At the turn of the 20th century, the mighty Pennsylvania Railroad, the "standard of the world," linked all the great cities of America's East and Midwest except one: New York.

Gotham-bound passengers in the Pennsy's fleet of plush Pullman cars disembarked not in the heart of midtown Manhattan but in the inglorious surroundings of Jersey City, N.J.; there they boarded ferries to cross the Hudson River, where no tunnel or bridge existed to carry trains to town.

A small group of men set out to change that, and their Herculean efforts to bring the tracks of the Pennsylvania into New York City sets the stage for "Conquering Gotham: A Gilded Age Epic: The Construction of Penn Station and Its Tunnels," by historian Jill Jonnes (Viking, $27.95).

"Epic" is indeed the word to describe this story, which should appeal to railroad buffs, history fans, architecture enthusiasts and, most of all, engineering fanatics. Jonnes weaves a rich tale, not unlike E.L. Doctorow's "Ragtime," of a New York both grand and squalid; of men — and in this story, it's pretty much a man's world — who are noble and corrupt; of triumphs, setbacks and jaw-dropping accomplishment.

Like Olympian gods, the men of the Pennsylvania toyed with ideas to reshape the world — first by proposing a monumental railroad bridge to Manhattan that would have dwarfed the Brooklyn Bridge, then by rejecting that concept for the idea of tunneling under the Hudson River, no small feat when engineering on such a scale was all but unthinkable. Capping this ambitious plan would be the building of the city's greatest — and now gone — terminal, Pennsylvania Station.

From boardrooms to country estates to the decks of ocean liners, they meet, plan, argue and dream, challenged not just by earth and water but by politics — both office and presidential — as well as the opinions of press lords, such as William Randolph Hearst, and, not in the least, the looming corruption of Tammany Hall New York.

Men of honor, like railroad President Alexander Cassatt, the story's main character, deal with the devil to buy up the city's most notorious vice district for land on which to build the Pennsy's elegant station, while men like Tammany's notorious "Boss" Crocker plot their own schemes to retain power in the face of change.

For the most part, "Conquering Gotham" is a story that flows well. Readers who are fans of the History Channel's "Modern Marvels" TV show will love it; others might find themselves overwhelmed by technical fatigue. All will agree that the Pennsylvania Railroad, in the end, both won and lost. Its tunnels under the Hudson endured; its magnificent train station did not, torn down in the 1960s and replaced by an utterly undistinguished terminal with all the charm of a subway stop.

The Pennsy itself, too, is long gone, but its legacy and the men behind it live on in this heroic work.

Jonnes will sign her book 1-4 p.m. on Members Day, Saturday, Sept. 29, at the Pennsylvania Railroad Museum store in Strasburg. At 6:30 p.m. she will be guest speaker at the 10th annual Members and Volunteers Banquet at the Lancaster Host Resort. For details, call the store at 687-8628, ext. 3005, or log on to www.rrmuseumpa.org.