Table of Illustrations

A train rounding the base of Anthony's Nose, in the Washington Irving Country

First Mohawk & Hudson ticket office at Albany

The "Experiment", for which Jervis invented the pivoted front truck

An oddity built by David Matthew for the Mohawk & Hudson

An 1842 fare advertisement for the Mohawk & Hudson Railroad

"Lightning", Utica & Schenectady speed demon with 7‑foot drivers

Batavia: one of the earliest locomotives of the Tonawanda Railroad, 1837

President, an early McQueen locomotive on the New York Central

First Central Station at Rochester

New York Central Pioneers

Early Stations
First Mohawk & Hudson Station at Schenectady, 1831
Syracuse, 1839
Detroit
Cleveland
Indianapolis
Columbus
New York & Harlaem-New Haven station (1857‑70)

Mohawk & Hudson advertisement, 1834; and Michigan Central announcement of 1840

First bridge across the Hudson at Albany, opened 1866

Lincoln funeral train leaving New York via Hudson River Railroad, 1865

A New York & Harlaem snow-plow, 1870

Granite and strap iron rail laid on New York & Harlaem track, 1832

Tryon Row Station of the New York & Harlaem, 1839

The Champlain, one of the six original engines of the Hudson River Railroad

A Lake Shore poster of 1870

NYC & HR bridge over Harlem River, 1875

Wooden viaduct between Observatory Hill tunnel and the Harlem River in the 1870's

Michigan Central poster of 1870

Utica & Black River Railroad station at Utica in 1865

The Bee Line, still using some inside-drive locomotives in the 1860s

The all-white Fast Mail Train of 1875

The Croton, a Hudson River speedster of 1851

A Hudson River Railroad mail train advertisement, 1853

An illustrated weekly artist's idea of a New York Central sleeping car in the 1860's

Michigan Central passenger car about 1848

Anti-Vanderbilt Cartoon from the Canadian Illustrated News, 1876

The Vanderbilt Dynasty

"Septuple-header" with snow-plow, between Rochester and Syracuse during snow blockade of 1877

The Ashtabula Disaster (a contemporaneous image montage)

Niagara Suspension Bridge, completed in 1855

Michigan Central train stop at Falls View, or Inspiration Point, to give passengers a look at Niagara

Michigan Southern & Northern Indiana conductors in 1864

Grand Central Station yardmaster, switch tower and dispatcher, as seen by Leslie's Weekly in 1889

Two dining car menu headings of the 1870's

First advertisement of the Erie & Kalamazoo, 1837

First train on the Erie & Kalamazoo, 1837: the so‑called "Gothic" passenger car

Governor Marcy, a Michigan Southern & Northern Indiana wood-burner

Vulcan, an all-driver machine of the Buffalo & State Line Railroad

Dedication of the St. Johns Park freight terminal, 1869

Weehawken yards of the West Shore in 1885, and West Shore locomotive No. 1

Upper Park Avenue in the 1870's, with the railroad underneath

First Grand Central Station, completed in 1871

Locomotives of Yesteryear

Railroad Presidents

A pass signed by the Commodore himself

The Saxon, a Lake Shore & Michigan Southern speed king in the 1880's

Sandusky, the Mad River & Lake Erie's first locomotive, which set the track gauge for all Ohio

NYC trains for decades traversed the main street of Syracuse

Freight trains used to creep through Eleventh Avenue in New York preceded by a red-flagged herald on horseback

A Toledo & Ohio Central freight train braving the flood of 1889

What the great flood of 1913 did at West Columbus

The Twentieth Century Limited

The silver-steel Empire State Express

Pacemaker, the rose-and‑gray, mile-a‑minute freight train, here 75 cars long

Modern Stations

A Bee Line handbill of 1884

Grand Central Station: Exterior

Grand Central Station: The Concourse

Modern Locomotives and a Rail Car

Recent Executives and a Passenger Agent

The World's most famous Train

First advertisement of Red Cap service, 1896