Railroad History, No. 188, Spring-Summer 2003

RAILROAD HISTORY No. 188 has 160 pages, with laminated cover and perfect binding. 40,000 words of text – plus 144 historic photographs and images. Color throughout.

The issue features A PASSION FOR TRAINS, a portrait of David P. Morgan, the legendary editor of Trains magazine, and MYSTERY TRAINS OF THE PERSIAN GULF, an exclusive account of railroading in Iran and Iraq during World War II. (Read introduction to No. 188 online.)

Other feature articles are on the politics of Penn Central, the oddities of railroad mapmaking, the 19th-century battle between the Grand Trunk Railway and New York Central Railroad, steam locomotive building, and the signage of freight cars.

TOO BIG TO FAIL? – How interest-group politics and overbearing regulation set the stage for Penn Central’s collapse in 1970. By Robert F. Holzweiss. (Read excerpt: Stuart Saunders in perspective.)
FORGETTING ST. LOUIS AND OTHER MAP MISCHIEF – The oddities and deceptions of railroad mapmaking. By Gregory P. Ames. (See two of maps.)
WRITERS OF THE RAIL: A PASSION FOR TRAINS – Part 1 of the life and times of David P. Morgan. By Thomas M. Jacklin. (Read excerpt: Trains magazine in crisis.)
OVERWHELMED WITH GOOD FORTUNE – Sir Henry Tyler vs. the Vanderbilts in the battle for Chicago. By Graydon M. Meints. (See drawings of Billy Vanderbilt.)
WHY STEAM STALLED – A mechanical engineer dissects the stages of steam locomotive technology. By J. Parker Lamb. (Read excerpt: Stages of steam.)
FIRST PERSON: MYSTERY TRAINS OF THE PERSIAN GULF – Railroading in an unknown and forbidding world. By Robert W. Richardson. (Read excerpt: On the train to Baghdad.)
PRESERVATION TOPICS: HOW TO MAKE NEW STEAM – The challenges of building an A1 Pacific today. By Andrew Dow. (Read excerpt and see photos of No. 60163.)
PRINT & IMAGE: TRACKSIDE READING – Looking at freight-car slogans and signage before the age of conglomerates. By John A. Jakle.

PLUS OUR REGULAR COLUMNS AND REVIEWS, INCLUDING:

BOOK DIVISION, with 23 reviews of railroad and transit books edited by Dan Cupper. (Read excerpt of lead review by Kevin Keefe.)
SHORT TAKES on railroad timekeeping, gandy dancers, and the collapse of the B&O roundhouse. (Read excerpt of "The Night the Roof Fell In" by James D. Dilts.)
DISCUSSION by readers about conductors and Hitler’s locomotives, Archie Robertson and Ted Rose, and more
MEMORIALS on Bill Edson and Steven Bogen.