What do you think are the best books that cover railway history. Granted, this is a large topic, with many subcategories, but I'm interested in what you all think.

Here are my nominations;
Railroads in a Business or Legal History Context
Railroads and American Law, by Thomas Ely
Regulating Railraod Innovation by Usselman

Railroads and Technology
Usselman as above
Any of the John White books

The Rio Grand Southern Story by Sundance Books Vol 1-11

For railroad lines and properties:

Anything by Herb Harwood. He has a professional railroader's understanding of the business reasons why a particular railroad property came into being, evolved, and ultimately flourished or failed; he combines this with a fan's eye for intriguing details of infrastructure, operations, and equipment. Top it off with a clean and engaging prose style, and you have a triple threat.

His recent award for "Invisible Giants: The Empires of Cleveland's Van Sweringen Brothers" was well deserved. Herb's book is a tour-de-force of research, given the Vans' secretiveness and the broken and fragmentary paper trail they left behind. His story covers everything from the invention of the planned garden suburb, to financial machinations on Wall Street, to the architecture of CUT and the engineering details of the electrification. I cannot think of any other author so well qualfied to explore the Vans' roots in the real estate industry and the financial structure of their railroad empire while still weaving in a wealth of engaging railfan detail. This is a book we have needed for a long time, and I honestly cannot think of anyone else who could have covered all aspects of the Van's story the way Herb has.

For railroad technology:

Anything by Jack White. His explorations of the technological development of early American locomotives, the American freight car, and the American passenger car are among the few works which became instant classics they day they rolled off the presses.

In no particular order: George W. Hilton, Maury Klein, H. Roger Grant and Donovan (Don) Hofsommer.

They are railroad historians and authors from the academic world, and their work is certain to be the best of its kind on a given topic.

I like a little volume called METROPOLITAN CORRIDOR which explores the interaction between railroads and communiies, and between communities thanks to the railroad.

dave

I'll second the motion for George W. Hilton. His "American Narrow Gauge Railroads", in particular is a landmark work. And unlike a lot of academic writers he has a fine readable style that crosses over well into the popular press.
J

Martin's "Enterprise Denied.." was fantastic and showed just how high into government economic illiteracy reaches- and what a millstone the ICC was about the railroad's neck..

Churella's "From Steam to Diesel.." is a lucidly wriiten forensic analysis of the diesel revolution and the failure of the old "big three" to recognize the revolutionary technology and adapt to it...

Navy vet and traction fan, Bill Middleton wrote superb well-researched texts accompanied by action-packed photography.

Richard L. Saunders Jr. two volume opus:

Merging Lines: American Railroads, 1900-1970. DeKalb, IL: Northern Illinois University Press, 2001. xix + 486 pp. $49.95 (hardback), ISBN: 0-87580-265-6.

Main Lines: Rebirth of the North American Railroads, 1970-2002 DeKalb, IL: Northern Illinois University Press, 2003. xxi + 436 pp. $49.95 (cloth), ISBN: 0-87580-316-4.

If you wish to know ANYTHING about the inner-workings of railroads, management, and mergers over the past 100 years, these are a must read.

And, yes, since he was one of my thesis advisors, I'm a bit partial; one of the others has already been mentioned ;-)

T.J. Gaffney