Written for a more adult audience, this booklet focuses on the benefits provided by the railroads while neglecting to mention or painting over the scandals, controversies, and financial panics brought about by their construction and operation. A series of maps shows rail lines in every decade from 1830 to 1890 plus 1958. There is also a curious map showing all the land in the country that is more than 25 miles from a rail line, which mainly consists of land in the West and northern Maine.

Click image to download a 13.0-MB PDF of this 36-page booklet.

The booklet uses many of the photos found in Railroads at Work, but some are new. For example, a photo of the interior of an observation car on page 25 appears to be taken of the 1956 Denver Zephyr, while the observation car in the earlier booklet was from the 1947 Empire Builder (and therefore also the 1951 Western Star).