This had been on my "To buy" list for awhile and then when I wasn't paying attention it went oop. I ended up forking out a fair amount for a gently used copy and received it this week and all I can say is, "WOW!" The fact that Jim Boyd was a co-author should have tipped me off that this would be something special. For a Morning Sun book, there is a fair amount of the written word, but in a very good way. The chapter on the dieselization studies by EMD, Alco and Baldwin should be mandatory reading for transition-era railfans. I also had no idea that the L&HR briefly owned an (ill-fated) Brill doodlebug and some handsome second-hand Lehigh Valley steel coaches. There is also a fair amount of B&W shots for a Morning Sun book, but every picture seems extremely justified. Considering the L&HR only owned 2 diesel models, there is a lot of variety provided by visiting roads -- I had no idea they leased some x-RF&P F units for a few months. I took away lots of ideas for prototypical freelancing (the lonesome Brill unit, the x-LV coaches which bear a resemblance to Atlas Trainman coaches, Weavers burly, generic 2-8-0, the leased foreign road units from a different builder).
Anyway, point is: if you are a fan of smaller, offbeat Class 1 roads and the tri-state RR scene (like I am) and you see a copy, grab it.
Brian
