in this book.

I want to make one thing clear to individuals considering reading this book. The author's focus is on the 'business" of railroad history written from an academic perspective. At times I found myself skimming over pages I found uninteresting. Nonetheless there is sufficient information on the topic of railroads that the curious adult reader will find this book worth reading.

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Marcus Sitz

I love this book

Reviewed in the United States on January 25, 2017

I love this book, if sometimes for the wrong reasons.

I'll start with the right reasons. It is full of awesome stories, awesome individuals, and awesomely strong, awesomely informed, and sometimes awesomely wrong opinions. As a "bespectacled economist" (at least he calls us neither "fatuous" nor "flatulent," which are among his awesome collection of strong-smelling words), I feel Professor Martin would have done well to understand the full implications of the monopoly model.

That is not, of course, at all entirely on him. My fellows of the four-eyed tribe have not, in general, used the basic model to anywhere near its full utility.

Speaking of "utility," I sought in vain for any reason for the provocative subtitle, "Railroads---Not Quite a Utility."

Leave aside the horrors of the "utility" terminology, which is as standard in our profession, and as stupid, as the QWERTY keyboard, and as irreversible as the somewhat random chances that gave us "standard gauge" (if deciding now, we would optimize on a broader track for greater speed and lower running cost). "Utility" is the concept at the core of demand theory. A "Utility Company" is one of a number of enterprises that deliver value to complex benefit structures ("many stakeholders"), typically including a broad set of real-estate holders. Put sewers, water pipes, and wires on the land, and the land is a lot more valuable. And then there are the direct customers, the businesses and the households that buy the water and deliver the poo. "Shared-benefit enterprise" is the descriptive term, which an uncaring world has so far declined to adopt.

Professor Martin's detailed description of the life and death of the railroad reveals that it is, in fact, the first great large-scale natural-monopoly shared-benefit enterprise ("utility," in the deprecated terminology), with all the enormous and varied challenges and potentials of the situation.

And if Professor Martin had understood that, and put on some spectacles and studied just a tad of imperfect-competition economics, and thought about the political economy of locational monopoly, he would have understood that his preferred prescription, to let Vanderbilt and Huntington and Gould and the grifter Dupont and the others run a perfectly differentiating monopoly to extract all the rents, which because they were civic minded and just wanted to enrich the nation they would do... is laughable.

But you gotta read the book for other reasons. The old gentleman was allowed to rant freely in the parentheticals without the constraints of an annoying editor. I wish I were he. How did he get that freedom from Oxford University Press? I am going to reread the book sometime, just to count the variations on "Hey you kids get offa my lawn."

Alas, no bibliography to back up all of the fascinating anecdotes.

My kids used to call me Google Papa, since I had an answer for everything. With age and experience they learned I was more a Wiki-Papa: Completely useless for citations. This book is like that. Too bad.

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Curious Senior

A triumphant history of the railroads

Reviewed in the United States on November 18, 2013

Martin says that a good overall history of the railroads has yet to be written, but I think he has done a pretty good job of it himself, despite the fact that this novice can see a few lacunae in the story. What about the impact of the railroads on the development of our national parks? Or the fascination of young and old alike with model railroading? Not central to the economic story he tells, of course, but of great interest nonetheless. I have long been interested in finding a good explanation for the massive industrial development of the United States in the last half of the 19th century, and while he takes the story from the point of view of the railroads, this book, which has been sitting on my "unread bookshelf" for far too long, goes a long way to answering the question.

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Walter Heinrich

One of the best general railroad history books out there

Reviewed in the United States on December 30, 2006

Albro Martin has a wonderful style of writing which makes this a great read - even better than Enterprise Denied. It details how railroads have not only survived, but continue to play a vital part in our everyday lives, even though we see less and less of them today.

2 people found this helpful

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Philip ATKINSON

I love it.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 7, 2018

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Just the job, I love it.

Mr. G. D. Stewart

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 20, 2014

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Very interesting overview.

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Railroads Triumphant: The Growth, Rejection, and Rebirth of a Vital American Force 1st Edition

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