History of New York Central

If I wanted to purchase a book about the history of the NYC, which one (or more) would you recommend?

"The Road of the Century" by Alvin Harlow, published 1947, is a pretty comprehensive book. Used copies can be found on Amazon.com and Abebooks.com.

Two newer books on specific components of the NYC are:
"The Michigan Central Railroad: History of the Main Line 1846-1901" by Nicholas Marsh
"The Lake Shore & Michigan Southern Railway" by Dave McLellan and Bill Warrick

A source of "official" NYC history is the Canada Southern Railway website: http://www.canadasouthern.com/caso/home.htm
There are PDF files of the "New York Central Lines Magazine" from the 1920s & 30s: http://www.canadasouthern.com/caso/maga ... gazine.htm
and PDF files of the New York Central's Employee Magazine "HEADLIGHT" from 1940 to 1968: http://www.canadasouthern.com/caso/head ... dlight.htm

And another good source of NYC history is the New York Central System Historical Society's quarterly publication "Central Headlight"
http://www.nycshs.org/centralheadlight.html

I recommend:

"New York Central Railroad" by Brian Solomon

and

The New York Central System" by Michael Leavy.


Both available on-line and in some libraries. Loaded with great photographs, as well as being pretty good narrative histories.

Dear Ocala Mike and NYC_Dave:
Thanks for your inputs, I'll look for these books.
Regards,
Dave

I'll cast a second vote for Marsh's book on the Michigan Central. It's well-written with good maps, photographs, and an interesting color section of MC artifacts.

Here's another one for your consideration:
Simons, Richard S. and Francis H. Parker. Railroads of Indiana. The NYC had the most mileage operated, IIRC, of any railroad in Indiana. This book tells all about the NYC, how it developed in the Hoosier State, and what happened to amny of the lines that ran there. It was published in 1997 by Indiana University Press and, I believe, is still in print.

Work safe

nycdave1948 wrote:If I wanted to purchase a book about the history of the NYC, which one (or more) would you recommend?

New York Central is a big railroad. What part of it are you interested in? The one by Brian Solomon is a good overview...

http://www.amazon.com/York-Central-Rail ... 760329281/

I helped produce a book on a very specific aspect of NYC's history:

http://www.lulu.com/m497

Plus, I also produced a book with detailed information about the Putnam Division and the Yonkers Branch:

http://www.nywbry.com/forgotten/

-otto-