Trains and Railroads Books

This is a great book to read if you want to know what it was like to work for The Pullman Co. The biggest problem with the book is that it is virtually one-sided. Mr. Perata doesn't seem to include the positive side of The Pullman Co., nor has he included the historical perspective of the times and attitudes of the general populace during the period he explores.

I had two close friends who worked for Pullman. One was a black former Pullman Porter. The other was a white Pullman employee who had worked his way up the system from the entry jobs to conductor and finallly a Pullman General Manager. Far from having the "plantation mentality" Mr. Perata speaks of, his concerns were that the level of service did not diminish AND that the employees were being treated fairly and with respect.

The black person worked for me in an executive compacity, so he need not have been less than candid. He told me stories of both his positive and negative experiences. Of course, there was the occassional ornery Conductor or supervisor, but almost all his comments about Pullman were positive. In fact he was insistant that the traditions of The Pullman Company be carried on and used on Amtrak.

The interviews of the men that built such a style of travel are conducted and written in such brilliance that you can almost smell the starch in their white jackets! A brilliant method of capturing the true life emotions of an almost invisibale servant who afforded the rail traveler a luxury that this country will never again know. Mr. Perata has imortalized those fine men in print, a much needed documentation of a bygone mode of travel and the truth behind it. Those Pullman Blues should be on every bookshelf in America

David Perata has captured the essence of an era of time when the black man was presented to the public in such an extrordinary way, yet was treated by the Pullman Comapany as nothing more that an endentured servant. The book has a definate place in American history, and will become significant documentation of an era of travel and national growth that will be valued for years to come. A must read! Coretta Scott King should be proud of this endorsement!

I wasn't sure what to expect when I started reading this book, but quickly became caught up in the stories and work experiences of these men. Many people don't know what train travel was like in the days before Amtrak and this will be an eye-opening book for them. For those of us who do recall Pullman travel, and the people (many of them friends) who worked the cars, this book will bring back meny memories. Readers should be aware that that this collection of oral histories is not a railfan's book or a wallow in nostalgia. These men tell what it was like not only to work for the Pullman Company, but also what life was like for them away from the trains. Parts of the book are funny, and others are heartbreaking, but most work is that way. The only thing that kept the book from receiving a "10" rating was that it could have used some car diagrams (floor plans) to give the novice an idea of the interior layout of the cars described in the text.

This is a very attractive book; but very few words. No story line and did not keep my son's attention. I am giving it to my sister's 2 year old. It's more for 2-3 year olds. I can't believe they would say it's for 4-8 year olds. My son is 4 and was pretty bored after one read-through.

Window Music is a treat for kids AND their parents! A wonderful book to read aloud, Suen's musical verse is just the right company for Zahares' bold illustrations.

As a proud owner of two Zahares originals, I was looking forward to the arrival of this book and was not dissapointed. As I viewed each page, I felt as though I was there - the art is that arresting. Superb !

I, too, as a proud owner of three Zahares originals, was looking forward to the publication of this book. I was surprized to see such few words, but with this type art work, that is all you need. A simple book to read to youngsters. Looking forward to their next book Delivery.

Good Night Lullabies CD

The writing is catchy - lots of fun words and rhymes. The illustrations are sweet also. I read it in a soft voice, so it sounds almost like a lullaby, which helps my little grandchildren feel calmed by the rhythm of the words.

My kids get to pick out a book each for bedtime, then I finish up with this one. It is just the right length, just the right words and pictures to set the mood for a comfortable nights sleep. I recommend it for all sleepy parents and children!

This is a delightful book that takes your child on a journey from wakefulness to sleep, on a very clever train ride. We go from Wiggletown, the town of Yawwwwwn, Groggy Grove and Snuggly Cove, and other sleepy stops along the way, to the final destination...Dreamland. I bought this book for my three year old Grandson, and he absolutely loves it. We can never stop at just one reading, he has to board that train twice, at least. The book is very well illustrated with colorful, fanciful drawings. This is a" must read" for any preschooler, I highly recommend it, so does my grandson!!

this book has the history and a lot of good photos but I prefer books with even more photos than this one has

This is truly wonderful book following the development of the American steam locomotive to its culmination. The text is easy to read & very involving - you don't want to put it down. This is my second Brian Solomon book, & not my last. I think a "search" by author is required.
The superb images seem to be a hallmark of Brian's books & compliment the text beautifully. Only three photos were lost in the crease; sad, but much less than other Rail books.
Again Mr. Solomon's work is welcome on me bookshelf, if I can put it down long enough.

Author Brian Solomon has picked the best resources available to provide rail historians the newest tome on the technology and history of the development of the steam locomotive in America. In addition to culling the most reliable authorities in a well-written text, Solomon has carefully picked what appear to be some of the highest-quality photographs available of the various types of steam locomotives developed, some from the earliest days of Kodachrome slide color photography. Written with all knowledge levels of rail buff in mind, this is a volume that deserves to be in the library of every railfan, from the newly-initiated to the knowledgeable veteran.

My sone LOVES trains. We have checked this one out of the library 3 times in a row (I am not even sure if we are allowed to do that, but we did). He had this book memorized after about 3 days. Here are lots of sounds and he walks around saying "All aboard, who are coming aboard" and "Hurry, hurry, any more tickets". This is a cute book and the illustrations are very pretty.

This is a favourite of my two year old son. We borrowed it several times from the library before purchasing a copy from Amazon. It's a fantastic read aloud book, and the illustrations are wonderful too. The only disappointment is that I didn't realise that it would be "Americanised" - the school children, for example, say "please sir, please maam" instead of "please sir, please miss", and the soldiers are off on "parade", rather than "manoeuvres". Other than that, highly recommended!

And the Train Goes... is a children's picturebook spotlighting the many noises heard on a rumbling train - and the many things that the train's passengers say! Blocky color illustrations complement the singsong text, which features a wide variety of sound effects and especially lends itself to being read aloud to young people. "Here is the school class off on a trip, / and the children yell, / 'Please, sir, please, ma'am... are we there yet? // and the train goes, / Clickerty-click, clickerty-clack..."

This book is one of several authored by Richard E. Prince that have long been unavailable until their recent re-release by Indiana University Press. Similar books have been reprinted for steam motive power of the Seaboard Air Line Railroad, the Louisville and National Railroad, and the Nashville, Chattanooga and St. Louis; this one review would serve equally well as a review of those books as they all have the same strong and weak points.

First, the strong points. This book is about as comprehensive as a volume of this genre can be without ceasing to be of interest to the novice. If it was in steam on the Atlantic Coast Line, it will be in this tome. Complete information of every type of engine is included, including date of acquisition, improvements given to the locomotive, boiler pressure, cylinder size, driving-wheel diameter, tractive effort, and date and nature of disposition are given for each locomotive. In addition, this volume includes an abundance of photographs.

Which leads me to the not-so-strong points of this book. The quality of photograpic reproduction of many pictures leave something to be desired. It is obvious to any critic that in the neverending dispute of quality versus quantity, quantity won; however, it must be remembered that photographic science of that long-gone era and the tehnique of preservation of these photos is far short of what it is today, in addition to the fact there not that many people taking pictures of trains in the 1930's due to cost and in the early 1940's because of security restrictios of World War II. Another criticism of this book is the organization of it in that it does not seem to flow smoothly from beginning to end; this may be a consequence of the fact that events of that era did not flow smoothly either!

This book has nuch to recommend it despite its shortcomings. Anyone with any interest in steam locomotives of the American southeast would be happy to include this volume in his collection. Indiana University Press should be congratulated for reissuing this fine volume.

This book is one of several authored by Richard E. Prince that have long been unavailable until their recent re-release by Indiana University Press. Similar books have been reprinted for steam motive power of the Seaboard Air Line Railroad, the Louisville and National Railroad, and the Nashville, Chattanooga and St. Louis; this one review would serve equally well as a review of those books as they all have the same strong and weak points.

First, the strong points. This book is about as comprehensive as a volume of this genre can be without ceasing to be of interest to the novice. If it was in steam on the Atlantic Coast Line, it will be in this tome. Complete information of every type of engine is included, including date of acquisition, improvements given to the locomotive, boiler pressure, cylinder size, driving-wheel diameter, tractive effort, and date and nature of disposition are given for each locomotive. In addition, this volume includes an abundance of photographs.

Which leads me to the not-so-strong points of this book. The quality of photograpic reproduction of many pictures leave something to be desired. It is obvious to any critic that in the neverending dispute of quality versus quantity, quantity won; however, it must be remembered that photographic science of that long-gone era and the tehnique of preservation of these photos is far short of what it is today, in addition to the fact there not that many people taking pictures of trains in the 1930's due to cost and in the early 1940's because of security restrictios of World War II. Another criticism of this book is the organization of it in that it does not seem to flow smoothly from beginning to end; this may be a consequence of the fact that events of that era did not flow smoothly either!

This book has nuch to recommend it despite its shortcomings. Anyone with any interest in steam locomotives of the American southeast would be happy to include this volume in his collection. Indiana University Press should be congratulated for reissuing this fine volume.

It is a pleasure to see another one of Richard Prince's works back in print. It is a faithful reprint of the original work. It contains very good information on the ACL, its component companies, steam locomotives and steamships. It is a "must add" to any ACL history library. The sections on steamships alone are worth the price of admission. Print and paper quality is excellent and many of the photos appear better in this relase than in the original. If this volume is well received, Indiana may be moved to reprint the remainder of Prince's excellent works. A very good volume at an excellent price and I recommend it highly.

My 18 mo. old son received this book from his aunt in 1986. He just loved this book! It was his very favorite through his pre-school years. We read it so often, I began to sing the words to him. My son is now 21 and this chubby board book is still in great shape. This book is a keeper and hopefully will someday be passed down to his children. Highest recommendation!

I just wanted to write a few words about this nice little book. My girls loved it when they were little and learning to read, but I never realised how much till I saw them yesterday reading it to the little boy next door. Now they're teachers too. Books like this are wonderful for getting your kids up to reading speed early and that's important, so if you're a parent of a young one and you happen across this mini tome, I'd pick it up if I were you. Your child will love it.

This was and still is my one-year old son's (now two) favorite book. And I have to admit, I most enjoy reading Chubby Engine to him. The illustrations are bright and fun. My son quickly learned to identify colors, animals and vechicals on the pages. The rhyming story is simple and song like, cumulating in the engine falling asleep after a busy day. A perfect metaphore for my son's day.

The only thing that would have improved this book would have been a commitment from the publisher not to run photos across the book's gutter. While two-page photos can be aligned so that the gutter cuts through nothing meaningful in the picture, a few times in this book the gutter cuts the lead locomotive in half.

Otherwise, the imagery is interesting, the text and captions are well-written and informative.

This is the third book I bought with photo's from Steve Schmollinger. I think he is one of the greatest US train photographers. Unfortuanatly some photo's in his last book are made bigger then in previous books and (in my opinion) that did not made the book better. The disadvantage is that the grain is more visable (normally with such big photo's you take more distance, but in the book the distance to your eyes remains the same as for the smaller pictures) and the picture is cut by the gutter of the book. However this book is worth the money, because the pictures are very good. I hope that Steve will make more nice books in the future, but will use the layout as used in his first book.

Mr. Schmollinger has done it again with a spectacular collection of photos from both himself and other well-known rail photographers. In addition to the unbelievable (and I'm not exaggerating) photos, this book contains an extensive amount of historical information regarding the original surveys conducted by the explorers who were among the first white men to see much of the territory that this volume covers. There is also sort of a running geology lesson which explains the what and why of the many incredible backdrops that the trains are placed against. The variety of weather conditions and the geographic uniqueness of the area covered is demonstrated through a number of stunning night shots, sunset, and glint shots as well as some whopping telephotos that all combine to give a refreshing look at areas that are over-covered in the fan magazines. Stunning and worth the price.

Well written, good photographs, but somewhat lacking in photos of first 70 years of the (two) lines existance and maps are overly simplistic.

As a long time fan of the DM&IR I really enjoyed this volume.
Great color!

A very interesting book on the DM&IR. It covered the birth and development of the US Steel Corporation. An explanation of the development of Taconite (Low grade ore) was very informative as well.
The book is littered with many glorious colour photos, pricipally of the diesel era- locomotives and mine/mill/Dock operations . But scattered throughout the book are many B&W photos from the steam era. A bonus for me was several colour photos of the mighty 2-8-8-4 "Yellowstone"

Tony

Extremely informative, very factual. It's not a pr show, it shows the real sides of railroading. It varies with each road, and shows the correct ecquipment on each road.

The newest addition to Kalmbach's outstanding "Classic Trains" series E Units: Electro-Motive's Classic Streamliners by railroad buff Jeff Wilson is a superbly presented photographic showcase of vintage locomotives running from the end of WW II to the late 1950's. The E Units photographs are in black-and-white because they are true fragments of history, images taken in a time before the invention of color snapshots. The amazing display on glossy paper is highlighted by brief picture captions, but overall E Units is a marvelous compendium in which each picture is worth thousands of words. E Units is strongly recommended for railroading enthusiasts and yesteryear train buffs.

A pleasant enough pictorial round-up of the Electro-Motive Corporation's railroad workhorse, the E Units. There is a brief history about the development of these streamline trains including nine pages with excellent engineering illustrations. The rest of this landscape shaped paperback has one per page black and white photos of the trains in everyday use, mostly from the forties and fifties. The index is usefully divided into three parts, units by number, photographer and railroads.

The photo quality is good with the occasional standout professional shot, as on page sixty-four with a new E8 demonstrator unit fresh out of the Electro-Motive plant. As is usual with these railroad fan books the design could be better, all the photos really should have a very thin black line round them, making a crisp edge which would prevent those with light sky areas merging into the white of the page. The cropping of a lot of the photos is poor, many of them have just too much sky or foreground. Trains tend to be landscape in shape but frequently pages have the captions to either side of the photo preventing the full width of the page being used, there would still be plenty of white space above or below the photo for the captions. A few black pages would improved the overall look.

I really would have loved to see these trains in color and to quote from the text...''E units helped usher in an explosion of color that had never before been seen on railroads''. Quickly checking through a few railroad books I see plenty of Es in color and I also have an out-of-print seventy-four page paperback by Henry Maywald called (predictably) 'E Units' which has over two hundred photos, all in color but mostly taken a few years later than the ones in Jeff Wilson's book

***FOR AN INSIDE LOOK click 'customer images' under the cover.