www.railfan.com/departures


www.railfan.com FOUNDING PUBLISHER


HAROLD H. CARSTENS (1925-2009)


PRESIDENT AND PUBLISHER HENRY R. CARSTENS


VICE PRESIDENT JOHN A. EARLEY EDITOR


E. STEVEN BARRY


ASSOCIATE EDITORS WALTER C. LANKENAU OTTO M. VONDRAK


CONTRIBUTING EDITOR JAMES D. PORTERFIELD


COLUMNISTS COLLECTING RAILROAD BOOKS CAN BE HIGHLY ADDICTIVE (AND A REWARDING HOBBY IN ITSELF). PHOTO BY OTTO M. VONDRAK WARNING: Railroad Books are Addictive


IT WILL START INNOCENTLY. You’ll find your- self in the local MegaChain Books, perhaps killing time while a friend, relative, or loved one browses through aisles that bore you to tears, like “Crocheting,” or “Self-Help Cook- ing.” So you wander the store, and turn a corner past “Ancient Military History” and the 30 linear feet of “Classic American Auto- mobile” picture books and stumble upon “Tranportation” only to discover the most unexpected and welcome thing in the world: the “Railroad” shelf. I use the word shelf with intention. It is


just the one shelf. Not a floor-to-ceiling book case, but a single, six-foot-long board. Worst yet, it is only half full. If you turn around, you’ll find “Aviation” has four times as many books, which strikes you as strange, as who would possibly find aircraft interesting? Still, the Railroad book shelf exists, actually exists, and you’re elated.


By the time your friend/relative/loved one


returns, with a volume on low-fat Tuscan dessert cookery by the latest celebrity chef, you, too, have a book to buy. Maybe it’s an anemic coffee table book on the New York Central, complete with four (four!) grainy color photos (cover included). Or maybe it’s a compendium like Classic American Rail- road Boxcars 1950-1968; where you saw the picture of the hometown Podunk & North- ern boxcar on page 74, and it was love at first sight. Or possibly you find a companion book to one of those TV specials about luxu- ry rail travel, and knowing that your odds of affording the four-figure fare on the Vacationing Millionaire Express are slim- to-none, you’re more than willing to drop $59.95 to ride the train vicariously. At the end, all that really matters is you have bought a railroad book. Little do you realize you have begun a dark journey from which there is no return. After you exhaust the shelves of the local MegaChain Books of one copy of each rail- road title they carry — this will not take long, there were only seven — you will move


4 DECEMBER 2012 • RAILFAN.COM


on to bigger fields. The closest hobby store only carries modeling books, but another dealer 20 miles away has four shelves of railroad


books! Your bank card grows


weary. And when another customer in the shop complains about the price on the latest model locomotive, you silently laugh. A hun- dred and fifty bucks? Big deal. You’re going to spend at least that much on Baltimore & Ohio Circus Wagons, Vols. 2 and 3. If you want quality, you have to pay for quality. Then you discover rare and out-of-print books, partly because you have developed a taste for bizarre railroad topics that few oth- ers understand. Perhaps it’s Outhouses Along the Ontario & Western, or Funeral Cars and Chapel Coaches of the Pacific Northwest. You are now routinely awake un- til the wee hours at your computer, scouring rare book web sites. A rare signed copy of Canadian Railroading: I Did It My Way by E. Hunter Harrison sets you back $400, but it is signed. Signed! When it arrives, you swaddle the cover with librarian’s plastic and then slip it into your bookshelf (between forgotten volumes of Stein’s and Plowden’s early commercial photography), and bask in its warm glow.


The FedEx man, with his frequent visits, becomes your new best friend. Every wall of your home becomes a place for a bookshelf, because really, that’s why walls were in- vented, right? You stack up cardboard bank boxes in the middle of the hallway for extra storage, but the narrower walking spaces aren’t a problem, as you’ve been eating less to save up money for more books. Railroad books are dangerously addictive. But in the process, you’ll enjoy a grand adventure in discovering them. You have been warned.


Alexander B. Craghead is a writer, photog- rapher,


watercolorist, and self-described “transportation geek” from Portland, Ore. You can reach out to Alex on our web site at www.railfan.com/departures.


ALEXANDER B. CRAGHEAD THOMAS KELCEC GREG MONROE GEORGE M. SMERK JEFFREY D. TERRY WES VERNON


DIRECTOR OF ADVERTISING JOHN A. EARLEY


ADVERTISING SALES MANAGER PIETER UPTEGROVE


DIRECTOR OF MARKETING GEORGE RILEY


BOOK ACQUISITIONS MANAGER CHRIS LANE


ADVERTISING PRODUCTION MANAGER LARRY DEITCH


ART AND ADVERTISING PRODUCTION TAMMY J. HAVENS


ASSISTANT TO THE PUBLISHER PHYLLIS M. CARSTENS


CUSTOMER SERVICE LYNN GOOD


DEALER SERVICE CATHY STREETER


Visit us at carstens-publications.com


RAILFAN & RAILROAD (ISSN 0163-7266) is published monthly by Carstens Publications, Inc., 108 Phil Hardin Road, Newton, New Jersey 07860. Phone 973/383-3355. Henry R. Carstens, Publisher; Phyllis M. Carstens, Secretary-Treasurer. Periodical Postage paid at Newton, NJ 07860 and additional mailing offices.


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CONTRIBUTIONS: Articles and photographs from our readers are always welcome. Contact editor Steve Barry at editor@railfan.com for details. The contents of this magazine may not be reprinted without written permission of the publisher.


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