The World the Trains Made presents one hundred specimens of railroad architecture, from terminals and trestles to roundhouses and workers’ tenements. The photographs are splendid and so is the writing; Dilts may have set out to write an informative history but he has given us something even better, a poignant and unforgettable love letter to the train station.
James D. Dilts
James D. Dilts, a railroad and architectural historian, was a former reporter for the Baltimore Sun, where he covered housing and transportation. His previous books include The Great Road: The Building of the Baltimore and Ohio, the Nation’s First Railroad, 1828–1853; A Guide to Baltimore Architecture (with John R. Dorsey); and Baltimore’s Cast-Iron Buildings and Architectural Ironwork (with Catharine F. Black). He wrote the entries “Architecture” and “Workers’ Housing” in the Encyclopedia of North American Railroads.
