Demonstrates that the railroads profoundly affected the way people lived, how they adjusted to the new opportunities or threats that swift and cheap transportation provided. In short, how they viewed the world.This book is for everyone fascinated by trains and their nineteenth-century opening of the great Northwest. With cases of pictures never before published this book tracks the stories of families lured to settle in the west, revelations about railroad buccaneers, and breathtaking engineering feats of bridges over daunting gorges - Gene Shalit, The Today Show, NBC

Chemins de fer États-Unis (Nord-Ouest), Pacific Northwest, Railroads, Railroads Northwest, Pacific, Railroads Pacific, Northwest, Spoorwegen, Transports ferroviaires États-Unis (Nord-Ouest)

Preface Introduction: Railroad time and space in the new Northwest pt. I. Signatures in steel: the first railway age, 1868-1893. Portages by rail ; Henry Villard and the empire of the Columbia ; Shapers of the new Northwest ; Traveling too fast: adjustments to railroad power ; The railway landscape pt. II. Northwest passages: the second railway age, 1897-1917. New beginnings for a new century ; Fiefdom and baronies: Harriman and Hill redraw the railroad map ; The promise of electric motive power ; Twentieth-century empire builders ; Selling the great Northwest ; Wonderlands: railroad tourism ; The golden age of passenger train travel pt. III. The age of competition, 1917 to 1990s. New competition ; An industry in trouble ; Response: the streamliner era ; Strange new world: war and a troubled peace ; A changing signature Epilogue: Pacific Northwest railroads in perspective