Railway Barons

Osprey Publishing. Very Good/Very Good. 1979. First Edition. Hard Cover. 8vo 0850453216 Dust jacket complete, unclipped. Original cloth boards with bright gilt titling on spine. No ownership marks. A few spots on end papers.248 pages clean and tight. Dimensions: 24 x 16.2 x 2.6 cm. The Industrial Revolution of the nineteenth century is one of the great watersheds in world history. Of all the achievements of that remarkable era, none were greater than those so-called railway barons - hard thrusting entrepreneurs who covered the world with a web of iron and steel. Often of humble origin, their drive and ambition won them fame and fortune, and the railways of today survive as a lasting monument to their success. David Mountfield begins by describing the railway mania that swept Britain, Europe and the USA from the 1830s onwards, and then charts the careers of six entrepreneurs whose achievements really justify the title of `baron': Thomas Brassey and George Hudson in Britain, and James Hill, Edward Harriman, Jay Gould and Jim Fisk in the USA. The drama and passion of this turbulent age, with the occasional touch of scandal, is vividly conveyed, with all the atmosphere of those far-off pioneering days when an 'improbable rascal' could run a railway from an opera house. .