Illustrations
| PAGE | |
| Ready for the day’s run | Frontispiece |
| An early locomotive built by William Norris for the Philadelphia & Reading Railroad | 18 |
| The historic “John Bull” of the Camden & Amboy Railroad—and its train | 18 |
| A heavy-grade type of locomotive built for the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad in 1864. Its flaring stack was typical of those years | 19 |
| Construction engineers blaze their way across the face of new country | 38 |
| The making of an embankment by dump-train | 39 |
| “Small temporary railroads peopled with hordes of restless engines” | 39 |
| Cutting a path for the railroad through the crest of the high hills | 44 |
| A giant fill—in the making | 44 |
| The finishing touches to the track | 45 |
| This machine can lay a mile of track a day | 45 |
| “Sometimes the construction engineer... brings his line face to face with a mountain” | 52 |
| Finishing the lining of a tunnel | 52 |
| The busiest tunnel point in the world—at the west portals of the Bergen tunnels, six Erie tracks below, four Lackawanna above | 53 |
| The Hackensack portals of the Pennsylvania’s great tunnels under New York City | 53 |
| Concrete affords wonderful opportunities for the bridge-builders | 68 |
| The Lackawanna is building the largest concrete bridge in the world across the Delaware River at Slateford, Pa. | 68 |
| The bridge-builder lays out an assembling-yard for gathering together the different parts of his new construction | 69 |
| The new Brandywine Viaduct of the Baltimore & Ohio, at Wilmington, Del. | 69 |
| The Northwestern’s monumental new terminal on the West Side of Chicago | 82 |
| The Union Station at Washington | 83 |
| A model American railroad station—the Union Station of the New York Central, Boston & Albany, Delaware & Hudson, and West Shore railroads at Albany | 102 |
| The classic portal of the Pennsylvania’s new station in New York | 102 |
| The beautiful concourse of the new Pennsylvania Station, in New York | 103 |
| “The waiting-room is the monumental and artistic expression of the station”—the waiting-room of the Union Depot at Troy, New York | 103 |
| Something over a million dollars’ worth of passenger cars are constantly stored in this yard | 114 |
| A scene in the great freight-yards that surround Chicago | 114 |
| The intricacy of tracks and the “throat” of a modern terminal yard: South Station, Boston, and its approaches | 115 |
| One of the “diamond-stack” locomotives used on the Pennsylvania Railroad in the early seventies | 126 |
| Prairie type passenger locomotive of the Lake Shore Railroad | 126 |
| Pacific type passenger locomotive of the New York Central lines | 126 |
| Atlantic type passenger locomotive, built by the Pennsylvania Railroad at its Altoona shops | 126 |
| One of the great Mallet pushing engines of the Delaware & Hudson Company | 127 |
| A ten-wheeled switching locomotive of the Lake Shore Railroad | 127 |
| Suburban passenger locomotive of the New York Central lines | 127 |
| Consolidation freight locomotive of the Pennsylvania system | 127 |
| Where Harriman stretched the Southern Pacific in a straight line across the Great Salt Lake | 140 |
| Line revision on the New York Central—tunnelling through the bases of these jutting peaks along the Hudson River does away with sharp and dangerous curves | 140 |
| Impressive grade revision on the Union Pacific in the Black Hills of Wyoming. The discarded line may be seen at the right | 141 |
| The old and the new on the Great Northern—the “William Crooks,” the first engine of the Hill system, and one of the newest Mallets | 154 |
| The Southern Pacific finds direct entrance into San Francisco for one of its branch lines by tunnels piercing the heart of the suburbs | 155 |
| Portal of the abandoned tunnel of the Alleghany Portage Railroad near Johnstown, Pa., the first railroad tunnel in the United States | 155 |
| The freight department of the modern railroad requires a veritable army of clerks | 176 |
| The farmer who sued the railroad for permanent injuries—as the detectives with their cameras found him | 177 |
| Oil-burning locomotive on the Southern Pacific system | 190 |
| The steel passenger coach such as has become standard upon the American railroad | 190 |
| Electric car, generating its own power by a gasoline engine | 190 |
| Both locomotive and train—gasoline motor car designed for branch line service | 190 |
| The biggest locomotive in the world: built by the Santa Fe Railroad at its Topeka shops | 191 |
| The conductor is a high type of railroad employee | 208 |
| The engineer—oil-can in hand—is forever fussing at his machine | 208 |
| Railroad responsibility does not end even with the track walker | 209 |
| The fireman has a hard job and a steady one | 209 |
| How the real timetable of the division looks—the one used in headquarters | 222 |
| The electro-pneumatic signal-box in the control tower of a modern terminal | 228 |
| The responsible men who stand at the switch-tower of a modern terminal: a large tower of the “manual” type | 228 |
| “When winter comes upon the lines the superintendent will have full use for every one of his wits” | 229 |
| Watchful signals guarding the main line of a busy railroad | 229 |
| “When the train comes to a water station the fireman gets out and fills the tank” | 248 |
| A freight-crew and its “hack” | 248 |
| A view through the span of a modern truss bridge gives an idea of its strength and solidity | 249 |
| The New York Central is adopting the new form of “Upper quadrant” signal | 249 |
| The wrecking train ready to start out from the yard | 262 |
| “Two of these great cranes can grab a wounded Mogul locomotive and put her out of the way” | 262 |
| “The shop-men form no mean brigade in this industrial army of America” | 263 |
| “Winter days when the wind-blown snow forms mountains upon the tracks” | 272 |
| “The despatcher may have come from some lonely country station” | 273 |
| “The superintendent is not above getting out and bossing the wrecking-gang once in a great while” | 273 |
| The New York Central Railroad is building a new Grand Central Station in New York City, for itself and its tenant, the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad | 284 |
| The concourse of the new Grand Central Station, New York, will be one of the largest rooms in the world | 284 |
| South Station, Boston, is the busiest railroad terminal in the world | 285 |
| The train-shed and approach tracks of Broad Street Station, Philadelphia, still one of the finest of American railroad passenger terminals | 285 |
| Connecting drawing-room and stateroom | 296 |
| “A man may have as fine a bed in a sleeping-car as in the best hotel in all the land” | 296 |
| “You may have the manicure upon the modern train” | 297 |
| “The dining-car is a sociable sort of place” | 297 |
| An interior view of one of the earliest Pullman sleeping-cars | 302 |
| Interior of a standard sleeping-car of to-day | 303 |
| “Even in winter there is a homely, homey air about the commuter’s station” | 314 |
| Entrance to the great four-track open cut which the Erie has built for the commuter’s comfort at Jersey City | 314 |
| A model way-station on the lines of the Boston & Albany Railroad | 315 |
| The yardmaster’s office—in an abandoned switch-tower | 315 |
| “The inside of any freight-house is a busy place” | 328 |
| St. John’s Park, the great freight-house of the New York Central Railroad in down-town New York | 328 |
| The great ore-docks of the West Shore Railroad at Buffalo | 329 |
| The great bridge of the New York Central at Watkins Glen | 340 |
| Building the wonderful bridge of the Idaho & Washington Northern over the Pend Oreille River, Washington | 341 |
| Inside the West Albany shops of the New York Central: picking up a locomotive with the travelling crane | 350 |
| A locomotive upon the testing-table at the Altoona shops of the Pennsylvania | 350 |
| “The roundhouse is a sprawling thing” | 351 |
| Denizens of the roundhouse | 351 |
| “In the Far West the farm-train has long since come into its own” | 360 |
| “Even in New York State the interest in these itinerant agricultural schools is keen, indeed” | 361 |
| Interior of the dairy demonstration car of an agricultural train | 361 |
| The famous Thomas Viaduct, on the Baltimore & Ohio at Relay, Md., built by B. H. Latrobe in 1835, and still in use | 366 |
| The historic Starucca Viaduct upon the Erie | 366 |
| The cylinders of the Delaware & Hudson Mallet | 367 |
| The interior of this gasoline-motor-car on the Union Pacific presents a most unusual effect, yet a maximum of view of the outer world | 367 |
| A portion of the great double-track Susquehanna River bridge of the Baltimore & Ohio—a giant among American railroad bridges | 372 |
| “In summer the brakemen have pleasant enough times of railroading” | 373 |
| A famous cantilever rapidly disappearing—the substitution of a new Kentucky river bridge for the old, on the Queen & Crescent system | 373 |
| Triple-phase, alternating current locomotive built by the General Electric Co. for use in the Cascade Tunnel, of the Great Northern Railway | 390 |
| Heavy service, alternating and direct current freight locomotive built by the Westinghouse Company for the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad | 390 |
| The monoroad in practical use for carrying passengers at City Island, New York | 391 |
| The cigar-shaped car of the monoroad | 391 |
| A modern railroad freight and passenger terminal: the terminal of the West Shore Railroad at Weehawken, opposite New York City | 406 |
| High-speed, direct-current passenger locomotive built by the General Electric Company for terminal service of the New York Central at the Grand Central Station | 407 |
| This is what New York Central McCrea did for the men of the Canadian Pacific up at Kenora | 420 |
| A clubhouse built by the Southern Pacific for its men at Roseville, California | 420 |
| The B. & O. boys enjoying the Railroad Y. M. C. A., Chicago Junction | 421 |
| “The Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company has organized a brass band for its employees” | 421 |
| A high-speed electric locomotive on the Pennsylvania bringing a through train out of the tunnel underneath the Hudson River and into the New York City terminal | 434 |
| High-speed, direct-current locomotive built by the Westinghouse Company for the terminal service of the Pennsylvania Railroad, in New York | 434 |
| Two triple-phase locomotives of the Great Northern Railway helping a double-header steam train up the grade into the Cascade Tunnel | 435 |
| The outer shell of the New Haven’s freight locomotive removed, showing the working parts of the machine | 435 |
The railroad is a monster. His feet are dipped into the navigable seas, and his many arms reach into the uplands. His fingers clutch the treasures of the hills—coal, iron, timber—all the wealth of Mother Earth. His busy hands touch the broad prairies of corn, wheat, fruits—the yearly produce of the land. With ceaseless activity he brings the raw material that it may be made into the finished. He centralizes industry. He fills the ships that sail the seas. He brings the remote town in quick touch with the busy city. He stimulates life. He makes life.
His arms stretch through the towns and over the land. His steel muscles reach across great rivers and deep valleys, his tireless hands have long since burrowed their way through God’s eternal hills. He is here, there, everywhere. His great life is part and parcel of the great life of the nation.
He reaches an arm into an unknown country, and it is known! Great tracts of land that were untraversed become farms; hillsides yield up their mineral treasure; a busy town springs into life where there was no habitation of man a little time before, and the town becomes a city. Commerce is born. The railroad bids death and stagnation begone. It creates. It reaches forth with its life, and life is born.
The railroad is life itself!
THE MODERN RAILROAD