March 6, 2010
BOOK REVIEW: 'Blood, Iron, and Gold'
Very Readable History of How Railroads Changed the World
Reviewed By David M. Kinchen
Huntingtonnews.net Book Critic
Putting down my copy of Christian Wolmar's "Blood, Iron, and Gold: How the Railroads Transformed the World" (PublicAffairs, 416 pages, illustrations, notes, maps, index, $28.95), I marveled at how -- once again -- the French are beating the pants off the U.S.A.
Not only do the French have, by many measures, the best health care delivery system in the world, they probably have the best railroads of any country, with dedicated Trains a Grande Vitesse -- high speed passenger trains -- spanning the nearly Texas-sized nation, Wolmar writes in this very readable and engrossing history of railroads.
British railroad -- the Brits say "railway" -- historian Wolmar readily admits that the nation that developed passenger railroads, England -- with the 1830 inauguration of the Liverpool & Manchester Railway -- is far behind France in the development of high-speed bullet trains of the kind the Japanese pioneered in the 1960s and which have spread to France, Spain, Germany and many other countries. Needless to say, Britain's former colony, the U.S., is similarly handicapped at a time when passenger railroads are a heavily federal subsidized endangered species in the States but are undergoing a renaissance in the rest of the developed world.
Wolmar tempers his criticism by saying that freight railroads in the U.S. are thriving and vital, which is good, since the nation has the world's largest network in terms of mileage -- as befits a large, continental nation. Canada's situation mirrors that of the U.S., he says. Berkshire Hathaway CEO and investment legend Warren Buffett has enough faith in railroads to buy one, Burlington Northern Santa Fe.
According to Bloomberg News, Berkshire Hathaway Inc. made a deal to buy Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp. in November 2009, agreeing to purchase the 77.4 percent of the company it doesn't already own at $100 a share. The transaction, which would rank as the largest takeover in Berkshire's history, is valued at $44 billion. Buffett, the country’s richest man and one of the most influential market movers, is calling the purchase "an all-in wager on the economic future of the United States."
My childhood home in Rochelle, IL was next to the Burlington tracks and Rochelle, which pre-Amtrak had passenger service, is now freight-only, with a state-of-the-art intermodal transportation center, Union Pacific’s Global III Intermodal Facility. At the time it opened in 2003 it was Union Pacific's largest intermodal facility. The facility, where containers arriving from the West Coast by rail are transferred to trucks, takes advantage of the Hub City's location with two railroads (the other one is Chicago & North Western Railway, which crosses BNSF in a diamond crossing) and two Interstate highways. Rochelle is ideally located just 80 miles west of Chicago, showing that mortal enemies, trucks and railroads, can get along and thrive together.
Wolmar -- writing with a degree of enthusiasm that makes him sound like a true railfan (and railfans will really enjoy this book!) -- calls the development of railroads the most important invention of the second millennium. He celebrates railroads as the central innovation of the industrial revolution, releasing economic and social energies on a stupendous scale.
Wolmar (The Great Railway Disaster, Fire & Steam) chronicles the heroic age of railroad construction in the 19th century, with its mix of epic engineering and horrible exploitation. The death toll on the trans-Panamanian railroad project included a mass suicide by Chinese workers. Riding the early railroads, he notes, was almost as harrowing as building them, as passengers braved engine cinders that set their clothes on fire—and sometimes had to get out and push underpowered locomotives up steep grades.
The railroads' social impact was equally breathtaking, in Wolmar's telling: it brought city folk fresh milk, out-of-season produce, and commutes to the suburbs; spawned monopolies and spectacular corruption scandals; and played a crucial role in enabling the world wars and the Holocaust.
West Virginians will note the appearance in the book of a man whose name endures in one of the Mountain State's major cities, Huntington, named after Big Four railroad magnate Collis P. Huntington. Huntington and his three colleagues in the Central Pacific -- Leland Stanford, Mark Hopkins and Charles Crocker -- whose railroad joined with the Union Pacific in Utah in 1869 to create the first transcontinental U.S. linkage.
Actually, it wasn't the first transcontinental connection, Wolmar writes, that honor goes to the 47-mile-long Panama Railway, referred to above, the "railroad from hell" that was completed in 1855 and made the trip to the California goldfields much easier. The railroad, Wolmar points out, is one of the few that predates a canal, since canals in the U.S. and Britain and other countries were major transportation arteries long before the advent of the iron road.
The original Liverpool & Manchester Railway spanned 31 miles and thanks to self-taught railroad pioneer George Stephenson created what is considered to be the standard gauge -- the distance between the rails -- of four feet eight and a half inches -- for today's railways. It connected the country's largest port of Liverpool with the manufacturing city of Manchester and was an immediate success for both freight and passengers, spurring the growth of railroads in the nation that originated the industrial revolution.
The issue of differing gauges appears throughout the book as Wolmar writes how the Russians, for instance, had a different, wider gauge from the Germans, to hinder an easier invasion by their not-so-friendly neighbor. Australia had nothing to fear from a German invastion, but the various Australian states had different gauges, which held up a north-south crossing of the huge nation until only a few years ago.
General readers will enjoy "Blood, Iron, and Gold" and will learn about an important development in world history that all too often has been neglected or glossed over by many writers. Railfans, and I am one, will enjoy Wolmar's spritely written chronicle. And I'm hoping that we'll catch up with France and develop a network of high-speed railroads...I love railroads and I hate to fly! Unfortunately, it won't happen in my lifetime, since I'm old enough to remember pre-Amtrak trains and I live in a nation that seems to be permanently stuck on stupid.
Wolmar's web site: www.christianwolmar.co.uk
Publisher's web site: www.publicaffairsbooks.com
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BOOK REVIEW: 'Blood, Iron, and Gold'
Very Readable History of How Railroads Changed the World
Reviewed By David M. Kinchen
Huntingtonnews.net Book Critic
Putting down my copy of Christian Wolmar's "Blood, Iron, and Gold: How the Railroads Transformed the World" (PublicAffairs, 416 pages, illustrations, notes, maps, index, $28.95), I marveled at how -- once again -- the French are beating the pants off the U.S.A.
Not only do the French have, by many measures, the best health care delivery system in the world, they probably have the best railroads of any country, with dedicated Trains a Grande Vitesse -- high speed passenger trains -- spanning the nearly Texas-sized nation, Wolmar writes in this very readable and engrossing history of railroads.
British railroad -- the Brits say "railway" -- historian Wolmar readily admits that the nation that developed passenger railroads, England -- with the 1830 inauguration of the Liverpool & Manchester Railway -- is far behind France in the development of high-speed bullet trains of the kind the Japanese pioneered in the 1960s and which have spread to France, Spain, Germany and many other countries. Needless to say, Britain's former colony, the U.S., is similarly handicapped at a time when passenger railroads are a heavily federal subsidized endangered species in the States but are undergoing a renaissance in the rest of the developed world.
Wolmar tempers his criticism by saying that freight railroads in the U.S. are thriving and vital, which is good, since the nation has the world's largest network in terms of mileage -- as befits a large, continental nation. Canada's situation mirrors that of the U.S., he says. Berkshire Hathaway CEO and investment legend Warren Buffett has enough faith in railroads to buy one, Burlington Northern Santa Fe.
According to Bloomberg News, Berkshire Hathaway Inc. made a deal to buy Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp. in November 2009, agreeing to purchase the 77.4 percent of the company it doesn't already own at $100 a share. The transaction, which would rank as the largest takeover in Berkshire's history, is valued at $44 billion. Buffett, the country’s richest man and one of the most influential market movers, is calling the purchase "an all-in wager on the economic future of the United States."
My childhood home in Rochelle, IL was next to the Burlington tracks and Rochelle, which pre-Amtrak had passenger service, is now freight-only, with a state-of-the-art intermodal transportation center, Union Pacific’s Global III Intermodal Facility. At the time it opened in 2003 it was Union Pacific's largest intermodal facility. The facility, where containers arriving from the West Coast by rail are transferred to trucks, takes advantage of the Hub City's location with two railroads (the other one is Chicago & North Western Railway, which crosses BNSF in a diamond crossing) and two Interstate highways. Rochelle is ideally located just 80 miles west of Chicago, showing that mortal enemies, trucks and railroads, can get along and thrive together.
Wolmar -- writing with a degree of enthusiasm that makes him sound like a true railfan (and railfans will really enjoy this book!) -- calls the development of railroads the most important invention of the second millennium. He celebrates railroads as the central innovation of the industrial revolution, releasing economic and social energies on a stupendous scale.
Wolmar (The Great Railway Disaster, Fire & Steam) chronicles the heroic age of railroad construction in the 19th century, with its mix of epic engineering and horrible exploitation. The death toll on the trans-Panamanian railroad project included a mass suicide by Chinese workers. Riding the early railroads, he notes, was almost as harrowing as building them, as passengers braved engine cinders that set their clothes on fire—and sometimes had to get out and push underpowered locomotives up steep grades.
The railroads' social impact was equally breathtaking, in Wolmar's telling: it brought city folk fresh milk, out-of-season produce, and commutes to the suburbs; spawned monopolies and spectacular corruption scandals; and played a crucial role in enabling the world wars and the Holocaust.
West Virginians will note the appearance in the book of a man whose name endures in one of the Mountain State's major cities, Huntington, named after Big Four railroad magnate Collis P. Huntington. Huntington and his three colleagues in the Central Pacific -- Leland Stanford, Mark Hopkins and Charles Crocker -- whose railroad joined with the Union Pacific in Utah in 1869 to create the first transcontinental U.S. linkage.
Actually, it wasn't the first transcontinental connection, Wolmar writes, that honor goes to the 47-mile-long Panama Railway, referred to above, the "railroad from hell" that was completed in 1855 and made the trip to the California goldfields much easier. The railroad, Wolmar points out, is one of the few that predates a canal, since canals in the U.S. and Britain and other countries were major transportation arteries long before the advent of the iron road.
The original Liverpool & Manchester Railway spanned 31 miles and thanks to self-taught railroad pioneer George Stephenson created what is considered to be the standard gauge -- the distance between the rails -- of four feet eight and a half inches -- for today's railways. It connected the country's largest port of Liverpool with the manufacturing city of Manchester and was an immediate success for both freight and passengers, spurring the growth of railroads in the nation that originated the industrial revolution.
The issue of differing gauges appears throughout the book as Wolmar writes how the Russians, for instance, had a different, wider gauge from the Germans, to hinder an easier invasion by their not-so-friendly neighbor. Australia had nothing to fear from a German invastion, but the various Australian states had different gauges, which held up a north-south crossing of the huge nation until only a few years ago.
General readers will enjoy "Blood, Iron, and Gold" and will learn about an important development in world history that all too often has been neglected or glossed over by many writers. Railfans, and I am one, will enjoy Wolmar's spritely written chronicle. And I'm hoping that we'll catch up with France and develop a network of high-speed railroads...I love railroads and I hate to fly! Unfortunately, it won't happen in my lifetime, since I'm old enough to remember pre-Amtrak trains and I live in a nation that seems to be permanently stuck on stupid.
Wolmar's web site: www.christianwolmar.co.uk
Publisher's web site: www.publicaffairsbooks.com
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