Book Outline: Atlas Shrugged

Plot Summary, Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand

This outline by Brian Jacobs

Part I: Non-Contradiction
Dagny Taggert (second in command) is trying to keep the family national railroad company running, despite the screw ups of her brother who is officially in charge as President. 1

Hank Reardon is a wealthy industrialist who owns one of the nation’s largest metal foundries and has invented a new great metal he calls Reardon Steel. Corrupt scientists paid by the rest of the metal industry say his metal is bad to prevent from bankrupting the other business owners. The metal is just too strong and lasts too long and they don’t want to compete against it. We see Reardon having to put up with his ungrateful and unsupportive family.

Ellis Wyatt is an oil man with his production all in one spot in Colorado, having found oil where none expected it. He needs the railroads to transport his oil. Two railroad lines service him, the Taggert line and the Pheonix-Durango.

Dagny rebuilds the aging Taggert line using Reardon metal, giving Hank Reardon his first customer for Reardon Steel. It is a big success, allowing trains to go much faster.

Dagny and Reardon discovery the fantastic engine invented by John Galt which runs off atmospheric static electricity, that would change the world if it was produced.

Mexico nationalizes the Tagger railroad and the d’Anconia mines. Francisco d’Anconia2 knew they would nationalize before he even opened his mines. In fact, there was never any copper ore and the mine was a big fake for the sole purpose of tricking wealthy investors into putting money into it. After the nationalization, the investors are out their money, and Mexico has no mine; they both lose.

Ellis Wyatt drops out, destroying his oil well as he goes (he starts it on fire).

Part II: Either-Or
Dagny follows John Galt back to Atlantis, a small town hidden in the mountains of Colorado. She follows his plane piloting one of her own. It is populated by the Dropouts. She is welcomed there. She isn’t ready to give up on society at large and leaves, although she promises to keep Atlantis secret.

 

Part III: A is A
John Galt gives a big 4 hour speech, somehow taking over all radio stations.

John Galt is captured and scheduled to be tortured. I think they find his laboratory in the city and catch him there. Dagny and Hank lead a rescue operation.

Things go wrong (in short) at “Project X” and the only railroad bridge over the Mississippi is vaporized. At the end, the group (Dagny Taggert, Hank Reirdon, Francisco D Anconia, John Galt), having rescued John Galt, fly back to Atlantis in the Colorado mountains. At this point, the farm crops were left to rot without transport nationwide and the bulk of the people are starving. As they fly away, the electrical grid collapses on the east coast, leaving New York City in darkness.