For subject matter: "Steel Rails to the Sunrise".

For photography: anything Don Ball.

For test: Luscius Beebe.

Jon

"The Red Devil and Other Tales From The Age of Steam" by David Wardale. The stories and challenges of both designing and  introducing modern steam in the diesel age, behind the scenes, from the SAR Class 26 Red Devil,, to the ACE project with 614, to China and back to the U.K.

http://www.martynbane.co.uk/modernsteam/dw/dwhome.htm

"Nothing Like It in the World - the Men who Built the Transcontinental Railroad". By Stephen Ambrose .

I found this a riveting, eye opener that descries the hardships, challenges and politics involved. A must read for all rairoad fans.

History of the Union Pacific Railroad in Cheyenne: A Pictorial Odyssey to the Mecca of Steam, by Robert Darwin.

quote:

"Nothing Like It in the World - the Men who Built the Transcontinental Railroad". By Stephen Ambrose .

DSFDF, I read that book and was so disappointed that I have never read anything else by Steven Ambrose. I'm glad I didn't buy that one.

I have so many good books that it is hard to pick one favorite. "The Mohawk That Refused to Abdicate" is one that at the time impressed me a lot. If you purchased the Classic Trains three volume set "In Search of Steam", you pretty much have the "Abdicate" book.

While "Thourobreds" is as good as you're going to get on the subject of NYC Hudsons, "The Allegheny: Lima's Finest" is probably the best book I've read about a single locomotive.

"Set Up Running" is a very good book. If I was to ever write a book, that is the book I would write.

I also have a lot of books that are not very good. There has also been one or two that I just threw away. I don't know how they even got published in the first place, they were that bad!

I have several that I have enjoyed over the years.  My favorite for stirring the nostalgia hormones is Christpher Jennison's All Aboard for Christmas.

From a historical point of view I think Trains to Victory, America's Railroads in World War II by Donald Heimburger and John Kelly is an absolute must read.  It is well written with highly informative text and great photographs to boot.

I also enjoy Geoffrey H. Doughty's volumes on the New York Central's Great Steel Fleet and the Burlington's Zephyrs.

Stauffer also wrote two great volumes on Pennsy Power.

Lastly, just for a relaxing evening in the easy chair I like paging through Tad Burness' Classic Railroad Advertising, Riding the Rails Again.  This is another tremendous book for rekindling memories of American railroads during their glory years from the 1930s to the late 50s.  Again, highly informative text and stunning color reproductions of railroad advertising at it's best.

I'm a big fan of Stauffer's "New York Central's Early Power," and "New York Central's Later Power."  Also, Colin Garret's, "Legends of Steam" was my first look into the fascinating field of world steam, i.e. China, India, Phillippines, and Cuba.  There is a fascinating amount of variety out there.

 I like the Morning Sun Trackside books with a New England flavor. Not a lot of heavy reading. Just great color photos with captions.

The Little Engine That Could. It gets inside the mind of a steam engine, exposing his self doubts, and ultimately, his triumph over them. 

"The Milwaukee Electrics" by Noel Holley. I have three copies of it. Don

"When Steam Railroads Electrified" by Middleton

New York City Electrified Railroads, Vol. 1

Rails Around Gotham

"Delaware and Hudson" by Shaughnessy

Jim

I like The Last Steam Railroad in America, which is a collection of O Winston Link's pictures of the N&W in its later years.

can't forget to mention "Speedway to Sunshine" the definitive book about the Florida East Coast railroad.

Absolutely! Right up there with "Tootle," it is. One of the great ones!

Pete

Both great books that I wore out when I was a kid.

My all time favorite though has got to be The Caboose Who Got Loose.

Jake ,
You'd also like "Steam,Steel and Stars" Links other book .More Steam Pic's and a chapter devoted to some color pictures.

David

All of Al Stauffer's books, especially Pennsy Power I,II, and III.

All of Lucius Beebe's books...especially "The Trains We Rode"

All Morning Sun books.....my current favorite is "The Union Railroad"

Tom in Picksburgh

As a restoration guy, i personally like "Mr Pullmans elegant palace car" by Lucius Beebe, Those elegant parlor cars, Mahogany and oak with inlays, wall to wall varnish and brass! that's my world of old boats and rail stuff! Gman. 

Almost forgot to mention my first train book:

Jim

Some interesting titles here I haven't heard in years. I must remember to get these:

"When Steam Railroads Electrified" by Middleton and "New York City Electrified Railroads"

As far as my favorite, I finally got a copy of Thouroghbreds and think its great. I have great nostalgic feelings for The Boy's Book of Model Railroading, Handbook for Model Builders, and Model Railroading by Lionel.

Alot of great titles here. My .02:" Decade of the Trains" Don Ball. Its about railroading in the 1940's Great stuff. I have a number of Morning Sun books. Among the favorites is The Virginian RR. Incredible heavy coal hauling on a more incredible right of way!! Can't get more rural!!

Pete

Bantam's Big Book of Model Railroading (compiled by Lionel experts) 6th big edition, and Rick Hollander's "All Aboard". I also had a Little Golden Book about real trains that you had to glue stamps (depicting various cars & engines) into blank spaces on the pages. Among them were the NH Jet and an RPO car.

Enjoyed "The Trains We Rode" Volumes 1 and 2.  So much great information about the passenger era.  My all time favorite is still "Narrow Gauge In The Rockies", by the same authors, Beebe & Clegg.

I like two:

Turbines West by Thomas R. Lee - discusses and has gobs of pictures of the big Union Pacific Turbines and a good history of their development.

Chapelon: Genius of French Steam is a incredibly biased, nearly fawning, book on Andre' Chapelon by a Brit, that makes him out to be a genius and the greatest engineer who ever lived (I think he was just a very focused, solid engineer who loved to "hot rod" steam locmotives).  But it has incredible discussions of the engineering tradeoffs that steam loco engineering had to deal with.  For the first time, I really understood Walschearts valves as opposed to alternative practices, and the lead/lag in steam valving and mechanisms for varying the lead as a function of load and speed Its nearly half a chapter in this book with actual performance test charts reproduced, etc., far better than any other discussion I've seen. It gave me a much better feel for locomotive torque versus horsepower tradoffs, and the various "hot rodding" modification tricks Chapelon became famous for (that's really what they were).   I learned a lot. 

On the model train side, my favorite by a long shot is Sam Posey's "Playing with Trains".

Allan

Hey Jim, who do you get to read "The Big Book Of Real Trains" to you or do you just look at the pictures. Don

Riding The Tin Plate Rails

Amazed at how much of this old book is still applicable.

Steve

This is my oldest "Making & Operating Model Railroads", 1938. Mostly "O" gauge three rail. Interesting how they did things then. Converting tinplate to scale, outside third rail. Don

I must have read this book a hundred times when I was a kid, "How to Run a Railroad Everything You Need to Know about Model Trains". 

I also like the little engine that could and tootle. Those regularly find their way into the bedtime story rotation. 

J White

S. Kip Farrington's series of books, Railroading from the Head End, Railroads at War, Railroading from the Rear End, Railroads of Today, Railroads of the Hour, and Railroading the Modern Way make up a continuing period documentary of rail progress from the WWII era through the postwar years. Photographs included are publicity and archive shots from the railroads and news bureaus, as well as builders' photos, all of which I don't recall seeing anywhere else. Some are real gems, like the builders' photos and Santa Fe archive shots of the then-new El Capitan Hi-Level cars -- which were virtually unchanged when I rode them in Amtrak service in 1980.

It's interesting to watch the steam-to-diesel (or, Diesel, as it was properly spelled then!) transition era unfold in what would have been real time as the books were written. CTC was still new at the start of the series, and into its second generation of the technology by the end. Modern steam was still being built when the series started, but by the end, EMD's "GP" series was making a stir. The birth of dome cars on passenger trains, early applications of roller bearings, growth of TOFC intermodal service, and early railroad radio development are all covered as they happened.

H. Reid's Virginian Railway and David Morgan's Locomotive 4501 are my two favorites out of a LOT on my shelves.  H. Temple Crittendon's  The Comp'ny about the Surry, Sussex and Southampton is a close third.

George Lasley

Lots of great suggestions in this thread.

Two books I go back to often are: (1) Lucius Beebe's "20th Century" and (2) Ronald DeGraw's "Pig & Whistle; The Story of the Philadelphia and Western Railway".

The Beebe book conveys the thrill of first class passenger railroad travel better than any book I know. The second, of which many may not be aware, is a model of how to cover the history, growth and transformation of an interburban line. The Philadelphia and Western is operated today over the same route as the Norristown High Speed Line by SEPTA. Living history.

Bob Bubeck

The Railroad Art of Howard Fogg ! 

Less reading more pictures.

The Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum

Bill, time to get back on the meds.

Don

Right, I thought this thread was about flying monkeys.

Too many to name! I like all of them (pretty much) for different reasons! "American Railroads" by Don Ball is a favorite picture book. So is "Trackside Maryland". "Civil War Model Railroads" is good. So is "Early American Steam Locomotives" by Kinnert. Every Christmas it seems I got a new train book, and never threw them away. One that I got from AbeBooks was one I got in Elementary School- "The Phantom Brakeman and other stories".