Books - Latest Reviews Page 7 of 17 : Newer : Older : : Most Helpful » Life's work on the Feather River Reviewed in the United States on July 30, 2015 This is pretty much the story of the authors life on the Western Pacific around the middle section of the line. Pictures throughout are in both color and black and white, including some good pictures of steam. There is a great map of the WP in the back of the book. .Rob is also the author of SOO Line Remembered which is another very interesting story. ✔︎ Helpful Review? Review I own and have consumed both books. The Tom Dill book, while excellent, is a photo book with excellent captions. Tom is very accurate with his work. That said, I would recommend John Signor's book for the purpose you outline. It is a complete history and description of operations on the Salt Lake Division (roughly Reno-Sparks to Ogden). Lots of text, good photos, outstanding maps. This book is a companion to Signor's Donner Pass book. It will give you many hours of reading and studying photos. I'd love to recommend both, but your limits were clearly stated. ✔︎ Helpful Review? Reviews “Indispensable.” —Michael Rosen, San Francisco Chronicle “The Metro. The T. The Tube. The world's most famous subway systems are known by simple monikers, and San Francisco's BART belongs in that class. Michael C. Healy delivers a tour-de-force telling of its roots, hard-fought approval, and challenging construction that will delight fans of American urban history.” —Doug Most, author of The Race Underground: Boston, New York, and the Incredible Rivalry That Built America's First Subway “From Emperor Norton's 1872 dream of a transbay tunnel to the BART tube opening one hundred years later, Healy explores the nuanced history of the Bay Area's subway system through the convergent lenses of social, cultural, engineering, and political forces. In this exquisitely researched work, Healy not only brings the dramatic stories of BART's development to light, but shares the fragile web of energies, power, funding, and sheer will that created this monumental system of people-moving.” —Anthea M. Hartig, executive director of the California Historical Society ✔︎ Helpful Review? A book well worth buying User Review - mscwolf - Overstock.com Tony Koester does it again. This companion book to his first Realistic Operation starts well and keeps on going. Whether you model a real Prototype or freelanced layout youll get great practical tips to create your ideal model railroad. ✔︎ Helpful Review? Solomon’s book…is rare, combining history, technological advances, theory, and practice into a compelling yet seldom told story... The easily digestible text and wonderful photographs of a diverse mix of historical and contemporary signal equipment enable readers to understand not only “how” basic systems work, but also “why”... Solomon gives this little known segment of railroading its due. -- Trains, July 1, 2010 ✔︎ Helpful Review? Reviews This beautiful coffee table book is more than pretty pictures. Written in a down-to-earth style, the book is fun to read, whether you are a railroad buff or just interested in a part of Colorado's history. --Colorado Country Life The book is carefully researched and the text is written in an entertaining manner. The true splendor of this volume lies in the magnificent color photographs that leap out at you from its pages. It is more than a coffee table treasure, however, for it contains a well-documented record of one of man's more colorful attempts to beat nature. --Santa Fe New Mexican, Marion C. Loeb A combination history, guide, and coffee table photography book, this volume is beautifully photographed, well-researched, interesting, and an informative read. Clearly, the author is passionate about his subject. This well-researched book is highly recommended. --Colorado Libraries, Laura Kaspari Hohmann The book is carefully researched and the text is written in an entertaining manner. The true splendor of this volume lies in the magnificent color photographs that leap out at you from its pages. It is more than a coffee table treasure, however, for it contains a well-documented record of one of man's more colorful attempts to beat nature. --Santa Fe New Mexican, Marion C. Loeb A combination history, guide, and coffee table photography book, this volume is beautifully photographed, well-researched, interesting, and an informative read. Clearly, the author is passionate about his subject. This well-researched book is highly recommended. --Colorado Libraries, Laura Kaspari Hohmann ✔︎ Helpful Review? If the evolution of the diesel locomotive captivates your interest, Vintage Diesel Power is a book you'll want in your collection. - Canadian Railway Modeller ✔︎ Helpful Review? For those who enjoy seeing those colorful diesel locomotives of yesteryear at work, this book is a great way to reminisce. - The Michigan Railfan ✔︎ Helpful Review? The best of the best layout design handbook Reviewed in the United States on July 4, 2013 This is my #1 book to have with me when I start designing any railroad, from Z gauge to my latest 1:29 scale monster, dual gauge, occupying my old tennis court. It keeps reminding me of easements to curves, to proper track spacing for yards, bridge placements, crossings, turnout ladders and always avoiding generating too many straight line railroad plots. Better to have sweeping curves, making for interesting views than to make a plain Jane, boring, track plan. Though there are parts of Nevada that have 30 miles of straight line roadbed. Go Figure !!! ✔︎ Helpful Review? Alan C. Heuer 5.0 out of 5 stars Reviewed in the United States on April 17, 2014 One of the finest modelling Books around - recommended by friends, recommended to ALL! This is in fact one of the BEST of the how-to, why-to and what's-next books on the subject. Dense material load, exquisitely readable, and well- illustrated without being a "picture book". 5 stars all around - reprint needed! ✔︎ Helpful Review? "Hills and mountains covered with redwood forests, valleys and ravines in which marvelous ferns grow and wild flowers abound, and through which gurgling brooks flow in crystal streams, give abundant scope for romping and climbing by young America." Oakland Daily Evening Tribune, April 20, 1888 ✔︎ Helpful Review? Review This focused and intensive book chronicles the technological and operating history of the Pacific Electric Railway's 500 class cars from inception through retirement and rebirth through replication. Smatlak places the evolution of the cars within the framework of the changes undergone by the Pacific Electric system and the greater Los Angeles region as an organic part of the whole. Thus the book, while full of technical details about the cars, their equipment, and mode of use, also provides the contextual basis for understanding the wider and richer history of the railway system. It is profusely illustrated with historic photographs to build on the context, as well as illustrate the technical evolution of the cars. Along with the historic photos of the cars in use, drawings, shop documents, even the original bills of sale for the cars makes this one of the most complete histories of a single class of rolling stock I've ever had the pleasure of reviewing. Smatlak does not stop chronicling the cars history with their retirement, however. He has included a chapter showing how some carbodies were recycled and either purposely or accidentally preserved in adaptive reuse. Some of these carbodies are then shown in their third careers as parts of the collections of railroad museums when they were no longer needed for their second incarnations. So, we are also provided with a capsule history of the evolution of railroad museums as they found, moved, and preserved these cars (to a greater or lesser extent) over the past 45 years. Finally, the rebirth of the 500 class cars as models for the new Waterfront Red Car line and the new line itself are covered, a shorter history but as contextually rich in its chapter as the rest of the book covers the longer history of the original. As an experiment, I passed this book along to a friend I work with who has no interest in railways but is from Southern California and likes architectural history. He was a bit lost in the rail jargon, but captivated by the images and contextual information to the extent that he took the book home to share with his young children, and they are now planning a specific visit to the new waterfront line to ride the cars during their upcoming holiday family reunion trip. This book has a wider audience than just railfans. --Dave Lathrop-- Railway Preservation News website ✔︎ Helpful Review? Becky Olenchak (from Facebook): Jimmy McCulloch accomplished much more in his 26 years than most of us do in a lifetime; he was playing lead guitar in bands that opened for The Who and Pink Floyd when he was barely in his teens. As 16 year old guitarist for Thunderclap Newman, he had a number one hit record. After performing with the likes of John Mayall and Stone The Crows, Jimmy became the lead guitarist for Paul McCartney and Wings and together they became the biggest rock band in the world. Still only in his early 20s, he had achieved so much and his potential remained beyond belief. In “Little Wing: The Jimmy McCulloch Story” (fully authorized by the McCulloch family), Paul Salley shares details about Jimmy’s life from early childhood and his fascination with guitars and music at a very young age, throughout the onset of his career and on through the heady days of Wings and afterwards. Included are many lovely personal recollections from brother Jack McCulloch, who played drums in early bands The Jaygars and One In A Million as well as Thunderclap Newman and many others. Throughout the book, there are also memories shared by other family members and friends, plus a ton of incredible visual treats in the form of original newspaper and magazine articles and interviews and lots of photos, many coming from the family archive. Salley enables the reader to get a real glimpse of what Jimmy must have been feeling and thinking, from early days as a young Beatles fan learning guitar when not attending to his studies at Cumbernauld High School outside Glasgow, to later on when he was touring the world and playing enormous stadiums with Paul McCartney and Wings. It’s truly special indeed. I wish I could rate this book more than 5 stars! In a nutshell, Paul Salley and Mark Cunningham (editor and designer) have produced the best rock bio I have read in years. "Little Wing" truly takes flight and soars! ✔︎ Helpful Review? From Scientific American Thorough research has yielded much information and is well synthesized into a whole. The company, operations, and freight cars have been given their due. This is the finest book of its kind ever published. From The New Yorker A giant subsidiary of two major railroads, usually only referred to as a sidelight, has been thoroughly researcheed and accurately presented. An exceptional book. Review This book is comprehensive, carefully researched, and abundantly illustrated. It is an indispensable resource for scale modelers as well as historians. -- Richard Hendrickson, Railroad Model Craftsman magazine ✔︎ Helpful Review? This new book is a wonderful addition to the history of the line, in that it fleshes out the visual coverage, and adds small pieces of history unable to be fit into the previous book. One of the best aspects of this new book is the many pictures reproduced from the camera of Richard Steinheimer. There are 85 such photos in the book, almost 15% of the total...As with all of John Signor's other works, it is a very well done piece of railroad history; and Thompson's historical touch adds measurably to it as well. -- Jeff Saxton, in Model Railroad News, March 2000 ✔︎ Helpful Review? The book is a treasure trove. Other railroad publications seldom even come close to providing such detailed and comprehensive photo coverage of a single rail line, the territory it served, and the trains that ran there. -- Richard Hendrickson, in Railroad Model Craftsman magazine, June, 2000 ✔︎ Helpful Review? Great Coffee Table Book Reviewed in the United States on November 30, 2012 This tribute to a bygone era was published half a century ago and holds up very well even if the printing is starting to fade. Interesting narrative enhances photographs of an America, chiefly midwest, that was emerging into the modern era. For example, Middleton describes how Interurban and Trolley Companies would build amusement parks on ther routes so that the public would have a reason to ride their cars on weekends and holidays. If you have the time it will transport you back. ✔︎ Helpful Review? Review Title: Sacramento Southern Railroad Author: Juliet Farmer Publisher: BC Culture Date: 5/9/09 I was born and raised in Sacramento, California (not including four years in and around Portland, Oregon, when I was in third through sixth grades). I'm pretty sure that while I was learning about Lewis and Clark, my Sacramento peers were learning about the Sacramento Southern Railroad and how it changed the city I call home. I'm not a railroad buff. I've always assumed this was more of a "guy" thing, as my grandfather and my own father, as well as practically every man I've ever met, is fascinated by trains. To me, they are/were a way to get from point "A" to point "B". Then I had the opportunity to read Kevin W. Hecteman's book, Sacramento Southern Railroad, which enlightened me about what I've been missing, as well as filled me in on some of Sacramento's interesting back story. (Although there was text, the book is heavy on photos with accompanying descriptions, which makes the reading both light and entertaining.) I live within walking distance of the southern end of the American River Bike Trail, which includes the leg from Miller Park to 25th Avenue and Riverside Blvd. I've run, biked, and walked this route many times, but I never before knew what the sign for "Baths" referred to, nor did I realize the significance of Miller Park itself and its role in Sacramento's railroad history. Baths was a railroad stop for the Riverside baths, a popular local swimming pool frequented in the early 1900s. In the '30s, the enclosed pool's roof was removed, and it was renamed the Land Park Plunge. This property is now partly occupied by B'nai Israel Synagogue and Interstate 5. Then there are "the tracks" (as I call them), a truss bridge above Riverside Blvd. just south of William Land Park's west side, which was built in 1907 for the train. Sacramento Depot, which is now an Amtrak station, opened in 1926. Miller Park was named for Alice Miller, who died in 1942. She bequeathed 38 acres to the City of Sacramento to use as a park and marina. Miller Park opened in 1958 and was a junction of the railroad until 1976, when it was abandoned, which also led to the abandonment of the Hood junction to Isleton in 1977. In its heyday, the line was about 31 miles long and served the communities of Freeport, Hood, Locke, Walnut Grove, and Isleton. Trains -- on what became known as the Walnut Grove Branch -- hauled pears, sugar beets, asparagus, and other products. The last Southern Pacific train journeyed to Hood Junction on October 10, 1978. The California State Railroad Museum opened in 1976, and the first steam powered excursion train set out from Old Sacramento to Miller Park on June 2, 1984. (This route was extended to include Baths years later.) Today, the California State Railroad Museum's excursion railroad, the Sacramento Southern Railroad, is in operation from mid-April through September, when excursion trains depart every hour on the hour in Old Sacramento on the weekends (Hecteman himself is a crew member). The train features a combination of vintage closed coaches with comfortable seats, and open-air "gondolas" with bench style seating. Since 1984, more than one million guests have taken a ride aboard the Sacramento Southern Railroad, served by all-volunteer crews fully trained and certified under Federal Railroad Administration regulations. Along the six-mile, 40-minute roundtrip excursion the train crosses Capitol Mall at Tower Bridge, passes under Pioneer Bridge, and rolls alongside the Miller Park Marina before stopping at Baths. At Baths, the steam engine uncouples from the front of the train, "runs around" the train on a sidetrack, and couples onto the other end of the train before sounding its whistle to begin the return trip to Old Sacramento. It's a sight to behold. Thanks to Hecteman's Sacramento Southern Railroad, I plan to check it out very soon. ✔︎ Helpful Review? Mick Lamont (from Facebook): My copy of "Little Wing: The Jimmy McCulloch Story" arrived earlier this week. I've held off saying anything about the book until I had some time to take it in. This is because the author, Paul Salley, is a friend of mine - and I'm in it. I am now able to say that it is my considered opinion that this book is a remarkable piece of work. The research that Paul Salley has undertaken is quite frankly unbelievable. He has interviewed a vast number of people from every period in Jimmy's incredible career: The Jaygars, One in a Million, Thunderclap Newman, John Mayall, Wings, Small Faces and more. His pursuit of witnesses has been assiduous: from megastars to school friends in Cumbernauld. (Paul even tracked me down and I am a very obscure and minor footnote in Jimmy's story). Most of the narrative comes from these interviewees. Paul lets the people who were there tell the story. The photographs in the book (603 of them!) are an astonishing record not just of Jimmy's life but of the rock world in the sixties and seventies that he inhabited. Many come from the McCulloch family archives and have never been seen before. We have the wee boy with the guitar - that is bigger than he is - up to the last known photo of him in September 1979. I was already pretty well-versed in the details of Jimmy's life and times but I learned many gobsmacking things from this book: One in a Million played at the legendary 14 Hour Technicolor (sic) Dream at Alexandra Palace in 1967 with Pink Floyd; Pete Townshend's father, Cliff, had a hit in 1941 as a member of The Squadronaires with a tune called "There's Something in the Air". The depiction of life in a Scottish rock band in the early sixties is detailed and vivid: for me it exerts an almost visceral - if morbid - fascination! The sheer volume of research is staggering. The amount of information jaw-dropping. As biography, it is a startling achievement. The book is available from Amazon. As you may have figured out, I do heartily recommend it. ✔︎ Helpful Review? friends on holiday discover a clandestine underground goods railway, and stow away on board under a tarpaulin (as one does) to discover a relict colony of - apparently - the roman empire°, still functioning - and when discovered, they get away with their strange behaviour there because it's saturnalia - or at least they do, to start with... ° - the first clue as to the language people there were speaking was overhearing an obsequious ''beany, beany, dominay!'' from a worker unloading the train to a supervisor... it's far too long since yr hmbl srppnt. read this out of the children's library to judge it fairly now, or rate it; but a young me definitely enjoyed reading it enough to find it again and re-read it. 2 people found this review helpful. ✔︎ Helpful Review? distillation into one typical day in the life of a prisoner working in one of the ''gulag'' forced labour camps of alexander solzhenitsyn's experience of three years in the ekibastuz gulag camp in kazakhstan, 1950-1953. ralph parker's translation is of the censored russian text originally published in novy mir 11/1962; first published in h/cvr edition by victor gollancz (london) and dutton (new york), both 1963. the only english translation from the uncensored russian text is stated to be that made by h. t. willetts, first published by farrar, strauss & giroux (new york) in 1991. (source: solzhenitsyncenter.org) 2 people found this review helpful. ✔︎ Helpful Review? David A Gilbertson Reviewed in the United States on February 9, 2017 Interesting Read! Really enjoyed this book! It was a little smaller than I thought it would be and it could use an update with more details. But it's the only book I'm aware of that details the history of the railroad in this area. With the Smart Train on the horizon and a proposal to make the Healdsburg Freight Depot into a train museum, this would be a good time for a second edition! ✔︎ Helpful Review? Donald M O'Hanley RAILWAYS, FREEWAYS AND THE DECLINE OF A CITY Reviewed in the United States on January 1, 2014 Authors Crise and Patris have combined to produce a book tha contrasts the Los Angeles area of a half-cetury and more ago versus the asphalt and auto dominated metro area by presenting an excellent collection of period photographs. Once vibrant downtown Los Angeles has given way to shopping mall dominated suburbia thanks to the loss of the Pacific Electric Railway,once described as the largest electric railway system in the world, operating 1,000 miles of standard trolley lines. Its two great terminals in the downtown no longer witness the lawful and useful comings and goings of many thousands of passengers daily. One is now given to office space and the other a residential loft building. Pacific Electric Railway, Then and Now, offers a graphic view of the pleasantly remembered past to all who enjoy travel down memory lane. ✔︎ Helpful Review? Paul Sahlin LA's Pacific Electric Interurban lines, one foot in history and the other today Reviewed in the United States on June 19, 2013 There are a number of excellent coffee table picture books extant to chronicle the rise and fall of the once great interurban rail system called the PE that the greater LA basin had in operation. An April, 1938 timetable I checked listed 36 separate carlines running a total of 2,160 scheduled trains daily. Routes were a mixture of PE-owned right of way and streetcar lines runing on city streets. The system operated a total of 901 miles of track and was carrying upwards of 180,000,000 passengers a year at its peak in almost 500 big red passenger cars, some modified to also carry USMail, Express and LCL freight. It was formed by merging traction companies in 1911 under the SP and ceased operating in the late 1950's. Over 7,000 employees worked at the PE at its peak. This book has photos all over the LA basin of PE cars in operation then jumps to the same photo site taken in the past year or so. Very interesting. ✔︎ Helpful Review? By Angie Moon, the founder of the blog The Diversity of Classic Rock. See Little Wing: The Jimmy McCulloch Story by Paul Salley ✔︎ Helpful Review? I've read so many books purporting to tell the history of Rock and Roll and so very few are worth the trouble....this one was surprisingly interesting and told the story in a conversational style interspersed with little asides which prompted a "Ooh, I didn't know that" Eventually he comes to the British invasion...and here was where a few alarm bells started ringing. Apparently British teenagers learned all about US Rock and roll from Decca's London-American label..naming Mimi Trepel as the lady who signed up all those legendary labels for UK consumption. London-American existed thanks to Mantovani, who's sales in the US allowed Decca to do reciprocate deals - taking US artists to the UK!!!!! Every UK teenager had the iconic "blue and silver labeled discs with their triangular centres, in their collections.!!! A few pages later talking about Cliff Richard, the Shadows were recording for HMV. These annoyingly, silly mistakes could have been so easily checked by a proof reader but otherwise I quite enjoyed this book. Another plus is the attempted index that most book in the genre seem to ignore 1 person found this review helpful. ✔︎ Helpful Review? This new book is a wonderful addition to the history of the line, in that it fleshes out the visual coverage, and adds small pieces of history unable to be fit into the previous book. One of the best aspects of this new book is the many pictures reproduced from the camera of Richard Steinheimer. There are 85 such photos in the book, almost 15% of the total...As with all of John Signor's other works, it is a very well done piece of railroad history; and Thompson's historical touch adds measurably to it as well. -- Jeff Saxton, in Model Railroad News, March 2000 ✔︎ Helpful Review? The book is a treasure trove. Other railroad publications seldom even come close to providing such detailed and comprehensive photo coverage of a single rail line, the territory it served, and the trains that ran there. -- Richard Hendrickson, in Railroad Model Craftsman magazine, June, 2000 ✔︎ Helpful Review? Signor has previously authored six highly regarded books...his latest effort is the best of the lot. -- Richard Hendrickson, Railroad Model Craftsman magazine ✔︎ Helpful Review? Page 7 of 17 : Newer : Older :
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