Books by Robert Tabern

"Outside the Rails: A Rail Route Guide from Chicago to Kansas City" is a 334-page route guidebook for passengers traveling Amtrak's Southwest Chief train through Illinois, Iowa, and Missouri. Learn interesting facts about the people, place, and history passing by outside the window between Chicago and Kansas City. This book was written by Robert and Kandace Tabern with the Midwest Rail Rangers.

The train line between Chicago, Northwest Indiana, and Michigan is one of the most popular passenger rail lines in the Midwest. In this milepost-by-milepost guide, authors Robert and Kandace Tabern discuss interesting things that can be seen from the train and the history of track-side towns along the route.

The longest train route in Illinois runs more than 300 miles between Downtown Chicago and Carbondale. Learn about the interesting people, places, towns, and other attractions out your window while riding on this railroad line. We will share stories of the old Illinois Central with you -- and talk about towns such as Homewood, Kankakee, Gilman, Rantoul, Champaign-Urbana, Mattoon, Centralia, DuQuoin, Carbondale, and many more. Don't ride the train without a copy of this book in your hand.

The busiest Amtrak route in the Midwest is the "Hiawatha Service" between Chicago, Glenview, Sturtevant, Milwaukee Airport, and Downtown Milwaukee. From the building of this railroad line in the 1870's by the Milwaukee Road to the present-day, this route guide book explains it all. Both regular travelers and rail fans will enjoy knowing what they are seeing outside the windows of the train as they take this 85-mile train trip between two of the Midwest's most interesting cities. This milepost-by-milepost guide points out various historical and natural landmarks that even the most frequent traveler between Chicago and Milwaukee might not know about.

One of the busiest train lines out of Chicago is the route down to Springfield, IL and St. Louis, MO. Ten trains run per day, and now travelers have the opportunity to know about the sites they are seeing out their window during this 284-mile journey thanks to the latest edition of "Outside the Rails". Highlight covered in this rail route guide include important historical information about the I&M Canal, Route 66, and various Abraham Lincoln sites. Where can you see bison from the train? Where can you see coal mines from the train? "Outside the Rails: A Rail Route Guide from Chicago to St. Louis, MO" has all the answers to make your trip that much more enjoyable.