This is going to be fun!
You mentioned Bob Olmsted, I love his stuff. I have all of his books except the one out this fall about UP E units; I'll pick it up at one of the upcoming tran shows. I think he is up to nearly 40 books total, the hardest to find being Rock Island Rails (not Rock Island Recollections - very common) which I have only seen listings for 3 or 4 copies of in my life. Also hard to get by him are "Four to Remember" and "No More Mountains to Cross." I'm a black and white RR photo nut myself so I love his stuff, not so artistic but very well done.
I need to get
Six Units to Sycamore yet as well as the various Milwaukee Road volumes. At this point I'm ready to grab whatever shows up at Summerail next year at any cost.
I also like Don Ball's stuff. While common and cheap, Don got me started both in RR books and photos. His compilations are very nice, very reasonably priced, and I love his writing style. I still remember reading in Trains magazine when he died way to young. It's been over 20 years ago, and I don't think anyone has replaced him yet.
I agree his stuff is good for the price. My favorite is
America's Railroads The Second Generation since it covers the decidedly diesel decades of the 1960s and 1970s. I do have have a deteriorating copy of
America's Colorful Railroads, a 1978 Bonanza edition, that was given to me by a friend to has since passed; it will always be on my shelf regardless of it's wear, but I am looking for an economical copy to replace it in daily use.
- Train show in Dayton - Steinheimer's "Diesels over Donner" for $15
This is one of two Stein books still not on my shelf. Though I don't consider it his best work it is still Stein and that alone makes it worthy of my shelf. I do still need to get all of his books signed, sooner rather than later.
- "WM in the Diesel Era" by Salamon and Hopkins
I picked up a new, sealed copy of this at Summerail this past August. It's a good book and I've spent a fair amount of time along the old Wild Mary. I have a project to collect everything that Old Line Graphics published and this volume put me to within three books of that goal.
- "Passion for Trains" by Steinheimer (a shame about his declining health)
Wow, what a book! There are few photographers, both railroad and general, with the same power to make me pause. This is Stein's crowning achievement and rightly so as it encompasses a life's work of photography. There are a few scattered images that were skipped I would have liked to have seen included, but I certainly can't find fault with the inclusion of anything that is in there. Shortly after this book came out I had the pleasure of meeting Dick and Shirley and, in fact, Dick wanted to talk to
me. I was speechless and to this day wonder if it wasn't all a dream.
Bob Olmsted (not artistic but very well done)
I disagree that Mr. Olmsted is "not artistic." While he isn't as widely known as others he does bring a deal of creativity to railroad photography. Given how much he has shot in the dreaded flatlands he's had no choice but to take some chances. Not every one of his shots is a winner, he's had plenty of duds, too. If you study his photography you'll see his style of artistry shine through. The greatest example of this off the top of my head is the shot on page 30 of
West End Rails of the Pennsy's
General in Englewood. There is certainly a message there that may only be apparent after a bit of contemplation.
I have both
The Last Steam Railroad in America and
Steam, Steal & Stars and I find both to be rather kitsch and passe. Link took a novel approach in the 1950s and mastered it quite well, I can't argue that. The problem is that his approach is now outdated and overblown. People today can shoot floodlit night photos with a digital SLR and a bank of synchronized digital flashes. There are a bunch of Link imitators these days but they really haven't evolved the style. (That is the definition of kitsch, isn't it?) In the end Link used a gimmick rather well to gain notoriety. Today we can look back and marvel at how much he worked to achieve those results, but, in the end, is there really much substance to them?
but I do like Canadian Greg McDonnell's (sp?) stuff
Amen. My favorite book by far is Greg McDonnell's
Heartland. It is mantra at times and my nemesis at others. It is, in sum, phenomenal. (Yes, Greg knows this. He heard all about it when he signed my copy a few years back.) I also have a smattering of his other books;
Lake Boats,
Rites of Passage,
U-Boats, and
Wheat Kings all come to mind though there's probably one or two I've forgotten.
The text by Fred Frailey is entertaining also, I think Fred is the best RR writer out there today. His book on the "Blue Streak Merchandise", while on I think a boring subject (for a whole book), was nevertheless one of the best RR reads I have ever had.
Fred is a great writer. I've never met him but have had the pleasure of swapping e-mails back and forth from time to time. One of his best stories is actually the story of how he put together a recent feature for Trains magazine on Canadian winters. I never thought I'd see a national magazine editor use "LOL" in a story! It was a great story and gave some welcome background information on the published article.
That was fun! Next!
~BS
