What Makes a Good Railroad History Book?

[wabash2800]

Perhaps you could also list examples when you make your points. What makes a bad one?

[henry6]

There is no answer.  There are millions of answers.  There is one answer. 

For me, does it tell me what I want or need to know?  Who wrote it?  What and who make up the bibliography?  Is it written for a college course, a general history, a love of railroads, for the railfan, for the railroader, for the general pubic.  Is there truth to what is said, is it other's works rehased or plagurized?  (One of the last books on the UP/Transcontinental by Steven Ambrose was exposed as having been plagurize and a rewording of other's work including their mistakes!) 

But, it really depends on you: your level of interest in a given railroad or general railroad history.  Are you intersted in corporate affairs, engineering, operations, the building, the dismantling, physical characteristics, people involved in the building, people involved in management, people involved in the operation? Any or all of the above? Do you want to know that the A&R railroad got a charger in 1847, built between A and R and bought engines?  OR do you want to know that Pat and MIke had a dream talked the bankiers and legislators into bonding the railroad; got their survey done in 1848 and went bankrupt when John and George bought the company at auction, hired a million immegrants, blasted the line through from A to C and R to H when they went bankrupt.  But MegaRailroad bought them off the auction block and finished the building from C to H giving them a cut off saving 30 miles and the need for a 15% grade through 7 tunnels?  Pictures?  Illustrations? Pictoral only?   Easy to read?  Easy to understand?  As I said, it what you want to know.  No  matter what, it has to make sense to you and please you. 

Everybody has his favorite railroad, his favorite "thing" about rairoading, his favorite region, his favorite era, his favorite form of motive power or specific engine, his favorite favorite, etc.  So I can say this and anybody and everybody will say something else.  And we will all be right. But only you know what is right for you.

[Stourbridge Lion]

Lots of Photographs, Rosters, Diagrams, Maps, etc. along with a great story line and how it all went together from the founders through today.

[mersenne6]

Henry6 nailed it - it depends on you and your interests.  For me the interest is in reading first person accounts of working on the railroad.  Of the hundreds I've read some of the best would include:

Brownie the Boomer - Charles Brown

Railroadman - Del French

Forty Years a Locomotive Engineer - Reed

Little Engines and Big Men - Lathrop

Working on the Western Maryland Railroad - Morgenstern

[IRONROOSTER]

A good history book tells a story while presenting the facts. 

The Ma&Pa by George Hilton does this very well for the Maryland and Pennsylvania railroad.  It blends in a little light humor, pictures, track diagrams, timetables in support of the story.   In the back are various tables of equipment.

Interurban Interlude by E.J. Quimby is another good book, this one on the North Jersey Rapid Transit Company.

The Chesapeake Beach Railway by Ames Williams is another good book.

All of the above explain what the builders of the railroad were trying to accomplish, what went well, what went wrong and why.

A mediocre book presents facts but without a story such as Southern Railway Steam Trains.  A lot of facts here, but no real story, just data sort of dumped on the table.

Enjoy

Paul

 

[travelingengineer]

I fully agree with "mersenne6" with regard to personal stories, though I don't care whether or not the books thereof are fictional or true. With regard to non-fiction, historical, or documentary-type books, I always turn to the back of the book first to check the volume of source citations. If said citations are minimal, then I will probably decline to buy, borrow, or read. But if there are considerably detailed notes, then this book is a sure "read." RAILROADMAN, by Chauncey del French, was a good boy (as "mersenne6" already mentioned), but also THE BOOMER by Harry Bedwell. For sort of a different book, I enjoyed STEALING THE GENERAL, by Russell S. Bonds. Another, more recent, good book is PELICAN ROAD, by Howard Bahr. Like "mercenne6", I too have a large library, both fiction and non-fiction.

[henry6]

But it is not only the number of listings in the bibliography, or source citations, but the quality and recognizability.   One hundred sources of people you either never heard of or have no credentials in the subject are less valuable than two or three known authorities (rail officers or workers, historians, rail authors, etc. in our case here).

 

[CSSHEGEWISCH]

I would include "Burlington Route" by Richard C. Overton, an excellent history of the CB&Q.

[travelingengineer]

"henry6," you are absolutely correct, in terms of the credibility of the most knowledgable sources. What I was trying to posit (perhaps not well and with regard to non-fiction, of course) was the magnitude of attribution to PRIMARY sources (original documents, contemporaneity, first-hand accounts, photographs, etc.), as opposed to secondary or tertiary sources, that may be amalgams thereof. That way, the reader (if desired) can trace back to ascertain the efficacy of pieces of information.

[selector]

A person who posts (rarely nowadays) to the trains.com forum recommended The North American Railroad, Its Origin, Evolution, and Geography, by James E. Vance, Jr.  It is often available via amazon.com.  I purchased it three years ago and do not regret the acquisition. 

The book is a serious one with some maps and a few photos...it isn't a coffee table conversation piece.

Crandell

[TomDiehl]

I got the impression that the OP was asking this as considering writing/publishing a railroad history book. If so, the more limited your scope, the more limited the interest, and the more limited the sales. If you have the skills to do the editing, proofreading, page layout, and title page, there are on-line on-demand publishers that can get your book into print quite economically.

Recently, I published a book on the Shops of the East Broad Top Railroad. As you can tell from the title, it's rather limited in scope, and I never expected it to make the NYT best seller list, but I did it to document what we had learned about the shops operation during the restoration work, and as a fund raiser for the FEBT Restoration Fund. Being sold at the EBT Gift Shop, it does sell, but I don't expect to sell more than about 100 copies a year. This is where dealing with an on-demand publisher like CreateSpace pays off, there's no discount for quantity orders. I pay the same per copy if I order 5 or 500.

[wabash2800]

It's been a while since I've been here as I've been busy working on the book. Thanks for all the input. I like to think that I've included the ingredients for my book to be a success and since it came out in December the response has been very positive. The title of the book is Railroading on the Wabash Fourth District and since the book came out in December the response has been overwhelming (so much so that I haven't been able to get back to my second book). The line was completed as the Wabash's Chicago Extension west from Montpelier, Ohio in 1893. As the Fourth District, It was the first Wabash District dieselized (1950) and home of the last mixed train I n Indiana (1962). In about two months almost 1/3 of the production run is gone!

 

To find out more about the book and how to order a copy, go to my website on the Ready Track Page at www.erstwhilepublications.com

 

Railfan & Railroad just gave me a two thumbs up and Classic Trains will have a review in the next issue. It's a 320 page hardcover book with a detailed history plus hundreds of photos, maps, track charts and diagrams with almost 700 endnotes and a large index, plus appendices. But what makes the book a fun read is that almost half of the book is in the own words of railroaders that worked the line and folks that remember it. I've also included a postscript chapter that covers what happened to the line after the Wabash lease to Norfolk & Western in 1964 and up to present day with documentation on surviving structures and current operators including Norfolk Southern, the South Shore and Indiana Northeastern.

 

Victor Baird, Erstwhile Publications

 

 

 

 

 

 

[henry6]

Define "history".  Corporate/business history?  Events?  Actual physical building?  Equipment?  Operations? People?  Employees?  Information you are hungry for?  Information you don't care to know?  A railroad you are familiar with, fan of?  A railroad a million miles away you've never heard of?  An ancestor of yours worked for or had a hand in building?  Is it written in words and style that makes you enjoy the reading as well as be able to  absorb the information?  Or is it written in an academic, stilted style that confuses the reader?   So many reasons to like or dislike or evaluate a history book.  Do you know or can you trust the author, that's another thing to be considered.  

[1oldgoat]

Great question. Probably many of you base your choice on a book that deals with your main interest, be that a particular road, interest, etc. Examples- I'm a freight car junkie, so a book on that topic would need a lot of photos to illustrate the different cars. The Morning Sun "Color Guide to Freight and Passenger.." series, or one of Kaminski's fine books are good examples. I'm fascinated by history, so an in depth book about how it all happened needs to be addressed (who, what when , where, why, how). And in such cases, I love to find two good books on the same topic. Example- the transcontinental railroad. "Empire Express" by David Howard Bane, and "Railroaded" by Richard White. Both are more "tomes" than books, but such a topic needs an in depth look. And both bring something different "to the table". And I'll never pass up a book written by/about someone who worked in the industry, be they executives ("Men Who Loved Trains" by Rush Loving Jr. and covers Jim McClellan's career), to a fireman ("I Fired for the Pennsy" by Paul Dietz.) Such books give the reader a first hand account of what it was like. So, I guess the topic determines what one is looking for.

[ZephyrOverland]

IRONROOSTER

A good history book tells a story while presenting the facts. 

I agree with Ironrooster, especially after having experience in writing a railroad history book.  I'm currently involved with a new PRRT&HS publication on the history of Midwest-Florida passenger trains 1875-1979.  A lot of research and a lot of writing, but what is coming out is incredible.  I tried to tell a story in writing about the history of the individual passenger trains, trying to give the trains some context in its operational history.  The first volume is going to the printers soon for a May release.

[Anonymous]

R. Lyle Key, Jr. published Midwest Florida Sunliners in 1979.  It was a softcover book and can be found on most of the online book dealer sites.  A new concise history of these trains is long over due and most welcome!  I am still amazed that Pennsy E units ran to Miami on the ACL trains.  Little has been published on the Frisco's Kansas City-Florida Special.  Your book will certainly fill a void on this subject and will belong in every railroad library for anyone interested in passenger trains.

Though fiction, one fo the best railroad novels written was One Way to Eldorado by Hollister Noble, c.1954 Doubleday.  It is about a road foreman of engines on the mythical Great Western Railway and takes place in the High Sierras in December 1953.  The "GW" crossed the Sierras south of the SP's route and Noble did his homework about actual railroading before he wrote the book.  It contains history, drama, crime, cab rides on E8s and a 4-8-4, in all, a real good read and can be bought at a nice price at Abe Books.  It also made the Doubleday Book of the Month Club when published!

[ZephyrOverland]

Trinity River Bottoms Boomer

R. Lyle Key, Jr. published Midwest Florida Sunliners in 1979.  It was a softcover book and can be found on most of the online book dealer sites.  A new concise history of these trains is long over due and most welcome!  I am still amazed that Pennsy E units ran to Miami on the ACL trains.  Little has been published on the Frisco's Kansas City-Florida Special.  Your book will certainly fill a void on this subject and will belong in every railroad library for anyone interested in passenger trains.

The Kansas City-Florida Special will be part of Volume 2.  (Yes, this will be a 2 volume set.)  Some of the books content has been derived from internal PRR documentation.

You can get more info about the books on the PRRT&HS website.

MAY 2014 UPDATE -> Volume One has been released and Volume 2 is scheduled for an early 2015 release. 

FEB 2015 UPDATE -> Volume Two will be released around May 1, 2015 and will be available only from PRRT&HS.