Albert Churella 1084 pages hardcover
By 1933, the Pennsylvania Railroad had been in existence for nearly
ninety years. During this time, it had grown from a small line,
struggling to build west from the state capital in Harrisburg, to the
dominant transportation company in the United States. In Volume 2 of The Pennsylvania Railroad, Albert J. Churella continues his history of this giant of American transportation.
At
the beginning of the twentieth century, the Pennsylvania Railroad was
the world's largest business corporation and the nation's most important
railroad. By 1917, the Pennsylvania Railroad, like the nation itself,
was confronting a very different world. The war that had consumed Europe
since 1914 was about to engulf the United States. Amid unprecedented
demand for transportation, the federal government undertook the
management of the railroads, while new labor policies and new regulatory
initiatives, coupled with a postwar recession, would challenge the
company like never before. Only time would tell whether the years that
followed would signal a new beginning for the Pennsylvania Railroad or
the beginning of the end.
The Pennsylvania Railroad: The Age of Limits, 1917-1933, represents
an unparalleled look at the history, the personalities, and the
technologies of this iconic American company in a period that marked the
shift from building an empire to exploring the limits of their power.
