Trains and Railroads Books

While the book was a good read, it spent to much time dealing with his friends that he stayed with. He spent way to little time on how train travel works, what his experiences were aboard AMTRAK, and the beauty of traveling by rail. His stay in New Orleans, with a friend, was interesting, but not why I bought the book.

You have to wonder about a guidebook that says "most reliable" and "2005" on the cover but contains details from two years ago.

The "Crossing the English Channel" section is my favorite. The narrative on Page 41 mentions "only three hours to Paris and ... two hours, forty minutes to Brussels", and looks forward to the day when "[h]igh-speed tracks will ... be constructed within Britain". That day arrived in September, 2003, when the first section of the Channel Tunnel Rail Link opened. Paris is already down to 2 hours, 35 minutes and Brussels, to 2 hours, 20 minutes. Curiously, the schedules on Page 44 are recent and do reflect the new timings.

This makes me wonder whether the publisher takes updates seriously -- or just puts in new schedules and changes the cover.

On the plus side, I do think that the book's base city - day excursion approach is useful.

After school each day Billy and his best friend Finn, work on a cannon that they plan to shoot at their school. One day, when their cannon is nearly finished, Billy and Finn get detention for side talking. Sadly they don't get to put on the finishing touches because their two friends, Wes and his brother, get to it first. When Billy and Finn get out of detention they immediately rush to the cannon. When they get there Wes and his brother are already done and ready for action. First they shoot at the school, but it goes straight over the school and they hear a great crash. They go to check out where they think they heard the crash and see a box that states Danger: Explosives! Billy and Finn rush to tell their father, but when they get back the dynamite is gone. Billy's father thinks that they did it to cover up their mess of shooting the school with dirt, but can Billy and Finn prove the whole town wrong and find proof that someone is really trying to destroy Billy's home town with dynamite?

An excellent page-turner for young readers. If you like action, adventure, or mystery, you will probably like this book. I loved the details about the three main characters, but I thought the plot was only ok. The problem was it got boring when the story went on and on about Billy and Finn running around searching for explosives. At the beginning they talked about Alice Ann and Wes, but then the author seemed to forget about them. I wanted to know about what happened to Alice Ann, or Wes, or Finn's family. Don't get me wrong, I really enjoyed the book, but the lack of information about the secondary characters was disappointing.

This attractive book is a collection of many well-illustrated short narratives about railway journeys throughout the world, some current and some historical. It's a cross between a travelogue and a technical book, with pieces by well-known railway authors such as George Behrend, Colin Garratt, Christopher Portway, Kenneth Westcott-Jones. It is much more railway-oriented than other books with similar titles, and is worth the money for the breadth of coverage. However, ultimately I found it falls between several stools. As a current guide, it is difficult to tell whether the description is current or out-of-date: some items are overtly historical, but others appear so only on close examination. Technically, it may well give too much detail for the uninterested, but not enough for the enthusiast. It's also not particularly well edited: there are too many inconsistencies and errors, and sometimes it displays a lack of familiarity with the subject. It has some odd quirks, too: some journeys are covered twice (by different authors), like Ulan Bator to Datong, and Christchurch to Wellington - and don't be fooled by the reference to locomotives in the title: the San Francisco Muni (not just the cable cars) is included, too!

This self-published book contains a selection of enjoyable anecdotes from the pseudonymous author's 20-plus year career as a cable car gripman.

I bought the book for my four year old who is obsessed with trains. He liked the pictures, however, the language was geared towards younger children so it did not capture his attention like I hoped it would.

I wanted a book about Southern's development and selection of motive power for freight trains in the steam era, or at least the 1900-1953 era, with a good number of pictures. I had high hopes for this book. Unfortunately, it is mostly just a picture book.

Yes, it has some nice pictures, but it has very little real information. The specifications for each major locomotive type are repeated, almost verbatim, many times. I realize that there were minor variations, even within the same nominal class, but it would suffice to list the basics specifications once and then discuss the variations. There's very little in the way of history, development, operational characteristics, etc. Much of the text seems to be filler.

If you just want pictures of a several locomotives from most of the major Southern freight classes, buy it. But if you want detailed information or in-depth analysis, look elsewhere.

As a subway addict I was disappointed in this book. I don't know if I misunderstood but I thought it would be a lot more technical and not just a child's view of the building of NY's first subway.. It is cute but I wouldn't recommend it to serious collectors like myself

Aimed at really young readers, this board book serves best as an introduction to Thomas the Tank and his friends. The stories are extremely short and are told using lacid language and the cartoon illustrations that have become so familiar. Each of the six mini-miniture tales are accompanied by a finger tab so young readers can flip to their favorite. There are a lot of better Thomas books out there, but really young fans of Thomas and those who have never met Thomas and his friends, will enjoy this paltry book the most.

This is yet another book of train photos, by which I mean lots and lots of 3/4 (front/side) shots, emphasizing locos. The photos are clear, though somewhat monotonous in composition. Three stars from a reader who would have liked more artistic and varied compositions.
Five stars, however, for the photo captions. The author knows his stuff about the New York Central - e.g., why some pullmans were not on specific Sat. night trains, etc. In fact, I don't think I have ever read such interesting material about how that railroad operated.