Book

Author:	Dick Stephenson
Title:	The Surfliners 50 Years Of The San Diegan
Publisher:	Trans-Anglo Books
Country:	USA
Date:	1988
Format:	Paperback
Genre:	Transport
ISBN-10:	0870460846
Rating:	Rate
Collection:	I Own It I Want It
Community:	1 Owns
Price Guide:	Valuation Page
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WPLives 30th Jul 2021		Many cities can boast a railroad heritage, but few can claim a present-day railroad revival. San Diego is thus exceptional. This volume assays differing chapters of this renewal. Dick Stephenson has been photographing the Santa Fe Railway Company’s “Surf Line” between Los Angeles and San Diego for some time and focuses on the last fifty years during which streamlined “San Diegan” passenger trains have linked the two cities in under three hours’ time. As a work of history, the book is deficient; the author seems to assume a readership of railfans who are already familiar with the railroad and the line. For example, the 19th century origins of rail service to San Diego are sketched so thinly as to be incomprehensible. Timetables list trains as traveling either eastbound or westbound, although their actual compass bearings are north and south; not until well into the narrative is this mystery clarified. The historic wreck of Santa Fe RDCs (self-propelled rail diesel cars) is mentioned but never described. Several uncommon abbreviations are not spelled out nor technical innovations explained. A list of privately owned passenger cars which have operated on the line has no significance when only their numbers are given and past or present owners remain unnamed. On the positive side, The Surfliners is well illustrated, over half the text and pictures covering the period since 1971 when Amtrak took over passenger operations. Ridership and train frequency have grown tremendously since then, Stephenson notes, making the Surf Line a phenomenal success in contemporary American railroading.

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