The book by the late Stephen Ambrose, on the building of the transcontinental RR, "Nothing Like It In The World," is really excellent. It's hard for us to imagine the complexity of the building of the Central Pacific east from Sacramento - when supplies: rails, spikes, the trains themselves - had to be ordered from the east, then it took months to be shipped around South America, or: unloaded on the Atlantic side of Panama (pre-canal days by approx. 50 yrs!), transported overland, reloaded on the Pacific side & eventually delivered to San Francisco!
Morning Sun Books are an interesting resource for any railfan; their quality is outstanding! And: don't forget publications such as "Trains" & "Railpace" magazines for current rail news.
Originally Posted by dboeren:
I'm fairly new to trains but I've enjoyed reading some of the stories I've found on the web and I'm looking for more. I've also got a wife who's pestering me for gift ideas and an Amazon cart looking for one more item to hit the free shipping level 
Anyway, here are the criteria:
1. Must be currently available from Amazon
2. Ideally $30 or less unless it's amazing
3. Nice pics are a plus
4. We're doing a layout starting with the MTH Norfolk Southern diesel set, so for now I'd like to restrict this to only railroads that have been absorbed into the Norfolk Southern. This still leaves a lot of good ones for you to choose from though!
So what are some of the best must-have books out there that I should be looking at?
