Favorite Train book ???

Oh it is Uncle Bill. Flying monkeys, yes, yes. Breathe deep and close your eyes. It's the big pink pill in the half gallon bottle. You have lots of them......

Don

I've had an interest in the Texas & Pacific and the Southern most of my life so I guess it's not a surprise that two of my most treasured histories are The Southern Railway System: An Illustrated History by William Webb and The Texas & Pacific Railway: Super-Power to Streamliners by Joe G. Collias. A great companion to the Webb book is Southern Railway Varnish by Ralph Ward. Another beautiful book which focuses on the early days of diesel power and the end of steam is Trains of America by Donald J. Heimburger. I've looked at it for hours. I've really enjoyed the other suggestions made here. Some I knew of and others are brand new to me. This is a great topic. 

Mom used to read me thls all the tlme. a few years ago after she had passed l found a copy ln an antlque shop. l plcked lt up and shwed my wlfe. l read lt word for word wlthout ever looking at lt!

All Aboard by Ron Hollander and Inside the Lionel Trains Fun Factory by Robert Osterhoff.

 

Unquestionably, the two BEST books about Lionel history.

Bantam's Model Railroading by Lionel.

Great dream wish book for young adults.

My personal library includes several hundred train books, both for the prototype and models, so it would be awfully hard for me to pick a particular favorite.

 

In the O gauge realm, I would have to include the Bantam Model Railroading book since it was my first boyhood train book and I still have my original well-worn copy and several reproductions from Greenberg.

 

I would also have to credit Ron Hollander's All Aboard book with getting me back into the O gauge segment of the hobby many years ago.  Had I not received that book as a gift, I likely would still be active in N scale.

 

In the world of prototype railroading, there really are far too many titles to list, and it would be very difficult to pick a favorite.  I tend to gravitate to trolley-related titles and to books about narrow gauge railroading, although I also very much enjoy Don Ball's books.  Just sitting here glancing at all the books lining the bookcases behind me, I would be hard-pressed to pick a particular favorite.  Those print-on-paper books I have acquired over many years are all valuable resources and references that have added in significant ways to my enjoyment of the hobby.

 

"Building The Clinchfield" and "When Steam Ran On The Clinchfield" by Jim Goforth,CC&O Engineer. And, of course,all Southern Railway* books.

 

 

*Collectively, TIES Magazine outstrips all Southern Ry books.

One of my favorite RR books is buy a local Author Steven Timko and all about the Youngstown Warren area where my Father worked on the B & O from 1941 on a steam locomotive as a Fireman & Engineer through the transition till he stepped down off of the Alco S4 in 1974

 

Lots of great photos by Dave McKay

 

 

Often overlooked, some of the best sources of information are employee timetables, rule books and equipment manuals. The information contained in these publications is priceless. Also, the experience of just holding one of these in your hands can be quite stirring when you think about the service it may have seen when traveling over the road in an Engineman's grip or being referred to in one of the industry's legendary shops. In fact, one of my Alco manuals is labeled with an employee's name and the location of Brewster, OH which was the Nickel Plate's principal diesel shop. I'm sure that book could tell some stories!    

 

Bob 

Ok, besides my other favorite, another book I enjoyed reading many years ago: Narrow Gauge Adventure by PD Hancock.  It's gotten pretty pricy though recently found seller with used copy so it's on the way to me. 

Wow, forgot about the Bantam Books. I had most of them when I was a kid. They finally wore out and fell apart. I loved dreaming of making layouts like that. I still have three different versions. My first train story was from the set of "My Book House" my Mom bought for us kids. There were a number of train stories in the set. I had my Mom read them over and over to me. I also loved the pulp magazine "Railroad". You could buy them for almost nothing. Sorry to say I had to dump boxes of them when we moved. Don

 

Staufer's "Thoroughbreds" (looked at it just tonight). His other NYC books, also.

And the Lionel book "Model Railroading" (1958 ed.). I read it so much that it fell apart.
I got the reprint but was disappointed in the photo reproduction quality. A good
Xerox would have been better.

The American Flyer equivalent of the Lionel book was read to oblivion also. AF was
sort of "exotic". Better-looking steamers...kind of...hopelessly sad-looking diesels,
including the PA's.

Oh, electroliner - I have also read (at) the "Red Devil" book. Interesting (I like
42" gauge), but I found the author to be more than a little pedantic. I did not read
it in its entirety; portions.

D500

I think that unless you are a mechanical design engineer by trade, I could see it being pretty turgid read, but the saga of the debates behind the scenes of the ACE project as far as it being too ambitious (as a design by committee=all things to all people), instead of LD Porta's view of incremental demonstrators was a sort of fascinating insight into the project's ultimate failure. The Chinese saga had to be the most doomed project from the inception ( as far as steam) I had ever read..That critical path diagram on the RED Devil project gave me new found respect for just how complex the engineering is..Well, before retiring, I was a projects manager, so I'm sorry , I should have given you a better cue as to it's sort of  dry nature. I guess the tenacity of Wardale appealed to me, dusting himself off and trying again...and again.

 

Its ironic you mentioned the NYC.. I always admired the Niagara as well as the bullet casing like look of their steam due to close clearances, which the Red Devil had a somewhat similar appearance.. I can't think of another narrow gauge engine that did not look like one as much as the Red Devil, especially it's performance..again being narrow gauge. Who would have predicted that? Sorry you were disappointed.

"set up running"