This is an interesting thread. All of the books mentioned are in my collesction. I encountered him several times on different NE Corrdior trains and also on the Southern Crescent. Very easy to talk to and a great conversationalist. IIRC, he covered college football when he was with the New Yorker. One I remember was him discussing traveling to Ithaca, NY, by train of course, to cover a Cornell game. He had an encyclopedic memory, not only about the game, but about the train trip.
Work safe - Steve Hoyle
NKP guyQuestion: My hardback copy is falling apart, with whole sections no longer bound to the spine. Is this the experience any of you are having with this book?
It hasn't happened to mine, but it's happened to some other books I've owned.
Here's a last-resort, nothing to lose fix that's worked for me. Get some Elmer's Wood Glue. Pour the glue down the open space between the cover and the interior binding. Use enough to ensure it's in there top to bottom. Prop the book up vertically with the open side facing down and the cover edge with the title up and leave it for several days.
Like I said, it's last-resort, but it's worked every time I've tried it. I've saved a number of books this way.
I have to say mine is holding up as well thumbed as it is.
Recently I've become a big convert to scanning books as I much prefer to view them on my monitor or TV. I upload them to onedrive and that way I can view them wherever and on whatever device. Also allows zooming in on details in the pics.
Could you do that if it's really wrecked?
ACR is not a book I frequently look at, good as the material inside it is.
Question: My hardback copy is falling apart, with whole sections no longer bound to the spine. Is this the experience any of you are having with this book?
I really dislike having this happen to a book I own.
The American episode of BBC's Great Railway Journeys is still an interesting retrospective of Amtrak's first decade. Ludovic Kennedy's take on various topics is somewhat fanciful, I think, and not always factual.
I would rate that episode #3 in the series after the Peruvian and South African episodes.
TheFlyingScotsman I bought my copy of ACR in Worcester MA in 1988 when I was visiting my girlfriend and it still has the price sticker on it. Wait for it - $4.98. Times do change!
I bought my copy of ACR in Worcester MA in 1988 when I was visiting my girlfriend and it still has the price sticker on it. Wait for it - $4.98. Times do change!
Lucky guy! I got mine in 1979 and paid $20, but I'm not sorry!
What browser are you using? Any version of Firefox later than 61.0 may have this problem. As do many mobile devices.
I ran a test using an astoundingly obsolescent system (Opera on OS X 10.6.8 on a Core 2 Duo MacMini) and had no trouble uploading something intentionally wrong-sized to test the resize and rescale. The Kalmbach code to do avatars works nicely; it's the interaction with certain browsers that is out to lunch.
You could try changing the file name to something very simple, it works on another forum for me.
Nice documentary btw. It must be quite painful to live in that era as a railfan when trains after trains got lowkey removed from the timetable; beautiful streamliner replaced by mixed consist powered by some boxy locomotives. If the future of the past could have been shown on a time-machine-like device, I wonder what Loewy, Dreyfuss, and Otto Kuhler would have said about the modern time; their thoughts on things like the Rainbow Era, Amtrak paint schemes, GE P42DC, and the new Acela train...
Jones 3D Modeling Club https://www.youtube.com/Jones3DModelingClub
Overmod Bring 6229 back! Barring that, I was going to suggest he use one of the Race to the North engines for the avatar... but perhaps since the modern train is faster by far than any historical precedent...
Bring 6229 back!
Barring that, I was going to suggest he use one of the Race to the North engines for the avatar... but perhaps since the modern train is faster by far than any historical precedent...
I was trying to use a different pic but it won't allow me to upload it. Some error. Wish i hadn't deleted the 6229. I'll try again now and see.
Nah. It's called an unhandled error. Tried all the usual things. Deleted cache. Shrink picture to postage stamp size. Nada.
If any moderators are reading this I'd appreciate some help......
I liked the 'Duchess' way better than your current avatar, was it autogenerated when you removed the last pic?
Greetings from Alberta
-an Articulate Malcontent
TheFlyingScotsman Oddly enough Flintlock I was looking at Don Ball Jnr's America's Colorful Railroads last weekend for the first time in 20 years. Great pictures.
Oddly enough Flintlock I was looking at Don Ball Jnr's America's Colorful Railroads last weekend for the first time in 20 years. Great pictures.
I concur wholeheartedly! "America's Colorful Railroads" was one of the first railbooks I purchased almost 40 years ago, and it's still one of the best I've got.
A masterpiece! Don put out other great railbooks but I don't think he ever topped "ACR."
I'd been meaning to get that for a while so that's prompted me to order it. Thanks for the shove!
TheFlyingScotsmanWell that's the Duchess of Hamilton,
We had really good Emmas here, too, but not quite as refined.
If you have not read Decade of the Trains: the 1940s, you have a treat in store, both in the text and in the pictures.
Overmod Incidentally, why no A3 in the avatar?
Incidentally, why no A3 in the avatar?
The presenter in the film, Ludovic Kennedy, was a pretty interesting man himself. A distinguished journalist, as a Royal Navy lieutenant on HMS Tartar he was a witness to the sinking of the Bismarck. He wrote an excellent and superbly researched book about that naval campaign years later called "Pursuit," well worth a read!
Personally I consider "All Aboard With E.M. Frimbo" an entertaining and delightful read, but the Whittaker writing that really impressed me was his prose contribution to the book "Decade Of The Trains," done in collaboration with Don Ball Jr.
A history of American railroading during WW2, Whittaker's writing has a haunting quality to it, I can't put any other way, that I never saw him use in any other work. Well, in a way he is telling the story of a battle.
TheFlyingScotsmanI hadn't heard of that fellow but his history looks worthy of a read.
Keep in mind that, as with Lucius Beebe, his literary style is not to everyone's taste. I recommend that you not judge him by that and keep reading. I presume you're gearing up for "All Aboard with E.M.Frimbo".
I hadn't heard of that fellow but his history looks worthy of a read.
In the description, Films Inc. refers to him as 'Roger Whitaker'.
At least they didn't spell it like Whittaker Chambers...
Here's an old British documentary which in itself I find interesting but it has an interview with E.M. Frimbo the author a year before he died. Go to 12.20.
Perhaps it has been posted before but I haven't noticed it.
https://archive.org/details/greatrailwayjourneysoftheworldcoasttocoastreel1/greatrailwayjourneysoftheworldcoasttocoastreel1.mov
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