The number of books I could have consulted is virtually limitless. In this note I have confined myself to the more important sources. I have divided them into the general historical works whose authors appreciated the railways’ importance and more specialist ‘railway works’, mostly by authors who showed some understanding of the world beyond the footplate. I have omitted works quoted directly in the notes.
GENERAL HISTORIES
Blainey, Geoffrey, The Tyranny of Distance (Melbourne 1962)
Carr, Raymond, Spain 1808–1939 (Oxford 1966)
Carosso, Vincent, Investment Banking in America (Boston 1970)
Les Chemins de Fer Suisses après un siècle (Bern 1949–67)
Giedion, Siegfried, Mechanization Takes Command (New York 1948)
Gross, Nahum, Austro-Hungary in the world economy (Jerusalem)
Henderson, W. O., The State and the Industrial Revolution in Prussia (London 1958)
Hobsbawm, Eric, The Age of Capital 1848–1878 (London 1975)
——The Age of Empire (London 1987)
Klingender, Francis D., Art & the Industrial Revolution (London 1968)
Landes, David S., The Unbound Prometheus (Cambridge 1969)
Macartney, C. A., The Hapsburg Empire 1790–1918 (London 1969)
Marx, Leo, The Machine in the Garden; Technology and the Pastoral Ideal in America (New York 1964)
Mumford, Lewis, Technics & Civilisation (London 1934)
——The Culture of Cities (London 1938)
——The City in History (London 1961)
Poppino, Rollie E., Brazil, the Land and the People (New York 1973)
Price, Roger, The Modernisation of Rural France (London 1983)
Scobie, James R., Revolution on the Pampas (Austin, Texas 1964)
——Argentina, A City and a Nation (Oxford 1971)
Stern, Fritz, Gold and Iron (London 1977)
Weber, Eugen, Peasants into Frenchmen (London 1977)
Woodruff, William, The Impact of Western Man (London 1966)
A HANDFUL OF SPECIFICALLY RAILWAY
BOOKS WERE PARTICULARLY HELPFUL:
Baroli, Marc, Le Train dans la Littérature Française (Paris 1969)
Berton, Pierre, The Impossible Railway (New York 1972)
——The Promised Land, Settling the West 1896–1914 (Toronto 1984)
Coleman, Terry, The Railway Navvies (London 1965)
Holbrook, Stewart H., The Story of American Railroads (New York 1947)
Huenemann, R. W., The Dragon & the Iron Horse, the Economics of Railroads in China 1876–1937 (Cambridge, Mass. 1984)
Kellett, John R., The Impact of Railways on Victorian Cities (London 1969)
Klein, Maury, History of the Louisville & Nashville Railroad (New York 1972)
——The Life and Legend of Jay Gould (Baltimore 1986)
——Union Pacific (Baltimore 1987)
Miller, Charles, Lunatic Express (London 1971)
Richards, Jeffry & Mackenzie, John M., The Railway Station, a Social History (Oxford 1986)
Robbins, Michael, The Railway Age (London 1962)
Schievelbusch, Wolfgang, The Railway Journey, The Industrialization of Time and Space in the 19th century (Berkeley 1969)
Simmons, Jack, The Railway in Town and Country 1830–1914 (Newton Abbot 1986)
Stover, John F., Life & Decline of the American Railroad (Oxford 1970)
Theroux, Paul, The Great Patagonian Express (London 1980)
——Riding the Iron Rooster (London 1988)
Tupper, Harmon, To the Great Ocean (London 1965)
Ward, James A., Railroads and the Character of America 1820–1887 (Knoxville, Tenn. 1986)
Westwood, J. N., A History of Russian Railways (London 1964)
Williams, John Hoyt, A Great and Shining Road (New York 1988)
OTHER GENERAL RAILWAY BOOKS
Andrews, Cyril B., The Railway Age (London 1937)
Arnautovic, Dragomir, Histoire des Chemins de Fer Yugoslaves (Paris 1937)
Bagwell, Philip, The Transport Revolution from 1770 (London 1974)
Berghaus, Erwin, The History of Railways (London 1964)
Blanchard, Marcel, Geographie des Chemins de Fer (Paris 1942)
Botkin, B. A. & Harlow, Alvin F., A Treasury of Railroad Folklore (New York 1953)
Caron, François, Histoire de l’exploitation d’un grand réseau (Paris 1973)
Carr, Samuel, The Poetry of Railways (London 1978)
Chandler, Alfred, The Visible Hand (Cambridge, Mass. 1977)
Clark, W. H., The Story of Inland Transportation (Boston 1939)
Cochran, Thomas, Railroad Leaders, 1845–1890 (Cambridge, Mass. 1953)
Cohen, Norm, Long Steel Rail, the railroad in American folklore (Urbana, Illinois, 1981)
Currie, A. W., Economy of Canadian transportation (Toronto 1954)
——Economic Geography of Canada (Toronto 1945)
Dmitriev-Mamonov, Guide to the Great Siberian Railway (1900, reprinted Newton Abbot 1971)
Far, André de la, Les chemins de fer dans la vie des hommes (Paris 1972)
Fawcett, Brian, Railways of the Andes (London 1963)
Hopkins, Kenneth, The Poetry of Railways (London 1966)
Kalla-Bishop, P. M., Italian Railways (Newton Abbot 1971)
——Hungarian Railways (Newton Abbot 1973)
Kennedy, Ludovic, A Book of Railway Journeys (London 1981)
Kirkland, Edward, Men, Cities & Transportation (New York 1948)
——Business in the Gilded Age (Madison, Wisc. 1952)
Lamalle, Ulysse, Histoire des Chemins de Fer Belges (Brussels 1943)
Legg, Stuart, The Railway Book (London 1952)
Lewis, Oscar, The Big Four (New York 1938)
Middlemas, R. K., The Master Builders (London 1963)
O’Dell, Charles, Railways and Geography (London 1956)
Overton, Richard, Burlington West (Cambridge, Mass. 1941)
Parry, Albert, Whistler’s Father (New York 1939)
Perpillou, M., Géographie de la Circulation (Paris 1953)
Peyret, Henri, Les Chemins de Fer en France et dans le monde (Paris 1949)
Sandstrom, Gosta, The History of Tunnelling (London 1963)
Taylor, George R., The Transportation Revolution 1815–1860 (New York 1951)
Vallance, H. A., The railway enthusiast’s bedside book (London 1966)
Van Onselen, Lennox, Head of Steel (Cape Town 1962)
Walker, Charles, Thomas Brassey, Railway builder (London 1969)
Wheeler, Keith, The Railroaders (New York 1973)
Wright, M. C., (ed.), China in Revolution (New Haven 1968)
Yat-Sen, Sun, The International Development of China, 1922