Description
Classic Railroad Scenes: Railroads at Work provides an intimate view of freight railroading including:
- Inside yards and a roundhouse
- At rail-marine facilities
- Up close views of cars at industries
- And much more!
This 224-page book features 100+ color railroad photos of the Transition and Classic eras from the Krambles-Peterson Archive covering the 1940s through the 1970s. Organized geographically, each large photo includes in-depth captions which go beyond just telling you what is in the photo. Instead, they put the images in context with the greater railroad scene as well as what was going on in the larger society.
Don’t miss this close-up view of freight railroading in North America!
Softcover
Author: Art Peterson
Size: 11 x 8.5
Pages: 224
Author Bio
Peterson grew up in a railfan-friendly environment: his mother, Elaine, was George Krambles’s sister, so she was well-used to the experience of standing on a crowded North Chicago Junction platform during the war, only to have a Central Electric Railfans’ Association special stop and pick her and her fellow WAVES up. Once Art showed an enduring interest in railroads, his parents and uncle agreed to give him the education of a lifetime. Those experiences shaped Art’s interests in the hobby and he shares them with succeeding generations—his kids have operated “L” and interurban cars (with instruction), while a pre-school grand-nephew is being taught to count the number of orange (or yellow) locomotives going by a railcam. Cursed by an interest in too many railroads, Art still avidly collects slides, and continues to shoot new slides every year. He’s also interested in black & white images and maintains an extensive collection of these as part of the Krambles-Peterson Archive. Art has added entire collections to the Archive over the years, as well. His other rail interests include both public and employee timetables, Official Guides and Equipment Registers. Art, and his wife of 37 years, Tina, currently live in St. Charles, Illinois, 1 mile south of the bike/hiking trail that was the Chicago Great Western and about 3 miles north of the Union Pacific (ex-Chicago & North Western) Geneva Subdivision.
Reviews
Sometimes you just want to relax with a railroad picture book and enjoy what the author/photographer is presenting within the pages without a lot of verbiage. So it is with Classic Railroad Scenes—Railroads at Work.
This 224-page 8 1/2 x 11” perfectbound book is a compilation of various large photos (one per page)—all in color—of a wide variety of locomotives, railroads, rail yards and locations. Author Peterson has assembled these photos, taken from slides, from two dozen different photographers. He lists the photos as having been shot in the Northeast, South, Southwest, Northwest, Great Lakes and Alaska/Canada. While you won't find but a couple of photos of steam locomotives, you will find diesels aplenty such as a Union Pacific NW-2, a Butte, Anaconda & Pacific 80-tonner, an Atlanta & West Point GP-40, a Santa Fe CF-7, a Reading AS-16 and a Southern Pacific RS-11, among many others. Most pictures were taken in a railroad yard or showing locomotives leading a train on the mainline.
Other photos include scenes from Pennsylvania Railroad’s Pitcairn freight yard in Wilmerding, Pennsylvania taken in 1958, a 1977 shot of the Chicago & Northwestern’s Sleepy Eye, Minnesota depot and line side industries taken in 1977, and a unique 1953 switching scene in Bloomington, Illinois of a Nickel Plate Road 44-tonner and a blue and white trolley rambling down the street at the same time.
Author Peterson, who has collected railroad photos through the years, and taken numerous rail photos himself, has put together an engaging book, with accompanying background on each scene.
—By Don Heimburger, Heimburger House Publishing Co.