Train: Riding the Rails That Created the Modern World--from the Trans-Siberian to the Southwest Chief

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Overview

A revelatory, entertaining account of the world’s most indispensable mode of transportation

Tom Zoellner loves trains with a ferocious passion. In his new book he chronicles the innovation and sociological impact of the railway technology that changed the world, and could very well change it again.

From the frigid trans-Siberian railroad to the antiquated Indian Railways to the futuristic MagLev trains, Zoellner offers a stirring story of man’s relationship with trains. Zoellner examines both the mechanics of the rails and their engines and how they helped societies evolve. Not only do trains transport people and goods in an efficient manner, but they also reduce pollution and dependency upon oil. Zoellner also considers America’s culture of ambivalence to mass transit, using the perpetually stalled line between Los Angeles and San Francisco as a case study in bureaucracy and public indifference.

Train presents both an entertaining history of railway travel around the world while offering a serious and impassioned case for the future of train travel.

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What People Are Saying

From the Publisher

“Tom Zoellner's writing is never less than engaging; in Train he has made himself a veritable Walt Whitman of rail travel. It's a great read.”
—Richard Rhodes, Pulitzer prize-winning author of The Making of the Atomic Bomb

“Train is such a pleasure to read, elegant, deeply informed and smart, full of knowledge-bearing sentences, and prose so companionable and rich in insight that it is as if its author were at your shoulder, taking you along with him. What an enjoyable journey. I will never hear the far off moan of a train in the night without thinking of it, and I know of no higher praise one can give a book. Tom Zoellner is quickly making himself a reputation as a man of wide and eclectic interests, and oh, my! Can he write!”
—Richard Bausch

From the Publisher

Praise for Train:

“Tom Zoellner's writing is never less than engaging; in Train he has made himself a veritable Walt Whitman of rail travel. It's a great read.” —Richard Rhodes, Pulitzer prize-winning author of The Making of the Atomic Bomb “Train is such a pleasure to read, elegant, deeply informed and smart, full of knowledge-bearing sentences, and prose so companionable and rich in insight that it is as if its author were at your shoulder, taking you along with him. What an enjoyable journey. I will never hear the far off moan of a train in the night without thinking of it, and I know of no higher praise one can give a book. Tom Zoellner is quickly making himself a reputation as a man of wide and eclectic interests, and oh, my! Can he write!” —Richard Bausch, author of Peace

“Spirited and bighearted...Zoellner enlightens us about an industry that’s hiding in plain sight.”—San Francisco Chronicle

“Highly entertaining, lucid and perceptive....It’s a train lover’s celebration of the great epic story of rail travel itself.”—Los Angeles Times

“This is one of those all-too-rare books that have so much to them”—The Washington Times

“[Train] is a gracefully written, densely detailed meditation of trains—past, present and future....[P]art travelogue, as he rides seven train that shaped the modern world; part personal memoir, as he describes the people he met along the way; and part history of trains, from their origin to their impact on societies around the world and their vital role in the fast-forward 21st century.”—LA Weekly

"An absorbing and lively reflection on an enduring marvel of modern industrial technology."—Booklist

“Train makes for fascinating reading….The author’s easy, breezy style will keep readers chugging along.”—The St. Louis Post-Dispatch

“Zoellner illustrates how the modern era was ushered in and strapped in place by railroads, and how trains—the reality and the idea—continue to shape the world as we understand it….Train is by turns lyrical, powerful, romantic, transporting, and rich.”—Phoenix New Times

"[Train], rich with history and local color, is a mesmerizing read for anyone interested in the impact of trains on the environment, politics, economics, and daily life around the world today."—Library Journal

“Enchanting and informative.”—New York Post

“[Train] is an absorbing round-the-world journey.”—BookPage

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Editorial Reviews

From Barnes & Noble

"A veritable Walt Whitman of rail travel" is how historian Richard Rhodes characterized the author of this book. These words are not mere hyperbole: Fred Zoellner articulates his impressive expertise and enthusiasm in such persuasive ways that even a brisk perusal of his rich text will tempt readers to board the next available passenger train. One of the best mass transportation books of recent years.

The New York Times Book Review - Joshua Hammer

Tom Zoellner's Train…is an engaging attempt to recapture the power and poetry of train travel.

Publishers Weekly

04/21/2014
Author and educator Zoellner may love trains more than any man alive. In his traveler's guide and history of railroading, Zoellner journeys to the world's forgotten locomotive landmarks, riding the rails as much as humanly possible "to see the flickering landscape through their eyes" and brings the reader a unique perspective on the past, present, and future of locomotion. He begins with the earliest European railroads and details the effects trains have had on countries like India—spurred to international prominence through British-built tracks—and the jolting manner in which high-speed trains have evolved in the twenty-first century—applauded in Spain and Japan, hotly debated in the United States. Zoellner's pro-train bias is never unclear as he often launches into rhapsodic prose; passages like "the softest glow in the world…making the horizon smudgy with obscure whites and grays" are common, and the author recounts many experiences with fellow passengers that support his portrayal of trains as a bastion of whirlwind socialization. Perhaps too much attention is paid to this romantic depiction at the expense of solid answers about the usefulness of trains today, but Zoellner still constructs an absorbing history lesson that allows readers to draw their own conclusions. (Feb.)

Library Journal

02/01/2014
Journalist and author Zoellner, who wrote about the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords (A Safeway in Arizona) and "the most powerful element in the world" (Uranium), takes to the rails in seven countries in this book. He looks at the state of this often underrated but essential mode of transportation, in places as different and far apart as Peru, India, Russia, the UK, Spain, China, and the United States. The author mixes his fascination for trains and the conversations he has with his fellow travelers (railway workers and enthusiasts, commuters, and Russian soldiers are just a few of the many people he meets) into a detailed story told with knowledge and enthusiasm. While the train has been used as a political tool in China, where the government has finally brought its massive railway network to Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, in an attempt to defuse the movement for independence, Spain has become the envy of other modern nations with its fast-growing infrastructure of bullet trains. VERDICT Zoellner's story, rich with history and local color, is a mesmerizing read for anyone interested in the impact of trains on the environment, politics, economics, and daily life around the world today.—Linda M. Kaufmann, Massachusetts Coll. of Liberal Arts Lib., North Adams

Kirkus Reviews

2013-12-08
A rousing around-the-world paean to the rumble of the rails by accomplished journalist Zoellner (A Safeway in Arizona: What the Gabrielle Giffords Shooting Tells Us About the Grand Canyon State and Life in America, 2011, etc.). The author, who commutes by train to his teaching job in Los Angeles, notes their utility in moving people and freight. Also, Zoellner finds trains good places to fall in love, if fleetingly, and to get reading and thinking done. Some of the things he thinks about are--well, things that it hasn't occurred to other writers to ask about, such as the decidedly detrimental effects human excrement has on the rail lines of India: First, it eats away at the metal, and then it attracts insects that eat rail ties, telephone and signal poles, and even railroad cars themselves. (The Hindi word for "this universal human output" is goo.) Mostly, Zoellner concentrates on less icky topics, and often to memorable effect, as when he writes of a foggy journey through northern England, "a J.R.R. Tolkien vision come to life" and an "eldritch scene" to boot. England may be a land of plains and valleys "with an occasional volcanic knob on which the ruins of a fortress might be standing and one where the occupants had almost certainly sucked all the wealth from the surrounding fields and converted it into magnificent furniture and swords," but America, with its continentally vast distances, has much catching up to do--for one thing, trains travel much slower here than they do elsewhere in the world. Having train-hopped across continents, Zoellner closes his account with a cleareyed look at what needs to happen in America if trains are to have a future--it will involve considerable infusions of money and overcoming vested-interest opposition. Great for fans of Paul Theroux's railroad journeys, except that Zoellner isn't anywhere near as ill-tempered, and he has a better command of social history. A pleasure for literate travelers.

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Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780670025282
Publisher: Viking Adult
Publication date: 1/30/2014
Pages: 384
Sales rank: 97616
Product dimensions: 6.10 (w) x 9.30 (h) x 2.30 (d)

Meet the Author

Tom Zoellner is the author of four previous nonfiction books, including Uranium, winner of the 2011 American Institute of Physics Science Writing Award. He is an Associate Professor at Chapman University and lives in downtown Los Angeles.

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Train: Riding the Rails That Created the Modern World--from the Trans-Siberian to the Southwest Chief

Overview

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Available on NOOK devices and apps NOOK Devices Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 NOOK NOOK HD/HD+ Tablet NOOK NOOK Color NOOK Tablet Tablet/Phone NOOK for Windows 8 Tablet NOOK for iOS NOOK for Android NOOK Kids for iPad PC/Mac NOOK for Windows 8 NOOK for PC NOOK for Mac NOOK for Web

All Available Formats & Editions

Customers Who Bought This Also Bought

More About This Book

Overview

Editorial Reviews

From Barnes & Noble

The New York Times Book Review - Joshua Hammer

Publishers Weekly

Library Journal

Kirkus Reviews

Product Details

Related Subjects

Meet the Author

Customer Reviews

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Available on NOOK devices and apps

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