The Historical Guide to North American Railroads (Train…

The book is organized alphabetically by railroad name, and each railroad gets a short historical description of 1-4 pages, with two pages being typical. Usually a small route map is included, but not always.

I made the mistake of reading this book cover to cover, thinking it might be interesting. It wasn't, and I ended up just skimming over some RR chapters because I just didn't care about them. The main shortcoming is that the description of each railroad is almost exclusively a listing of route buildings, mergers, bankruptcies, and eventually route sell-offs and acquisitions or dissolutions. There is very little description of the railroads' operations, physical plant, or anything else that might provide some color or character to the description. I pushed through to the end and did indeed finish the book, but I was happy to move on to something else.

If you just want to read short descriptions of a railroad's route and business history, this book is a good source. If you want an entertaining as well as informative read, look elsewhere.