The Northeast Corridor

Reviews / Votes

"If you have ever ridden to or from any of the twenty or so Amtrak stations between Boston and Washington, DC, you need to read this book. Unlike most of the other great rail corridors on the planet, this one has a long and distinguished history. After his assassination, Abraham Lincoln's body moved slowly up the Northeast Corridor past hundreds of thousands of mourners in 1865. That same narrow route now houses 17 percent of the nation's people and accounts for 20 percent of its trade in 2020, although it occupies much less than 2 percent of America's land area. None of the other great track routes in the world offer so many contrasts or so much history. Adding icing to this cake, David Alff is an engaging writer who tells an engaging story." -- Kenneth T. Jackson, Columbia University "In the more than two hundred years since dreamers first proposed laying tracks along today's Northeast Corridor, no one has tried to tell its story from the start through the present-until now. Alff weaves together an engrossing narrative of the visionary leaders, engineering feats, and fast trains that made the Northeast Corridor our nation's most important transportation artery. The Northeast Corridor is a must-read for both historians and the new generation of dreamers envisioning the corridor's future." -- Richard G. Slattery, Amtrak "A world-class public works project, the sinuous shaper of colossal forces over four centuries, the Northeast Corridor here finds superb analytical scrutiny." -- John R. Stilgoe, author of "What Is Landscape?" "The Northeast Corridor is many things at once: a train buff's cornucopia of delight, an authoritative and carefully researched social history, and a captivating read for anyone interested in what makes America tick, all of it enlivened by vivid and often witty prose. All aboard!" -- Les Standiford, author of "Last Train to Paradise: Henry Flagler and the Spectacular Rise and Fall of the Railroad That Crossed an Ocean" "David Alff employs a historical perspective to explain how trains became essential, if frustrating, fixtures of the bustling metropolises from the Mid-Atlantic to New England. He delves into the political decision-making and compromises that made the corridor what it now is and considers how transformative planned upgrades could be." * Bloomberg * ". . . a chronicle filled with reliably fascinating facts." * The Wall Street Journal * "Alff - an English professor at SUNY Buffalo - has put together a history of northeast corridor train service and shows that few of the problems that we're facing now are new, and almost all of them are rooted in a confluence of cut corners and short-sighted, strategy-free decision making." * New Jersey Monitor * "a fascinating book of history and, of course, a portent for the future . . . ." * Peter Greenberg, Eye on Travel * "A masterful summation of how the current corridor came to be. Broad and wide ranging, yet well researched and detailed, it takes the reader on a journey through time the same way a train takes a passenger on a journey through space. Those familiar with transportation history and the history of the corridor from scholars like Churella and Stilgoe will not find much new here, but the presentation is remarkable. Easily readable and gently flowing prose makes details of electric locomotives, political deals, and corporate stock shenanigans accessible and relatable. This may just be the perfect book to read as your Amtrak train glides out of Washington Union station, crosses the Susquehanna, and dives beneath the Hudson River on its way to the heart of Manhattan." * Technology and Culture * "One mark of a great writer is an ability to produce beautiful prose even when describing life's passing banalities. . . . But I assure you this isn't some art-house meditation on the rail-scarred earth of the mid-Atlantic. Alff has produced a proper history of the eponymous rail line from Boston to Washington, D.C. that became early America's infrastructural backbone. And somehow, he managed to pack it into a book that's scarcely more than 250 pages, despite also providing an abundance of memorable digressions into the arts of rail-station architecture, bridge construction, and tunnel blasting." * Quillette *