Chronicles the six-year project of building the transcontinental railroad between America's East and West Coasts. Discusses the lives of the visionaries that ran the project, like Theodore Judah and James Strobridge, and how they created two railroad companies to make it happen--the Central Pacific, which built towards the east, and the Union Pacific, which built towards the west.

Anderson Cooper chronicles the rise and fall of a legendary American dynasty--his mother's family--the Vanderbilts.

A Confederate soldier, out to exact revenge on the Union soldiers who murdered his wife, follows their trail to the raucous, traveling town alongside the construction of the transcontinental railroad.

"After the completion of the first transcontinental railroad in 1869, the rest of the country was up for grabs, and the race was on. The prize: a better, shorter, less snowy route through the corridors of the American Southwest, linking Los Angeles to Chicago. In Rival Rails, Borneman lays out in compelling detail the sectional rivalries, contested routes, political posturing, and ambitious business dealings that unfolded as an increasing number of...

Discusses the 1860s construction of the Central Pacific Railroad, or Transcontinental Railroad, and the financial backers and workers involved in this project that reduced coast-to-coast travel from over one hundred days to six.

Provides a history of the Stourbridge Lion, the first commercial locomotive in America, which made its historic run in 1829, marking the birth of the American railroad.

Cullen Bohannon finds himself a stranger in a strange land - the mountain town of Truckee, California, home to the Central Pacific Railroad. This rough railroad town teems with thousands of Chinese workers, foreign in language, culture and traditions. Despite the challenges of corralling his new workforce, Cullen leads the Herculean effort to tunnel through the Sierra Nevada Mountains, sometimes achieving only inches a day in the race to complete...

In 1869, when the final spike was driven into the Transcontinental Railroad, few were prepared for its seismic aftershocks. Once a hodgepodge of short, squabbling lines, America's railways exploded into a titanic industry helmed by a pageant of speculators, crooks, and visionaries. Hiltzik shows how the vicious competition between empire builders such as Cornelius Vanderbilt, Jay Gould, J. P. Morgan, and E. H. Harriman sparked stock market frenzies,...

"This history recounts the numerous military events along the L&N in the years 1861 through 1865, and also examines the still-resonant theme of the relationship between a major corporation and the government during a time of national crisis"--Provided by publisher.