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History of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad

History of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad

436 Pages, 6.00 x 9.00 in

Paperback
9781557530660 | Published: August 1987

$29.95

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The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, which journalist Lucius Beebe once called the “Mother of Railroads,” was the brainchild of Baltimore city planners who hoped to outstrip New York in the race for western trade, wealth, and populace. Although Baltimore lost the race, it gave New York a run for its money early in the 19th century and certainly achieved many firsts: the first timetable in 1830, the first eight-wheel passenger coach in 1831, and right-of-way for the first telegraph in 1844. In later decades, it would be a pioneer in the introduction of electric locomotives, diesels, and air conditioning. Author of six earlier books about United States railroads, John F. Stover packs this narrative history with careful scholarship and colorful description which will appeal to the railroad buff and the professional historian, as well as to any reader who wishes to travel with the "Mother of Railroads" through an exciting period in United States history.

List of Illustrations
Pictures and Maps
Tables
Preface
I. A Tale of Three Cities
II. Baltimore Obtains a Railroad Charter
III. First Rails
IV. Cumberland-But No Further
V. On to the Ohio River
VI. Railroad Operations in the Fifties
VII. A Railroad at War
VIII. President Garrett Faces Postwar Problems
IX. Garrett Expands His Lines
X. Many Presidents and a Receivership
XI. A Reorganized Railroad Faces a New Century
XII. Daniel Willard Comes Aboard
XIII. The Baltimore and Ohio Goes to War
XIV. Prosperity and a Birthday Party
XV. The Depression Years
XVI. The Baltimore and Ohio Again Aids a Nation at War
XVII. Postwar Problems
XVIII. The Baltimore and Ohio Accepts the Diesel
XIX. The Simpson Era: Years of a Declining Traffic
XX. The Baltimore and Ohio Is Taken Over by the Chesapeake and Ohio
Appendices
Notes
Bibliography
Index

John F. Stover has published many journal articles as well as nine books, including American Railroads, The Life and Decline of American Railroad, and History of the Illinois Central Railroad. He is a fellow in the society of American Historians and has been a member of the editorial advisory board of Railroad History since 1970. In 1983 the Railway and Locomotive Historical Society awarded him the Senior Achievement Award in Railroad History.

"With clarity of purpose and critical analysis, John Stover a history of the nation’s first common carrier railway . . . . The story of technological change on the B&O is told with verve . . . from the ‘Tom Thumb’ to dieselization in the post-World War II years . . . . Scholars of the rail industry will be rewarded with new insights into expansion of the B&O in the Gilded Age, and its role in the ‘merger mania’ of the 1960’s." —Keith L. Bryant

". . . a well written, pleasant, and informative tour through the long history of the first railroad in the United States." —Journal of Economic History

"Public-relations-type works are ubiquitous, but this is the only scholarly account of a railroad that connected the East Coast and the Midwest." —The Journal of American History

"Stover has crafted a book that easily supercedes Edward Hungerford’s centennial history of the railroad and will long stand as the definitive work on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad." —Journal of Southern History

"A masterful book by one of the nation’s premier transportation historians, Stover’s history of the B&O deserves to be in every collection on railroads." —Register of the Kentucky Historical Society

"With the sure hand of one who has devoted a lifetime of research to the study of railroads, the author guides us through a century and a half of B&O history." —Locus

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