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The Northeast Corridor David Alff

The Northeast Corridor By David Alff

The Northeast Corridor by David Alff

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The Northeast Corridor Summary

The Northeast Corridor: The Trains, the People, the History, the Region by David Alff

All aboard for the first comprehensive history of the hard-working and wildly influential Northeast Corridor.

Traversed by thousands of trains and millions of riders, the Northeast Corridor might be Americas most famous railway, but its influence goes far beyond the right-of-way. David Alff welcomes readers aboard to see how nineteenth-century train tracks did more than connect Boston to Washington, DC. They transformed hundreds of miles of Atlantic shoreline into a political capital, a global financial hub, and home to fifty million people. The Northeast Corridor reveals how freight trains, commuter rail, and Amtrak influencedand in turn were shaped bycenturies of American industrial expansion, metropolitan growth, downtown decline, and revitalization.

Paying as much attention to Aberdeen, Trenton, New Rochelle, and Providence as to New York City, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, Alff provides narrative thrills for history buffs, train enthusiasts, and adventurers alike. Whats more, he offers a glimpse into the future of the corridor. New infrastructural planssupported by President Joe Biden, famously Amtraks biggest fanenvision ever-faster trains zipping along technologically advanced rails. Yet those tracks will literally sit atop a history that links the life of Frederick Douglass, who fled to freedom by boarding a train in Baltimore, to the Frederick Douglass Tunnel, which is expected to be the newest link in the corridor by 2032.

Trains have long made the places that make America, and they still do.

The Northeast Corridor Reviews

"If you have ever ridden to or from any of the twenty or so Amtrak stations between Boston and Washington, DC, you need to read this book. Unlike most of the other great rail corridors on the planet, this one has a long and distinguished history. After his assassination, Abraham Lincoln's body moved slowly up the Northeast Corridor past hundreds of thousands of mourners in 1865. That same narrow route now houses 17 percent of the nation's people and accounts for 20 percent of its trade in 2020, although it occupies much less than 2 percent of America's land area. None of the other great track routes in the world offer so many contrasts or so much history. Adding icing to this cake, David Alff is an engaging writer who tells an engaging story." -- Kenneth T. Jackson, Columbia University
In the more than two hundred years since dreamers first proposed laying tracks along todays Northeast Corridor, no one has tried to tell its story from the start through the presentuntil now. Alff weaves together an engrossing narrative of the visionary leaders, engineering feats, and fast trains that made the Northeast Corridor our nations most important transportation artery. The Northeast Corridor is a must-read for both historians and the new generation of dreamers envisioning the corridors future. -- Richard G. Slattery, Amtrak
A world-class public works project, the sinuous shaper of colossal forces over four centuries, the Northeast Corridor here finds superb analytical scrutiny. -- John R. Stilgoe, author of "What Is Landscape?"
The Northeast Corridor is many things at once: a train buffs cornucopia of delight, an authoritative and carefully researched social history, and a captivating read for anyone interested in what makes America tick, all of it enlivened by vivid and often witty prose. All aboard! -- Les Standiford, author of "Last Train to Paradise: Henry Flagler and the Spectacular Rise and Fall of the Railroad That Crossed an Ocean"
"David Alff employs a historical perspective to explain how trains became essential, if frustrating, fixtures of the bustling metropolises from the Mid-Atlantic to New England. He delves into the political decision-making and compromises that made the corridor what it now is and considers how transformative planned upgrades could be." * Bloomberg *

About David Alff

David Alff is associate professor of English at the State University of New York at Buffalo. He is the author of The Wreckage of Intentions: Projects in British Culture,1660-1730.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Greatest Asset

I. Traces
1: A Somewhere-Else Feeling
2: Promising Passage
3: The Great Chain

II. Power
4: A Tale of Two Empires
5: Terminal Zones
6: Wiring the Coast

III. Rust
7: Runaway
8: Flagging through Sprawl
9: The Great Society Derails

IV. Return
10: Improvising Amtrak
11: Battle Lines
12: After Rubble

Coda: Reborn Again

Acknowledgments
Notes
Index

Additional information

NGR9780226822839
9780226822839
0226822834
The Northeast Corridor: The Trains, the People, the History, the Region by David Alff
David Alff
New
Hardback
The University of Chicago Press
2024-04-19
280
N/A
Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
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