Welcome to Textbook Sleep, the Maximum-Strength Sleep Aid, where we read aloud boring public-domain textbooks to help you fall asleep.

Or, should we say Handbook Sleep? For tonight, we will read:

The Handbook of Railroad Construction; for the Use of American Engineers, Containing the Necessary Rules, Tables, and Formulae, for the Location, Construction, Equipment and Management of Railroads, as Built in the United States, with 158 Illustrations.

The title page of the book alone can put you to sleep.

It was written by George L. Vose, Civil Engineer. And published by James Munroe and Company in 1857.

Back then, railroads were like AI—everybody wanted to invest in them. Now, only Warren Buffett does. And China and Japan. I suppose their handbooks are slightly updated.

The book’s credits include an epigraph:

“Rules themselves oblige us to reflect, that we may see whether we have not departed from them.”—Napoleon.

The rule we have—and will not depart from—is to begin our reading by ringing the official Textbook Sleep bronze bell three times. Its bright, radiating sound drives away care with the speed of a mighty passenger train hurtling through the night, while you, tucked into a sleeping berth, are gently rocked to sleep.

This recording will end quietly.

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