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Subway Adventure Guide: New York City by Amy Plitt and Kyle Knoke; Triumph Books, 814 North Franklin Street, Chicago, IL 60610; www.triumphbooks.com; 208 pages, softcover, full-color photos plus maps; $19.95 plus ship- ping.


This book hit our mailbox in a time- ly fashion, as it ties right in to Dennis Livesey’s feature on New York in this is- sue (page 30). This softcover book would be quite handy to have along on any visit to the Big Ap- ple, and at 51


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it will easily fit into your camera bag.


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The primary focus of the book is not on the subways themselves, but things to see and do at the outer terminal of various lines. Orga- nized by borough, each terminal starts with a spread that features a map with walking dis- tance radii and interesting places to visit on one page, and a description of the area on the other. The next spread details the interesting places that were indicated on the map, and also contains some fun facts about the line. A third spread for each line includes a map showing some of the stations along the way and neat things to see and do at those sta- tions. In all, there are over 100 destinations spread out over the five boroughs. While most of the destinations are parks, museums, and eateries, some are the subway stations them- selves, especially those with Arts In Transit displays. The official MTA subway map is neatly folded and attached to the inside front cover to aid you in getting around. If you head to New York to see the trains


and subways, you owe it to yourself to explore the city as well. Take along this book and head out for days of great photography while you get to see what the city is all about. — STEVE BARRY


The Iowa Route: A History of the Burlington, Cedar Rapids & Northern Railway by Don L. Hofsommer; Indiana University Press, Of- fi ce of Scholarly Publishing, Herman B. Wells Library 350, 1320 E. 10th Street, Bloomington, IN 47405-3907; (800) 842-6796; www.iupress. indiana.edu; 304 pages, hardbound, 222 b&w photos; $75.00 plus $5.00 shipping (USA). Don Hofsommer has gifted us with another one of his well-written and heavily illustrated pieces of Midwest- ern railroad his- tory here, and we are the better for it. Don has been quietly and compe- tently documenting some very interest- ing (and not well-


known) granger road action, and this latest edition is no exception. Most railfans would know some of the lines covered in this book as part of the modern-


day Iowa Northern Railway, a very successful midwestern shortline with some sharp looking motive power to match. Some of us of a certain age might even remember these lines as part of the late, great Rock Island Railroad and it’s tragic, but inevitable, shutdown in 1980. But what about the history that came


even before all that? What about the vision- ary businessmen and pioneers that fought to make this line a piece of a railroad system that was planned to place both Minneapo- lis-St. Paul and St. Louis in direct competi- tion with Chicago? Surely there is quite the story there, and our good Mister Hofsommer is just the man to share it with us. This gem of a book starts off with a history


lesson of how and why the need for a railroad in this region came to be. Most of us alive to- day can’t even imagine just how vitally im- portant it was for a city like St. Louis or Min- neapolis-St. Paul (yes, I know they are two separate cities!) to have control over its own rail-borne commerce and the strategic advan- tages of same. Chicago called almost all of the shots back then because of its lake port and all the various railroads that came together to interchange. And if that wasn’t bad enough, railroads based in Chicago and Milwaukee would literally set rates that would favor those communities and discriminate against all others. In fact it got so bad that it became literally “do or die” for some of the other large cities in the midwest! If the adjoining states like Missouri, Iowa,


and Minnesota were ever to thrive economi- cally, something had to be done to break Chi- cago’s lock on commerce and trade. And thus our protagonist was born. BCR&N’s prede- cessor road, the Burlington, Cedar Rapids & Minnesota, was indeed planned to peel away a good part of Chicago’s literal monopoly on midwestern railway interchange traffic and the corresponding control of its adjoining states economies. The earliest parts of the lines this book


covers were chartered in 1851 and construc- tion began in 1855. These lines were to suffer some very sizable damage from Confederate guerrilla forces during the Civil War. The slow but steady economic recovery after the war allowed the hope that the two largest grain markets in the U.S. (and the world for that matter) would find new outlets in both the Twin Cities and St. Louis. Rebuilding and expanding the war-damaged tracks moved along rapidly, and hopes were bright for Io- wa’s grain farmers to receive a 15- to 25-cent raise per bushel of grain shipped via St. Louis instead of Chicago. Do the math on how much grain there is in Iowa and what 25 cents was worth back then, and you can imagine why everybody involved was so desperate to break Chicago’s lock on grain shipments. Now I have to tell you something here. This


history lesson could have been really dry and really boring. Thankfully the author has a penchant for making history come alive that makes even small turns of events seem fas- cinating, and it makes for a really solid read — sort of a “you are there/man on the scene” approach which really makes history appeal- ingly vivid. The book moves on through the growth


and expansion years of the line and takes us through the story of which plans for the rail-


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