Author: Boston, Hoosac Tunnel and Western Railroad CompanyPublisher:
ISBN:
Category : Hoosac Tunnel (Mass.)
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
Boston, Hoosac Tunnel and Western Railroad Company
Author: Boston, Hoosac Tunnel and Western Railroad CompanyPublisher:
ISBN:
Category : Hoosac Tunnel (Mass.)
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
Buried Dreams
Author: Andrew R. BlackPublisher: LSU Press
ISBN: 0807174092
Category : Transportation
Languages : en
Pages : 249
Book Description
The Hoosac railroad tunnel in the mountains of northwestern Massachusetts was a nineteenth-century engineering and construction marvel, on par with the Brooklyn Bridge, Transcontinental Railroad, and Erie Canal. The longest tunnel in the Western Hemisphere at the time (4.75 miles), it took nearly twenty-five years (1851‒1875), almost two hundred casualties, and tens of millions of dollars to build. Yet it failed to deliver on its grandiose promise of economic renewal for the commonwealth, and thus is little known today. Andrew R. Black’s Buried Dreams refreshes public memory of the project, explaining how a plan of such magnitude and cost came to be in the first place, what forces sustained its completion, and the factors that inhibited its success. Black digs into the special case of Massachusetts, a state disadvantaged by nature and forced repeatedly to reinvent itself to succeed economically. The Hoosac Tunnel was just one of the state’s efforts in this cycle of decline and rejuvenation, though certainly the strangest. Black also explores the intense rivalry among Eastern Seaboard states for the spoils of western expansion in the post‒Erie Canal period. His study interweaves the lure of the West, the competition between Massachusetts and archrival New York, the railroad boom and collapse, and the shifting ground of state and national politics. The psychic makeup of Americans before and after the Civil War heavily influenced public perceptions of the tunnel; by the time it was finished, Black contends, the indomitable triumphalism that had given birth to the Hoosac had faded to skepticism and cynicism. Anticipated economic benefits never arrived, and Massachusetts eventually sold the tunnel for only a fraction of its cost to a private railroad company. Buried Dreams tells a story of America’s reckoning with the perils of impractical idealism, the limits of technology to bend nature to its will, and grand endeavors untempered by humility.
The Northern Traveller
Author: Theodore DwightPublisher:
ISBN:
Category : Canada
Languages : en
Pages : 514
Book Description
The Hoosac Tunnel Route Compared with the Western Railroad
Author: Alfred R. FieldPublisher:
ISBN:
Category : Hoosac Tunnel (Mass.)
Languages : en
Pages : 748
Book Description
History of the Hoosac Tunnel
Author: Orson DalrymplePublisher: North Adams, Mass. : O. Dalrymple
ISBN:
Category : Hoosac Tunnel
Languages : en
Pages : 30
Book Description
Railroads of New York's Capital District
Author: Timothy StarrPublisher: Arcadia Publishing
ISBN: 1467105600
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 128
Book Description
New York's Capital District was ideally situated to become one of the nation's earliest and most important transportation crossroads. The Mohawk River was the only water level gap in the Appalachian range to the west, which led to the construction of the Erie Canal. Soon after its completion, the state's first railroad began operating between Albany and Schenectady in 1831. Other pioneer railroads followed, heading north to Canada, south to New York City, west to Chicago, and east to Boston. Over the next century, railroads like the New York Central, Boston & Albany, Boston & Maine, and Delaware & Hudson built extensive passenger stations, freight and classification yards, and repair shops in the tri-city region. Passenger operations continue today at the Schenectady and Albany-Rensselaer Amtrak stations, while the Selkirk Yard is still an important classification point for CSX Transportation.
Annual Report
Author: New York (State). Board of Railroad CommissionersPublisher:
ISBN:
Category : Railroads
Languages : en
Pages : 692
Book Description
Documents
Author: Massachusetts. General Court. SenatePublisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 814
Book Description
Documents of the Senate of the State of New York
Author: New York (State). Legislature. SenatePublisher:
ISBN:
Category : Government publications
Languages : en
Pages : 710
Book Description
Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners of the State of New York for the Fiscal Year Ending ...
Author: New York (State). Board of Railroad CommissionersPublisher:
ISBN:
Category : Railroads
Languages : en
Pages : 708
Book Description