Nickel Plate, Lake Erie & Western, Clover Leaf, and Wheeling & Lake Erie. The 160 b&w photos represent all eras through to- day and are supplemented by an NKP sys- tem map and several pages reproduced from employee timetables. An appendix includes NKP painting standards for structures and plans for NYC&StL Class 1 and Class 5 pas- senger stations, plus plans for the stations at Green Springs Junction,
Ohio, and
Donellson, Ill. This 114-page, 8¹/₂″×11″ soft- cover has color covers and sells for $21.95 postpaid from Highland Publishers and Photographs, 8123 Ashgrove Dr., Cincinnati, OH 45244; www.
micropressbooks.com. Also available from Highland is the five-volume Railroads of the Ohio Valley series, priced at $21.95 per copy, postpaid.
BOOK REVIEWS
Waiting for the Cars Stereo photography by Alfred A. Hart; 3D anagraphs by Howard Goldbaum; text by Wendell W. Huffman. Published by the Nevada State Railroad Museum Dept. RF, 2180 South Carson St., Carson City, NV 89701; www.
waitingforthecars.com. Hardcover, 480 8″×9″ pages, 218 b&w stereo views. $35.00 postpaid in the U.S.; consult website for other options, including upgraded 3D glasses. You’ve never seen the young Central Pacific Railroad like this! Released in celebration of the 150th anniver- sary of the found- ing of the Central Pacific, this amaz- ing book features
218 stereo photographic views made by Alfred
A.
Hart during the railroad’s construction between 1865 and 1869. Howard Goldbaum, professor of multimedia journalism at the Reynolds School of Journalism at the University of Nevada, converted the stereo cards to 3D anaglyphs, which provide a stereo effect when viewed with the special glasses that are provided with the book. Nevada State Railroad Museum curator of history Wendell Huffman provided the informative captions and textual materials. Following a brief introduction by Huffman and a biographical sketch of Hart written by Mead B. Kibbey, author of The Railroad Pho- tographs of Alfred A. Hart, Artist (California State Library Foundation, 1995), the images are presented in geographic order from Sacramento, Calif., through Reno, Nev., to Promontory and Ogden, Utah, just as CP’s construction progressed. On the left-had page of each spread is reproduced the origi- nal stereo card along with descriptive text; the corresponding 3D anaglyph occupies the facing page.
At the beginning of the journey, the water- front and railroad station at Sacramento are shown with disassembled, crated locomo- tives being delivered from Eastern builders waiting on the docks. Along with the rail- road, steam and sail-powered vessels share these scenes. Next up are a nice broadside view of CP No. 7 A.A. Sargent with J Street, Sacramento in the background. All impor- tant locations and structures, including the American River bridge, the 12-Mile Tan- gent, Dry Creek bridge, the Rocklin quarries and enginehouse, the station, trestle, and
turntable
at Newcastle, and earthworks
such as Bloomer Cut with its nearly vertical walls are shown.
As the geography gets more challenging on the way to Donner Pass the photographic density increases, covering the railroad practically mile by mile. There’s a fine view of Colfax with the immense freight house and sidings in the foreground with the town laid out at the foot of the mountain behind them, and also the Long Ravine bridge. The images on the mountain at Cape Horn and the Forks of the American River are truly breathtaking, and one has to wonder just how many cars little 4-2-4T No. 3 could haul up the grade.
Hart photographed just about everything related to the building of the railroad — sawmills, cuts, fills, tunnels and snowsheds under construction, workers, and Native Americans. The photos of the Prospect Hill and Sailor Ravine cuts show the teams of horse-drawn dump wagons that were used to build the fills. A view at Blue Canyon fea- tures an unexpected detail shot of an arch- roofed CP coach in the foreground. Hart was out in the miserable Sierra winter as well as fair weather, photographing the Cisco en- ginehouse with snow past the eaves and wedge plows at work. Several views docu- ment the construction of Summit tunnel, in- cluding an interior shot that was illuminat- ed using a mirror to reflect sunlight inside. On the east side of the Sierra as construc- tion continued through Nevada and into Utah, the images of the water trains which hauled the scarce resource to crews working in the desert, show early tank cars. The first were nothing more than three round vats mounted on flatcars, and the later version which used a larger rectangular tank. The culmination, of course, was the join-
ing of the CP with Union Pacific at Promon- tory, Utah. Hart recorded the ceremony be- ginning with a wide shot that includes a CP lineman splicing the telegraph wire as the ceremony began. Several photos document the great event, including two separate shots of the CP and UP locomotives which were spliced together by Goldbaum to create a “head to head” view in stereo; this image is printed on the endpapers as well as in simu- lated 3D inside the book.
The book ends with a few miscellaneous, but nonetheless very interesting, images of the interior and exterior of dining car Inter- national plus interior views of a Pullman sleeping car and a view of Leland Stanford himself in a Silver Palace sleeper built by Thomas T. Woodruff, an early Pullman com- petitor. In addition to the scenic views and photos of construction, a good variety of CP’s early steam power is shown including 4-4-0 No. 1 Governor Stanford, 4-2-4T No. 3 C.P. Huntington, 4-4-0 No. 5 Atlantic, 4-6-0 No. 6 Conness, 4-4-0 A .A. Sargent, 2-6-0 No. 8 Ne- vada (a Mogul), 2-6-0 No. 14 Oneonta, 4-6-0 No. 22 Auburn, and 4-6-0 No. 25 Yuba. The cover image, “First Construction
Train Passing the Palisades,” is presented as a lenticular 3D image in which depth may be perceived with the naked eye. In- side, the 3D effect is quite striking when us- ing the provided glasses, and the images ex- hibit pleasing contrast and a good range of tonality. The 3D effect was simulated digi- tally on a few images as noted in the book’s introduction. Higher quality 3D glasses are available at
www.waitingforthecars.com; the website also offers additional views that
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