Almost ready!
In order to save audiobooks to your Wish List you must be signed in to your account.
Log in Create accountShop the sale
In celebration of Independent Bookstore Day, shop our limited-time sale on bestselling audiobooks from April 22nd-28th. Don’t miss out—purchases support your local bookstore!
Shop nowIron Rails, Iron Men, and the Race to Link the Nation
This audiobook uses AI narration.
We’re taking steps to make sure AI narration is transparent.
Learn moreExperience the race of rails to link the country—and meet the men behind this incredible feat—in a riveting story about the building of the transcontinental railroad, brought to life with archival photos.
In the 1850s, gold fever swept the West, but people had to walk, sail, or ride horses for months on end to seek their fortune. The question of faster, safer transportation was posed by national leaders. But with 1,800 miles of seemingly impenetrable mountains, searing deserts, and endless plains between the Missouri River and San Francisco, could a transcontinental railroad be built? It seemed impossible. Eventually, two railroad companies, the Central Pacific, which laid the tracks eastward, and the Union Pacific, which moved west, began the job. In one great race between iron men with iron wills, tens of thousands of workers blasted the longest tunnels that had ever been constructed, built the highest bridges that had ever been created, and finally linked the nation by two bands of steel, changing America forever.
Martin W. Sandler has written more than seventy books for children and adults and has written and produced seven television series. The Impossible Rescue: The True Story of an Amazing Arctic Adventure received four starred reviews, was a Bank Street College Best Children’s Book of the Year, a Parents’ Choice Gold Award winner, and a YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults nominee. He has twice been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize and has won multiple Emmy Awards. He says, “I have always believed that truth can be far more exciting than fiction. I love writing true stories about people who have overcome enormous odds and have accomplished great things. The building of the transcontinental railroad is not only such a story; but it is, I believe, America’s greatest adventure.” Martin W. Sandler lives with his wife, Carol, in Massachusetts.