Brief Review of a Photo Book -- RAILROADS: A HISTORY IN PHOTOGRAPHS, Steve Barry, ed.

[al-in-chgo]

RAILROADS:  A HISTORY IN PHOTOGRAPHS is roughly eight inches wide, six tall and one deep (ca. 400 pages, 500 photos).  With its format and soft cover, it is highly "flippable" and fans of all kinds will enjoy seeing some "rare birds" among train photos like an overhead shot of the 1955-56 Aerotrain in Rock Island livery.

It is not RAILROADS: A HISTORY's duty to set up a chronological flow of history; there is some history to be gleaned on the fly but it is not particularly systematic.  What the book does do, though, and does well, is to create broad chapters as eras that highlight the trains' locomotives and what they're pulling, as well as contemporary infrastructure:  "Steam Freight Trains," "Steam Passenger Trains," "Stations," "Diesel Freight Trains" and "Diesel Passenger Trains" are at the core of the volume.  While not in any way comprehensive, the book offers two-page photospreads of such railroadiana as a steam-era engineer's clothes and tools, vintage dining-car collectibles,  and old printed timetables (including the OFFICIAL GUIDE, whose quaintness will probably amuse the general reader). 

Yet another fun feature are the two-page spreads for particularly heralded and influential locomotives:  a color painting portrait of the loco (such as Union Pacific's "Centennial" diesel or Amtrak's "AEM-7" high-speeed electrics) and a few bare specs such as builder, tractive effort in foot-pounds, years manufactured and wheel arrangement.  

My main gripe?  RAILROADS almost never uses black-and-white photographs but there were a few times I wish it had -- this is especially evident in the chapter "Diesel Passenger Trains," in which many of the diesel-electric locomotives of the 1940s and 1950s are shown re-painted in their "heritage" colors but relieved of their mainline duties and passenger loads, operating as today's business specials or on tourist runs. 

There are better books of history and more solid collections of photos out there; I for one particularly like the hardbound books of history and photos that deal with one railroad company such as PENNSYLVANIA RAILROAD or CSX at a time (and by the same publisher as this one,"MBI"). But if you treat RAILROADS:  A HISTORY IN PHOTOGRAPHS for what it is, you'll enjoy it.  Any buff book with 500 photos is apt to contain at least a few that most trainfans haven't yet seen.  The book is out of print but bargains are out there used thru Amazon, alibris and the like.   --  al-in-chgo.