Recent Releases for the Enthusiast and Professional Alike

Steve McEvoy's new 166-page soft cover book The Classic Railway Signal Tower – New Haven Railroad SS44/Berk is an operating man's dream. It’s unusual to find a non-PRR book discussed in the e-NEWS but this book is an exceptional dissertation on the subject of interlockings, which many of our readers are interested in.

Steve is a former railroad consulting business associate of your editor [and mine -- rhb] and an outstanding railway operations engineer. It addition to the many details involved with the operation of Berk tower, which Steve worked at as a tower operator, before going to the LIRR as a Transportation Planning Engineer, there are excellent chapters on what is an interlocking, mechanical locking, track circuit and vital circuits, and industry standards and Federal Regulations.

The book is loaded with tech data (how to convert the vertical motion of an Armstrong lever to the horizonal motion of a push-rod, e.g.) and may be ordered directly at: http://www.yourbook.com/bookinfo/IP23309-07.asp.

(Reviewed by Al Buchan, editor of the Pennsylvania Railroad Technical and Historical Society Bulletin)

Yet another volume in the Voyageur Press "Railroad Color History" series is The New York Central Railroad by Brian Solomon with Mike Schafer. If Solomon's text of the west end is as accurate as it is of the east end as I remember it having ridden and photographed the NY commuter lines in the fifties, then he has done it right. My chief quibble is with the uneven quality of the photographs.

I'm of the "Group of f/64" school that wants everything in sharp focus with a tonal range from black to white and all eight "zones" in between, both in black and white and color. It is instructive to note that as a general the older the photo the sharper and better exposed. Compare, for example, the FAs on the freight train (page 10) and the color image of the 20th Century Limited in electric territory (opposite). The FAs a re sharp; the passenger train is fuzzy. Perhaps the reason is that, according to the front jacket flap, that Solomon has been collecting NYC pix for this remake of his 1999 book on the same subject.

As an inveterate collector of all things NYC myself, I know there are a lot of first-rate medium and large format negatives as well as 35 mm Kodachromes out there. Perhaps for the next remake Solomon can dig a little deeper for images that will do justice to his excellent text.

North American Railroad Bridges, by Brian Solomon, is a brilliant anthology of technical writing about railroad bridges, railroads, railroading and railroad history. It is a stunningly photographed and eloquently written coffee-table volume that has certainly raised the bar for books of this genre. It's important to note that most of the bridges in this book are still in service today. Some are a century and a half old (or older) and are in no danger of falling apart any time soon. This is something to consider in an age where highway bridges that were built in our lifetimes are already crumbling.

The book is arranged by bridge type. In each of the eight chapters (masonry, trestles, concrete, etc.) there are bound to be descriptions of bridges either seen or ridden over by the average enthusiast over the age of fifty. In short, what Solomon has done is to make the reader think about the whos, whys and whats of the bridges passed over and under as one rides the rails. Solomon has turned what could be dry technical read into something quite lovely. Dare I say poetic?

Tom Murray's Southern Railway is a very personal account of his growing acquaintance with and fondness for this fallen flag dating from his Washington-area residence in its last days. This profusely-illustrated volume covers the Southern's history and development from its short line roots involving some 150 names right up through the 1982 merger with N&W to create the new Norfolk Southern, which is itself is a name SR brought in-house in the early 1970s. Murray s a fellow TRAINS magazine contributor and publishes Rail Stock Watch, a monthly newsletter.

Another one of those "I coulda been there" books is Baltimore & Ohio's Capitol Limited and National Limited and written by Joe Welsh. This book, like Murray's, covers a period of railroad history that I knew a bit of but never really got close to. Welsh has done a marvelous job of not only telling the history and heyday of these trains, but also combines builders photos, interior shots and running scenes that will evoke fond memories. Joe is another TRAINS contributor.

Finally, there comes Southern Pacific Railroad by Brian Solomon. Here is a fallen flag I only saw once, in El Paso in the early 1960s when I was stationed at Fort Bliss. This volume tells the tale of the Espee from its 1861 beginnings as part of the first transcon through its 1996 acquisition by the UP. The book will be invaluable to western short line railroaders who want to know what ran where, when and why. With so much of railroad history repeating itself, Southern Pacific Railroad offers an important glimpse into why we have what we have today. Solomon has written more than two dozen railroad books and has written extensively for Railway Age and TRAINS.

You can order direct from www.voyageurpress.com and while you're at it see what else they have. Search on "railroads" and get seven pages of rail topics. One that caught my eye right off is New Haven Railroad with an EP-2 in MgGinnis garb. My agreement with Voyageur is that I get to see the books in exchange for these notes.

These three volumes are also available from Karen's Books, www.karensbooks.com , where students of the industry can find an astounding variety of rail history from a history of steam on the NYC's Harlem and Putnam Divisions (which I got for Christmas) to the PRR's Schuylkill Division, to cite two lines of personal interest. (Disclosure: I get no cut from any books you buy from Karen. I just happen to like her style and the fact that she puts up with all us foamers.)

Get on both these email lists and see all kinds of neat stuff. Tough to pick and choose!!