It's Monday, What are You Reading? Rival Rails

It's Monday, What are You Reading? 

Rival Rails

This is the sixteenth entry for this meme, suggested by Sheila@ One Persons Journey Through A World of Books.


I am still working on Private Life by Jane Smily on the Kindle, about 45%, it says. I read it waiting for my wife in the Doctor's Office, the Lab work, and Urgent care, etc. Good waiting room reading. I like this kind of reading for these situations.

While in Colorado, Estes Park, at McDonald's Bookstore, I saw a new book that was going to have a book signing (after we were to live) at the local library by Dr. Walter R. Borneman. The title of the book is: "Rival Rails: The race to build America's greatest transcontinental railroad."

This is the review from Amazon by Jay Freeman for BookList:

Before the Civil War, the most logical route for the planned transcontinental railroad was across the southern plains and the deserts of the southwest. Instead, for reasons more political than economic, the more northerly route was selected, and the two strands were joined at Promontory Point, Utah, in 1868. Almost immediately, the competition began for the rights to build a web of lines across the southern route. Borneman, a historian and attorney, has written an interesting, if uneven, chronicle of the political as well as physical struggles to complete these tasks. He profiles numerous competing companies and their sponsors, and he describes their often cutthroat tactics and greed. Eventually, two large companies, the Southern Pacific and the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe, squeezed out or absorbed other competitors. When he sticks to the actual process of construction, Borneman’s narrative is brisk, colorful, and exciting. It drags and confuses when it deals with the machinations in corporate board rooms. Still, this is a worthy look at a less-publicized aspect of railroad construction. --Jay Freeman

Happy Reading!

Bill  ;-)