Product Description

Whistle-stop posts along a picturesque cycling trail. An abandoned roundhouse in a new industrial park. A piece of "Black Diamond" anthracite coal lying in the grass. These are silent witnesses to the golden age of American railroading, 1946, when the steam locomotive's sonorous whistle could be heard from Pennsylvania to Vermont, from New York to Chicago.

The second installation of Richard C. Carpenter's highly acclaimed series covers an area criss-crossed by some of the oldest railroad lines in America. This volume includes over 191 beautiful, hand-drawn maps of rail systems in New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont. These masterpieces, accompanied by detailed sections on stations, track pans, tunnels, and viaducts, capture a time when rail was king in New England, before cars, trucks, and planes became dominant.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #388317 in Books
• Published on: 2005-05-03
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 288 pages

Review

"This book, along with Volume 1..., belongs in the library of every serious rail historian." -- Railfan and Railroad

"No detail that is too insignificant to be omitted... as long as it had something to do with railroading." -- John P. Reilly, Editor Emeritus, Sunday Hour

"Each map is carefully produced in exquisite detail... I give it the highest possible recommendation." -- Peter E. Lynch, NHRHTA Bulletin

"Carpenter has done an outstanding job showing the railroad world of 1946." -- National Railway Bulletin

"An incredible wealth of information." -- Gregory Curtis, American Reference Books Annual

"A fine addition to any rail fan's library, perfect for a long winter evening." -- Albert Churella, Journal of Transport History

"An impressive accomplishment and will likely be well loved and well used by rail buffs and historians." -- Gordon Kennedy, Cartographic Perspectives

"Where railroads first began and proliferated... I have never seen such complete coverage of railroads in any single document." -- Richard B Hasselman, Senior Vice President of Operations, CONRAIL (retired)

About the Author

Richard C. Carpenter is the retired executive director of the South Western Regional Planning Agency in Connecticut.

Customer Reviews

A Valuable Resource for Both Railfans and Model Railroaders
I give this book 5 stars, but I give the Amazon.com review function web page 1 star. I wrote a several paragraph review of this book, but this site apparently lost it before it was posted. I don't have time to regenerate it completely. Parts of a draft that I had saved, follows.

If you have ever been driving down a road, have noticed either existing or abandoned railroad roadbed along your route, and have wondered what railroad it once belonged to, then Richard Carpenter's new railroad atlas series may answer your question. Volume 2 continues the series that began with the first volume, covering the mid-Atlantic states.

Each standard map in this atlas corresponds to a U.S. Geological Survey 1:100,000 (30-minute quadrangle) topographic map. Carpenter used topographic evidence of both existing and long abandoned railroad rights-of-way, along with considerable other historical data. He then drew simple color line maps of those rights-of-way, leaving off most of the terrain features and all roads. But the maps do show all major political boundaries (state, county, and larger city). Large rivers are included, along with the direction of flow. And along the rail lines, all tunnels, stations, major bridges and viaducts, coaling stations, interlocking towers, and other railroad facilities are indicated, including their names. Interchanges, however, are not clearly noted, nor are numbers of tracks, sidings, or spurs. Rail lines that were recently abandoned, as of 1946, are shown as dotted lines. Where trackage is more concentrated, such as in major metropolitan areas, supplemental larger scale (greater magnification) maps are provided.

This atlas is not limited to Class I railroads, as there are over 150 different railroads that appear on its pages. I encountered the names of dozens of smaller lines that I had never heard of, though many were wholly owned or leased subsidiaries of the Class I lines, in 1946.

The author chose 1946 for several reasons. First, it was near the peak of the U.S. railroad system in terms of total mileage, that peak being over 254,000 route miles. Second, it was during a period of relative stability in the number of U.S. railroad companies; between 1920 and 1950, only five major railroad mergers and consolidations took place. Third, the author wanted to document the railroad network that provided the necessary means of transportation to support President Roosevelt's "arsenal of democracy."

I have bought volumes 1 and 2, and will probably continue with the entire series.

A great deal of useful information
I must open by saying that the Railroad Atlas is in fact a comprehensive and valuable source of information; a "labor of love" in the strictest sense. If you have an interest in seeing how and where the various railroads ran and what stations and facilities were on them in the immediate post-war and pre-merger era, then this book is a must-have.

However, the prospective purchaser should be aware that the maps which form the heart of this atlas are not the slick and professionally produced products that we have been spoiled with in the recent years of the information age. They are obviously hand-drawn, and to be honest they look like something done on a kitchen table with a box of felt-tip markers. The basic map information was traced--carefully, but obviously by hand--from USGS topographic maps, and then the railroad information was added.

I am not trying to put off any prospective purchaser, and in fact I intend to purchase the remainder of the series. However, I think that you should be aware of the quality of the presentation in advance. As long as you don't expect something that looks like it was turned out by the draftsmen at Rand McNally you should be fine.

A meticulously researched and presented reference series
A Railroad Atlas Of The United States In 1946, Volume 2 covers New York and New England, in this meticulously researched and presented reference series. A brief introduction including instructions for how to use the atlas to find stations, cross-reference with other maps and similar tasks leads into the extensive map selection. By far the majority of A Railroad Atlas Of The United States In 1946, Volume 2 is comprised of maps, compiled from the research and generosity of many sources and presented in multiple colors for easier reference. An in-depth index facilitates quick and easy location in this unique and highly accessible resource.