What do you think?
The Nickel Plate Road: The History of a Great Railroad
Book by Hampton, Taylor
398 pages, Paperback
First published February 1, 2001
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
November 20, 2025
This book is a detailed history of the New York, Chicago and St Louis Railroad and roads that it acquired. This history ends around the year 1947. Not many photos of steam locomotives, much to the dismay of the railfan.
December 30, 2022
What we have is a bit different from what Goodreads thinks. My copy has been with me since 1969 when I discovered it among the thousands of treasures contained in The Main Street Fair Book Booth of the Chestnut Hill Hospital. Back then, the volunteers would be sorting and marking books as a few cognoscenti were browsing the tables and racks. My book was published by
The World Publishing Company
Cleveland 2, Ohio
The first print was December 1947,
the second was December 1949.
It is copyrighted by The New York, Chicago and St. Louis Railroad Company...
(also known as The Nickel Plate Road)
With that out of the way, let me note the delights within. First, many photographs of trains and the men who owned and piloted the companies which were railroads in north central United States from 1880 onward. The NYCSL's history obviously ended in 1947 in terms of the book, but the Road continued until 1964 when The Norfolk & Western took the reins. They held on until 1986 when they joined with The Southern Railway to form the Norfolk & Southern.
Among the nuggets here are dozens of newspaper stories. They give contemporary accounts of mergers, disputes, rumors, etc., valuable for both historical facts and as a window into the reportorial mind. I wonder if today's readers could understand the vocabulary or syntax.
Lavished upon the page are mini-biographies of men (all are men) who wrangled the stock shares, loans, and management chores of a half dozen rail companies. There are no pictures of the people who cleared the rights of way or put in the sleepers or laid track. Everything in this history is at the corporate/financial level. We do have balance sheets, stock certificates and other arcana. For a picture of how things got done in America from 1880 to the 1940s, this is an art museum.
The World Publishing Company
Cleveland 2, Ohio
The first print was December 1947,
the second was December 1949.
It is copyrighted by The New York, Chicago and St. Louis Railroad Company...
(also known as The Nickel Plate Road)
With that out of the way, let me note the delights within. First, many photographs of trains and the men who owned and piloted the companies which were railroads in north central United States from 1880 onward. The NYCSL's history obviously ended in 1947 in terms of the book, but the Road continued until 1964 when The Norfolk & Western took the reins. They held on until 1986 when they joined with The Southern Railway to form the Norfolk & Southern.
Among the nuggets here are dozens of newspaper stories. They give contemporary accounts of mergers, disputes, rumors, etc., valuable for both historical facts and as a window into the reportorial mind. I wonder if today's readers could understand the vocabulary or syntax.
Lavished upon the page are mini-biographies of men (all are men) who wrangled the stock shares, loans, and management chores of a half dozen rail companies. There are no pictures of the people who cleared the rights of way or put in the sleepers or laid track. Everything in this history is at the corporate/financial level. We do have balance sheets, stock certificates and other arcana. For a picture of how things got done in America from 1880 to the 1940s, this is an art museum.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews