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Delaware & Hudson Bridge Line Freight, Volume 1 By Dominic Bourgeois. Published by Railroad Explorer, P.O. Box 248, Goffstown, NH 03045; www.railroadexplorer.com.


Hardcover, all


color, 180 pages, 11″×8¹/₂″. $79.95 to U.S. addresses; $89.95 to Canada; $99.95 foreign. Known as “The Bridge Line” to its many fans, the Dela- ware & Hudson was one of Amer- ica’s oldest transporta- tion systems,


tracing its roots back to the Delaware & Hudson Canal of the 1820s. Throughout the tumultuous upheaval in the Northeastern railroad scene in the 1960s and 1970s the railroad remained solvent, and its well- known blue-and-gray paint scheme became a favorite among railfans. Though primarily focused on moving freight between Canada and New England, the line did host a small number of passenger trains into the 1970s such as the Montreal Limited, Laurentian,


the and the later Amtrak


Adirondack, hauled by refurbished Alco PA’s. Even in its declining years leading up to acquisition by Guilford Transportation Industries in 1983, the plucky railroad retained much of its charm. The title of Railroad Explorer’s newest


book, Delaware & Hudson: Bridge Line Freight 1960-1983; Volume 1 — The North End, is a mouthful, but an accurate descrip- tion of its contents. Author Dominic Bour- geois is a Montreal architect with a life-long interest in the D&H, who painstakingly re- searched his subject over the last five years and consulted a number of resources to paint an accurate picture of the railroad’s North End operations.


This volume is no mere collection of pretty


pictures. Of course, the clear, sharp photog- raphy you expect from Railroad Explorer is here, accompanied by the author’s insightful text and analysis of the freight traffic that made the D&H unique. The number of var- ied customers along this section of the rail- road helps add to the interest provided by its well-known fleet of colorful Alcos. The “North End” of the D&H stretches roughly from the Albany area to Montreal, and includes a number of branches along the way. This book contains a thorough ex- amination of all these lines, including oper- ations in Canada over subsidiary Napierville Junction Railway, the 4th Subdi- vision and associated branches, as well as the 3rd Subdivision and its dense web of branch lines including subsidiary Green- wich & Johnsonville. The author carefully explains the function and history of each line, helping the reader to form a better un- derstanding of the complex freight opera- tions that made up the pre-Guilford D&H. Photography has been carefully selected to accompany the text from more than 30 fa-


50 AUGUST 2013 • RAILFAN.COM


miliar names such as Bob Wilt, Tony Steele, Gardiner Cross, Wally Day, Richard J. Allen, Ken Goslett, and other regular contributors to Railroad Explorer magazine. The best of D&H’s colorful blue-and-gray power is ever present, and “transitional” patch paint jobs and foreign power are duly represented as well. Included are beautiful photos of PA’s hauling matched passenger consists as well as many workaday freight jobs toiling on the main lines and branch lines. The pairing of quality photographs bal- anced with a detailed description of opera- tions and an analysis of the commodities hauled will make this book invaluable to any student of Northeastern railroading. This 180-page hardcover is sure to become an in- stant classic, along with Hal Reiser’s Bridge Line Blues and Karl Zimmermann’s A Decade of D&H. — OTTOM. VONDRAK


America’s Greatest Circus Train By Bruce C. Nelson. Published by Heimburger House Publishing, 7236 W. Madison, Forest Park, IL 60130; www.heimburgerhouse.com. Hardcover, 208 pages, 10″×10″; $54.95 plus $6.50 shipping; IL residents add sales tax. This is the story of the Circus World Museum’s


Great


Circus Train, which ran from Baraboo, Wis., to Milwaukee and Chicago between 1965 and 2003 with up to 29 cars


carrying 90 ornate circus wagons, some- times behind steam power.


The book begins with an overview of cir- cuses and carnivals and their relationships with the railroads, traces the development of circus rolling stock, and explores the reasons why many shows converted to truck haulage. There’s also a discussion of the museum’s history, its occupancy of the former Ringling Bros. Winter Quarters (and car shop) in Baraboo, and how it came to own the largest collection of circus wagons and railroad cars in the world. Another chapter outlines the museum’s rolling stock collection in detail, along with a discussion of the major builders of circus rolling stock — Warren Tank Car, Mount Vernon Car, and later, Thrall Car, and the differences between their distinctive de- signs.


Nelson describes Circus World’s acquisi- tion of its first cars in 1961 and talks about the effort made to make the antiquated equipment roadworthy, such as changing out the trucks at one point. A color-coded bar graph summarizes the operating fleet’s paint and lettering schemes by car number and year, and the museum’s three small lo- comotives are pictured and described. All of the many routes used over the years are cov- ered, along with the operational challenges posed by running a train of antique equip- ment over main line railroads. A color-coded map shows all the routes traveled over the years, and the train’s loading and unloading using draft animals and antique tractors and bulldozers are described in great detail. A chapter is devoted to the first three


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