Americas Deadliest Avalanche

[Maz066]

I have just finished reading
The White Cascade: The Great Northern Railway Disaster and America's Deadliest Avalanche.
I enjoyed it immensely. It got me thinking, as an Aussie I know our railways in Oz, I have read heaps on Britain's railway history especially the GWR but I know nothing of US railroads other than isolated books and articles on locomotives.
Is there any publication that goes into the history of US railroads (preferable an E-book) or for that matter interesting railroad stories such as railroads in the civil war

[GeoffAlan2]

I can presis any such book.
They copied the UK, didn't make the mistake of a tight loading gauge, and laid a lot of track fast and dirty.

[Mountain Goat]

They often had great difficulties in the terrain they needed to work through. Some of their railway terms used were the origional terms used in the Uk in the early 1800's, like Railroad and Turnout.
I may also add to the idea of a more generous loading gauge was that they also from quite an early time decided to adopt a heavy duty coupling which also had brake pipes so unlike the UK, they had braking on the majority of their stock operating from the locomotive more or less as standard. In thw UK this wasn't really fully achieved until the very early 1990's. One railway near me used unfitted wagons in rakes of 50 to 60 a time until the mid 1980's. Most of rhe UK's railway system was a mix between unfitted, air, vacuum, through piped (No brakes except the compulsary handbrake but piped to allow other braked wagons to receive braking) and air and vacuum braked. The decade of the 1980's here was the period in which the push to change all stock to air braking took effect.
The UK, especially certain areas of the UK, made the change from wooden viaducts to other longer lasting materials at an earlier date. One of the last was near where I live which was finally changed around eight years ago. The red cedar wood was especially shipped to the site from the USA back in the 1850's (Approx.) by paddle steam ship if I recall correctly. It certainly lasted!
In certain drier parts of the USA which don't suffer from the same damp issues that we can get here, their bridges lasted and lasted with an occasional mountainous railway adorned with several examples. I love the look of these impressive structures. They are designed to flex. Something I have often considered making in model form!