Trains and Railroads Books

Iconographix is a publishing house dedicated to providing personal, academic, and community libraries with thematic compilations of historic photographs drawn from diverse pictorial archives from around the country. This is especially true of such visual railroad memorials as John Kelly's "Chicago & North Western: Passenger Trains Of The 400 Fleet" offers an historical 'window in time' perspective on the Chicago-Twin Cities 400 commuter passenger trains that plied their way through such upper Midwest communities as Madison, Milwaukee, Green Bay, Wisconsin's North Woods, Upper Michigan, and southern Minnesota. This was an era where the Chicago & North Western offered their passengers speed, luxury, safety, and $1.25 dinners. In addition to full-page black-and-white photos of the trains themselves, browsers will also encounter photographs of stations, advertisements, and railcar interiors. A superbly organized and presented archival volume, "Chicago & North Western" is an enthusiastically recommended addition to any railroad buff's personal reference collection.

Disappointing. Not a single color photo in the entire book. While "The 400 Story" by Jim Scribbins has only a few color photos, it has an absolute wealth of information and is a better buy. The '400' fleet of the 40s and 50s had black roofs not green ones as so many think. You wouldn't know that from this book.

I'm not sure what the other reviewer's concerns with the pictures are -- they look pretty true to the Thomas figures in the toys to me. At any rate, this book was one of my oldest son's favorites, and is definitely my younger son's favorite now. The peek-a-boo concept has been a big hit with both of them. And it is *much* sturdier than "lift-the-flap" type books.

I gave this book two stars because it is a Thomas the Tank Engine book and because the peek-a-boo concept is a hit with toddlers. But the illustrations--good grief! All of the children look like fat white worms. Toddlers don't necessarily need Monet, but the book is not at all visually appealing.

There are many precious pictures in this encyclopedia. Author attached a data table to every important locomotives including steam, diesel and electrical types. a little imperfection happened in this book, for example, A Japanese steam locomotive description with a wrong beautiful picture. The picture was taken in 70`s just before rail electrification in Taiwan. This rotary garage is only one left in Taiwan after many requests from local railfans.

Rating pending.

I found a major error on page 108, the Pennsylvania Railroad K4 steam engine.

"The K4s gave excellent mainline service on such demanding servcies as the 'Twentieth Century Limited' ..."

Give me a break. That was the New York Central's train between New York and Chicago. The PRR top train was the 'Broadway Limited".

What errors are there in other sections that I don't know about?

This is mostly a history of James Hill and the Great Northern Railroad. If someone is trying to build an accurate model of the passenger train the Empire Builder or the Great Northern Railroad they won't find the information they need here. There is little information about the trains themselves, the facilities, or the equipment they used. There's a lot more background information than I've seen in other books, and more history of the business side of GN than in other books.

This book starts with a biography of Great Northern Railroad founder, James J. Hill.
It then goes on to a history lesson about the building of the Great Northern Railroad
and its early years. Next comes a picture of the inauguration of the Empire Builder
and its early service as a heavyweight luxury train. Finally, the book addresses
the post World War 2 streamlined version of the train. There are some colored
pictures of the streamliner and of several color ads touting the luxury features of
the train and the magnificent trip through the Rocky Mountains. I wish the pictures
of the ads were larger, so that I could read the copy without a magnifying glass.
This book gives a good picture of the development of the Northwest and the part
played in this development by Great Northern and the Empire Builder.

Save your money -- this one is well below the usual Kalmbach standards. While the opening essay on the birth, life and end of Model Builder magazine and its editor is fine, the rest of book is a slew of poorly reproduced articles from old issues of the magazine itself. Too many of these reprinted pages have photos that are very dark or muddy (especially in the second half of the book), other pages are reproduced so small they're unreadable. Several reprinted articles are truncated, so you can't even read the full text of the original. There's no index, bibliography, or even a list of contents of Model Builder issues. To cap it off, there's an incredibly self-serving reprint about another magazine entirely -- Model Railroader -- that has nothing to do with Lionel: it's a complete waste of space in what is already a thin and expensive little publication.

This great book is filled with nostalgia. See how the guys did it in the old days! It even had an article and photos by Frank Ellison. You're sure to enjoy this look into the past.

From a design point of view, this book is poorly organized and typeset. For example, the photo captions are of the same typeface (and point size) as the body of the text, making it hard to identify which is which. The indenting is strange (as well as inconsistent and wasteful) and the photos are too small. Also, typical of recent IU Press titles, the dust jacket design is pretty lame. At least the book is decently bound and printed (in Canada), justifying the steep price.

As for content, I found the information new and up-to-date. Many of the photos have been published elsewhere, but others have not. I found the maps mediocre--the legend is elsewhere in the book and not having memorized it the maps were not very beneficial.

This is not one of Middleton's better works (but it is not entirely his fault).

Being disappointed by many other North American books about rapid transit, this one has lots of illustrations (unfortunately it is entirely in black and white). It also covers smaller systems like the Newark City Subway or the Cleveland rapid transit. I can recommend it to anybody who is interested in metros beyond the well-documented NYC Subway.

Not one for adults, really. It's well illustrated, but the text is very basic. It's a good book for beginners. But if you're even an average railfan, you'll probably find this book dull. You won't find anything in the way of new information.

I was disappointed in this book. If you're looking for something with some meat in it, look elsewhere. The really sad part is that some of the best books written on steam locomotives in general and American Railroading in particular are now out of print.

Once very much a part of America's landscape steam locomotives are now things of the past. Nonetheless, these huge iron horses continue to fascinate. With pictures and well researched text Karl Zimmerman introduces young readers to the trains that once were the backbone of our country's transportation. Their whistles called and their smoke left vaporous trails wherever they traveled.

Geared for young readers age 10 and up our text opens with the beginning of the age of steam. Prior to this the moving of goods was totally dependent upon what a horse, ox or mule could haul. Next we explore the growth of the engines from "Tom Thumbs" to the giant "Big Boy."

Readers learn how a steam locomotive works and then how steam gave way to diesel locomotives.

This was an eventful time in America's history and well worth revisiting or seeing for the first time. The illustrations and diagrams are splendid.

- Gail Cooke

The pictures are pretty good, but there are several of the same train on the same day. Most of those were note worthy of several pages. I kept looking for the one photo that would make the book worthwhile....never found it. The photo narrations were pretty weak as well(no insight other than location). The biggest disappointment was that the bulk of the pictures are of trains in Chicago or somewhere in Ill. As I like to look at what is behind the train almost as much as the train itself, this was annoying. Maybe the name of the book should have been "My Chicago pictures of trains that made it to St Paul."

Excellent photos of trains, passengers, stations, travel brochures from the 30's and 40's. While the book is about trains, anybody who is a fan of the streamline era will enjoy this book. Great people shots and introductory text with map. This book will appeal to all passenger train fans, especially the 400, Twin Zephyrs and Hiawatha. As a bonus, this book also appeals to non-train fans because of the art-deco photos.

Extremely well documented, amply illustrated. This book is ideal for the serious student of New Orleans transit systems. The general public, or casual reader, will likely find the subject content over whelming.

Authors Charlton and Hennick wrote a masterpiece. This is the Bible for New Orleans streetcar history, with many facts, anecdotes, maps, and photographs. Every era up to 1965 is covered: the rise, heyday, and fall of animal, steam, and electric traction in Louisiana's largest city. It fills a gap in transit information by taking us beyond the famed St. Charles line.

This is an excellent board book to read with your toddlers, and explain the differences in shapes and sizes. Our family enjoyed looking for other items of similar shapes in our own home, while we sat and read this book together. That became a very enjoyable game for even my older toddler, who was no longer interested in board books. The one reference to "fat" and "thin" will actually make a good time to discuss how some words can be hurtful to others, and how to avoid them. My toddler surprised me with her sensitivity and ability to understand this complex matter.

While a cute little board book, this is one of the rare Thomas books that parents may want to approach with caution. It is a fun book for illustrating the comparative shapes and sizes of objects like tank engines and suitcases, but a reference to Sir Topham Hatt as 'fat' might put some adults and children off.