Landmarks on the Iron Road Railroad Engineering Bridges

Landmarks on the Iron Road

Two Centuries of North American Railroad Engineering

A lavishly illustrated engineering history of American railroads--bridges, mountain passes, tunnels, freight yards, docks and terminals--from pioneer times to the present.

American civil engineers were unsurpassed in their ability to build railroads over great distances and across high mountain passes, to erect great bridges, or to bore tunnels of prodigious length. There is a remarkable story of the application of engineering to the building of a transportation system that civilized and settled America, and then supported an industrial revolution and created a world power.

These spans needed to cross great rivers and deep canyons as well as bear weights unknown to earlier bridges. Bridges until that time were built much as they had been in Roman antiquity; to develop safe load-bearing bridges required much trial and error. It also required vision and experience, and Middleton's text is populated by a cast of brilliant, practical-minded men who figure little in standard histories of westward expansion but who were as important as any explorer or military leader in uniting the country. One such man was Wendel Bollman, a carpenter who developed a patented "suspension and trussed bridge" that was widely used along the Potomac, Ohio, and Mississippi rivers; another was J. E. Schwitzer, who adapted Swiss designs to the daunting conditions of the Rocky Mountains; still another was Theodore Dehone Judah, who built the first railroad along the tortuous California coast.

Middleton celebrates these and other bridge builders and their remarkable creations, many of which are still in use today. His text, illustrated with historic photographs and drawings, will be of much interest to railroad buffs.

Hardcover in excellent, clean condition with only minor shelf wear to the dust jacket

~ Photo is of actual Book ~   

~ PLEASE READ SHIPPING  BELOW ~

VISIT MY EBAY STORE FOR FABULOUS FINDS & GREAT DEALS!!

The Fine Print:

SHIPPING

Shipping is via your choice of USPS Priority or Media Mail. Please note that Media Mail can take 3-5 WEEKS to reach the Lower 48 States from ALASKA, as it travels by barge to Seattle First. Priority Mail takes 3-5 Days. Ebay's automatically inserted shipping time estimate is absolutely incorrect for Alaska Media Mail!!

I WILL HAPPILY COMBINE SHIPPING! 

~ $1 For Each Additional Book Via Media Mail ~

~ Please request an invoice from me before paying for multiple purchases~

I ship my books the 1st weekday after you pay in bubble padded 3M mailing envelopes for media mail. If you would like boxed shipping, please contact me before payment. Shipping costs may be higher due to the increased weight.

International Bidders, please e-mail me for shipping rates. I will ship to every country in the world via First Class or Priority International Mail, which generally takes 2 weeks, but could be longer or shorter depending upon the distance and customs times. 

Shipping rates to APO/FPO & US Military addresses is the same as the stated domestic rates.

Positive Feedback is always left automatically after it is received. 

 Payment is required within 7 days of the close of the auction.

Smoking Disclaimer: I am a smoker. I do not smoke in my home or around my items. However, I get my items from a variety of sources, and as a smoker I really can't tell by smell if the items I sell have lived previously in a smoking home. I also have a cat (Merlin), but I promise he doesn't smoke.