I have many of the books mentioned. I just recieved "Metropolitan Corridor" and so far it has my attention.
Years ago I had a book I believe was called "Life on a locomotive" I forget the author but it was about the CNW lines out of Fond Du Lac Wisconsin, Id like to find another copy someday.
Keep the suggestions coming and I'll keep looking for them !
Thanks,
Randy
edit : I just got it ( Life on a locomotive) A good read for CNW fans.
Brownie the Boomer by Charles Brown, about his life as a boomer, starting in Ohio and Indiana, and ending up out west, a fascinating glimpse into the boomer lifestyle and a view into long gone roads.
Also, Set Up Running, about a PRR engineer, Oscar Orr, who started at the beginning of the last century and retired about 1950.
I know a couple of good ones,
1. The Man Who Loved Trains, The Story of Men Who Battled Greed to save an Ailing Industry. (Rush Loving Jr.)
2. The Southern Pacific, 1901-1985: (Don L. Hofsommer)
3. Erie Lackawanna: Death of an American Railroad, 1938-1992 (H. Roger Grant)
4. Rock Island Requiem: The Collapse of a Mighty Fine Line: (Gregory L. Schneider)
5. Southern Pacific Passenger Trains (Brian Soloman)
Well, I honestly think the railroad book author with the most impact is Brian Solomon. He is pretty good.
I am certainly a big fan of CERA 112 TM, the ultimate interurban book.
But my favorite rail book is Richard Steinheimer's The Electric Way Across The Mountains, with its stunning (shot from a trailing cab) night photography of a Little Joe crossing St. Paul Pass. The tunnel shots of the arcing pantograph are incredible.
Wanswheel- Quite The enjoyable and informative read on a Saturday morning.
There are parallels to today even though this was 1911. One thing I am mindful of is that during this time science, commerce and innovation/invention was deemed to be the answer to mankinds problems and we were entering a new era of limitless possibility. It was a very optimistic time. When WW1 broke out in shattered this and instead turned the industrial revolution into an efficient mass killing machine. I don't think anyone saw that angle of it coming. Can the same be said for today with our advancements and hopes for science?
Sure would be nice to just hang around for a day 1911 trackside. I'll take anywhere along the New Haven to see this marvel in operation.
Awful old but still pretty interesting, I think. Try a chapter.
https://archive.org/details/modernrailroad00hung
Ones I remember were White Cascade about the snowbound trains sitting for days and finally going over the cliff due to avalanche. Also enjoyed The Red Caboose don't know the author's name, but Mom read it too She rarely read a book but since her dad was Frisco conductor she did read that one. Frisco Folks that was given to Dad and other employees when it was written. Not much about St. Louis but very interesting stories.
Alfred W. Bruce, "The Steam Locomotive in America". As a small child, I remember looking at the builder's photos over and over, so much so that I learned the word "articulated" at age 5 (which made me something of a performing flea at the time). Fifteen years later, I finally read (and at least convinced myself that I understood) the text.
Pinkepank's _Diesel Spotter's Guide_ and its successors have been huge influences on me from the 1960's forward. When a new model locomotive is announced, I still look first at the photos to figure out what its spotting features are. (For whatever reason, I find spotting features a lot easier to recall than rosters.)
Helmer's book on the O&W, and Shaughnessy's on the D&H. Charles and Dorothy Wood's book on the SP&S.
Don Ball's _Railroads: An American Journey_, both because it's an excellent book and because it was instrumental in reuniting me with my then-girlfriend, now my wife of 27 years.
daveklepper Not to lower the importance of books listed above, but I would add the two CERA books on the North Shore, Westings Apex of the Atlantics (PRR E-6), Never on Wednesday (Rio GRande Zephyr), CERA's Magic Interurban (Indiana Railroad), Cox's Birney Streetcar book, and two streetcar books from the Boston Street Railway Association, one covering the '50s and one the MTA period. Also, White's The American Passenger Car
Not to lower the importance of books listed above, but I would add the two CERA books on the North Shore, Westings Apex of the Atlantics (PRR E-6), Never on Wednesday (Rio GRande Zephyr), CERA's Magic Interurban (Indiana Railroad), Cox's Birney Streetcar book, and two streetcar books from the Boston Street Railway Association, one covering the '50s and one the MTA period. Also, White's The American Passenger Car
This is impossible, but...anything by DPM, with Mohawk as the favorite. Same for OWL, Ball, Jr., Beebe and Best. Al Staufer's work takes up a lot of my shelf space and I just noticed how much Brian Solomon I have.
Mike
Randy Stahl I have a long list of books to buy. Thanks to everyone. Randy
I have a long list of books to buy. Thanks to everyone.
But don't try for 1,300, only batchelors can get away with that!
Or a man with a VERY, VERY understanding spouse!
I'm sorry to hear of Ron Zeil's passing on. My second railroad book was Twilight of Steam and it confirmed my budding belief that there was never anything built to compare to a steam locomotive.
My 1st RR book was B&O Power and I fell in love with train books right then at Lloyd's Hobby Shop! I have over 1.300 RR books now and those 2 are still there and I read them periodically.
Other favorites are:Locomotives In My Life by Don Wood
The Ma&Pa by George W. Hilton
All my Richard E. Prince RR & loco histories
The Long Trains Roll by Stephen Meader
The Interstate RR series by Ed Wolfe
Rails Remembered series by Louis M. Newton
Many thanks for all the authors who have kept me entranced, informed and broke all these many years. Many thanks also to Morning Sun for the zillions of picture books they have provided.
Roger Huber
Deer Creek Locomotive Works
There are a lot of influential railroad boooks that I've read over the years but here's 5 that stand out. Atlantic Coast Line and Seaboard Air Line books by Richard Prince. Railroads: The Great American Adventure by Charlton Ogburn. Railroading From the Head End by Kip Farrington. Journey to Amtrak by Harold Edmondson. And, yes, Metropolitan Corridor is another extremely well done book.
For me, it's the Virginian Railway, by H. Reid. The definitive tome on all things VGN. My grandfather was a brakeman then engineer on the VGN from 1923 to the merger with N & W in 1959. I have pictures and memories of the Victoria, VA crew change yard from the 1950's and sadly it's all gone now. But I can "whip out" Reids book anytime and see those pictures and read those stories about the "biggest little railroad in the world".
Re Books.An eclectic mixture of truth and fiction. Much of the Fiction being of the 'True Lies' type, but the stories were based on ACCURATE Truth and often described faithfully, from which one could learn from for the real job.Gravity, brakes, or lack thereof, washout, Lap Meets, asleep at the switch or throttle, snow and storm read the same, and Inform to a Novice, or Senior man.Two early 'Train'-type books were; 'Railway Story Omnibus' c. 1956. had many of the above, including a boiler explosion of 'Sunny Jim' as management was too cheap to spend on a new boiler and cut back the pressure, instead. And a lithograph of the Russian 4-14-4.Book from UK.. c. 1938. 'The Cheltenham Flyer.' Alternate meanings for 'Up' and 'Down'Ziel's 'Twilight of Steam.' The account of the turning a GTW 6300 into a 4-8-0 by torching off the trailing truck on the move rather than rerailing it at the steel mill. We had recently watched REAL CN cut up 4-8-4s and Dr. Wayne's 4193 and possibly therein knew more than we should about life and death of Steam.The old 'Railroad Magazine' the size of Popular Science.Fiction 'The Big Ivy.'Ditto 'Held for Orders' Spearman c. 1901.'Canadian Steam'. Morgan, with CN 6029 which went with the CN 4193 to the torch.'When the Steam Railroads Electrified, The Bridge at Quebec.' Middleton. Many others.Of course, the continuing 'Book' in Monthly installments.TRAINS MAGAZINE!! Thank You.
Order of progression,
As a young child in the late '60s,
"The Wonderful Train Ride"
Just a little older,
"The Big Book of Real Trains"
The first "real" railroad book, that started a way too large railroad library,
"Never on Wednesday"
Jay
The Giants Ladder was a great read and a tribute to a great American, not to mention featurng some unbelievable (for the time) photography, but anyone familiar with the Moffat should read Edward Bollinger's Rails That Climb as a companion work.
That book contains a number of first-hand accounts of daily operation (if such a term could be used for the D&SL in pre-Tunnel years), many supplied by a former conductor named Barnes, who isn't mentioned at all in Hal Boner's book.
Another great read was the late H. Reid's The Viginian Railway. Reid's book was organized as a series of short narratives in the same style as David Morgan's Trains vignettes, many of which were collected in The Mohawk that Refused to Abdicate.
They just don't write 'em like that these days.
chicagorailsrailroad avenue
By Freeman Hubbard, the lore and the legends, great book!
Yes, Ron Ziel's "Twilight of Steam Locomotives" - it was in our elementary school's library. It's more than a coffee-table picture book - there's mini-travelogues, technical stuff, and history in there, too. I can still remember some of the captions, especailly those about the Shays.
"The Wonder Book of Trains" by Norman Carlisle - revised 1957 ed., I think - it had a photo of GM's Aerotrain on the front cover. Despite the corny title, it was a pretty good introductory book, and no too out of date then (mid-1960's).
A little later, "The Nickel Plate Road" by John A. Rehor - focusing on a specific railroad and its predecessors enabled an in-depth study of all the pieces in a comprehensible context, with great photos and the drama of a good rags-to-riches-to-merger storyline, fascinating personalities (the Van Sweringen brothers), the Berkshires, and the NYC electrification and T-motors at the drama of Cleveland Union Terminal, thorough appendices, etc.
About the same time I discovered Trains and Model Railroading, and they sufficed until near the end of high school, when I purchased:
"Integral Train Systems", by John G. Kneiling (enough said for here).
The "Metropolitan Corridors" book looks to be very interesting, this close to the PRR's "Main Line", which must be the epitome of such things. I didn't even know about this book until today. Thanks, guys ! (yet again)
- Paul North.
I've got a whole buncha railbooks, I'm running out of space for them, but I've got to say my favorites and the ones that got me started on this whole addiction are the first two I purchased nearly 40 years ago, the great Don Ball's "America's Colorful Railroads" and "Portrait Of The Rails." Don's sheer love of the subject leaps out at me from every word and photograph. How I miss that man!
Certainly one book that sets the record straight on the factors that lead to the rise and fall of the "other railroad system" is Hilton and Due's Electric Interurban Railway in America. Gets rid of a lots of the dreaming about the viability of the system.
In my previous posting I should have also mentioned Giants Ladder, the biography of David Moffat t and the history of the Denver and Salt Lake through the construction of the Dotsero Cutoff and the merger with the D&RGW.
David Moffat is a real hero for me, and the book does bring him to life.
In many respects, perhaps one of the more influential ones for me was Jerry Pinkepank's original Diesel Spotters Guide. Finally I could identify the wide variety of diesels still running in the late 60's into the 70's. And with that greater knowledge and understanding, and ability to join in conversations with more experienced fans, so too the enjoyment of the hobby increased.
My library of course has grown tremendously from those formative years, more from the history side than picture books, and I would be hard put to single out specific ones. The two volume history of the Canadian National Railways by G.R. Stevens perhaps was the most important in awakening the historical interest.
John
In the order that I got them...
Wilbert Awdry's original book "Thomas the Tank Engine" in its original small landscape format, "A Century of Locomotives" (a 1955 history of the locomotives of the NSW Government Railways by the Australian Railway Historical Society), "The Observers Book of Locomotives of Great Britain" by H C Casserley and "The Diesel Spotter's Guide" by Jerry Pinkepank.
I'm a sucker for concisely presented locomotive data and I have hundreds of such books, but these were the influential ones...
Peter
I lie Beebe, Ball and O. Winston Link, although I feel that the OWL books are in a class by themselves. I had the priviledge of meeting Mr. Link several times. He was a character.
Our community is FREE to join. To participate you must either login or register for an account.