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The Illustrated Atlas of
Street & Electric Railways 1863-1946
Maine’s
An authoritative atlas for all of Maine’s electric railways, urban and interurban
Historic images –many in color
208 pgs, 81
41 maps /2
x 11 Soft cover
One in a series of publications by Seashore Trolley Museum’s Library Commitee, income from the sale of this book will provide seed money for further Seashore publications.
$ s/h in US
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name of the 2016 calendar from the Friends of the Valley Railroad, featuring the Connecti- cut tourist hauler with a variety of automo- biles, mostly in color. The front cover features Valley’s 2-8-2 Chinese-built Mikado with a 1958 Edsel Citation. The 13 inside scenes in- clude 2-8-0 No. 97 with a 1940 Chevy pickup; 80-tonner No. 0901 with a 1937 Ford station wagon; 80-tonner 0900 with a 1947 Chevy Stylemaster with Railway Express Agen- cy lettering; Thomas the Tank Engine with a 1960 Austin Healey MK; a night station scene with a 1952 Bentley Type R; 2-6-2 No. 103 meeting a 1912 Overland 59 Roadster; passengers waiting at the station next to a 1924 Dodge station wagon; No. 3025 passing a 1940 Ford Delux at the Chester station; a 1966 Chevy Suburban hi-rail truck in full Mc- Ginnis New Haven paint; 2-8-2 No. 40 with a 1939 GMC delivery truck; a station agent looking out the window at a 1956 Lincoln Mark II meeting a train at a grade crossing; a 1934 Buick Business Coupe next to a Erie boxcar in the snow; and a snowy scene at the Essex depot with a 1936 Packard Super 8 Club Sedan. Car enthusiasts will get a kick out of this calendar, as well as train enthu- siasts. The calendar folds out to 11"x17" and is available for $12.00 (plus $2.00 shipping) from Friends of the Valley Railroad, 1 Rail- road Avenue, Essex, CT 06426; you can also email
paul.costello@
friendsvrr.org or pick it up at the Valley Railroad’s station in Essex. The 2016 Railway Calendar from the Lackawanna & Wyoming Valley Histori- cal Society, Inc., is chock-full of railroading scenes from the anthracite region of north- east Pennsylvania, mostly in color. The cov- er scene features Delaware & Hudson PAs with Lehigh Valley C628s near Carbondale in 1973. Inside you’ll find a CNJ F3 passing RDCs in Wilkes-Barre in 1954; a b&w view of Delaware, Lackawanna & Western A-B-A F3s passing the Erie’s Dunmore shops in the early 1950s; Scranton Transit Co. No. 409 in Scranton in 1952; Lehigh Valley PAs on the Black Diamond at Pittston in 1959; a Read- ing & Northern SD50 approaching Taylor Yard in 2002; a b&w image of an Erie 2-10-0 in Stroudsburg in 1938; an Erie Lackawanna S1 in Wilkes-Barre in 1964; Delaware-Lacka- wanna RS3s on the ex-Lackawanna main- line in 2001; a New York, Ontario & Western NW2 in Carbondale in the 1950s in b&w; an A-B-B-A set of F7s on the Erie Lackawanna at Taylor Yard in 1970s; a pair of Reading AS16s assisting T1 2124 on an Iron Horse Ramble in Tamaqua in 1960; and a b&w view of Wilkes- Barre Railway streetcars near Fernwood Park in 1939. Beyond the end of the months, there are bonus pages featuring b&w scenes of Bridge 60 Tower (both old and new) in Scranton and DL&W’s Hampton Yard. The calendar folds out to 11"x17" and is available for $9.00 postpaid from the Lackawanna & Wyoming Valley Railway Historical Society, Inc., P.O. Box 3452, Scranton PA 18505-0452.
Video Reviews
Trains On The Fort Worth & Western Railroad from Plets Express, P.O. Box 217, Altoona, WI 54720; 715/833-8899;
www.pletsexpress.com. DVD or Bluray, 102 minutes, $29.95 plus $6.00
domestic shipping.
Texas, good old Tex- as. It’s home to a whole bunch of Texans, a whole bunch more cattle, some of the best music in the world, Dublin Dr. Pepper, and Shiner Bock beer. In other words — Texas is a totally awesome state even excluding its var- ied and exciting railroad scene. Throw in some
heavy duty mainline action, add a wide va- riety of regional and shortline railroads, and you just might have the perfect state. In fact, if I didn’t love Pennsylvania so much I’d be living there myself. I’ve been fortunate to travel a good portion
of Texas for both business and pleasure since 1982, and every trip back is even better than the last. Whether it’s been chasing a brace of Santa Fe CF7s on a local through Cleveland or shooting the MoPac in Kingsville or watch- ing the Cotton Belt action in Texarkana,Tex- as calls me back time and time again. Those of you who live there or have visited know what I mean, and those of you who haven’t been there need to get down there and see what all the fuss is about. One of my favorite lines to shoot when I’m
deep in the heart of Texas (sorry couldn’t resist) is the Fort Worth & Western, a very classy (and very friendly) line that odd- ly enough starts in Fort Worth and heads west from there. My first introduction to the FW&W came a few years ago as I was driv- ing just east of Comanche when I yelled out that famous railfan war-cry — “Headlight!!!” — and proceeded to bring the rental car to a screeching halt just in time to shoot a west- bound FW&W train slowing up to switch in town. Between the really attractive yellow and blue paint and the railfan-friendly crew, I was one happy camper, I can tell you. But oh how I wish I had had this DVD from
Plets Express back then... I would have been able to see more of the FW&W than just that one train. This title takes us on a tour of the action from Fort Worth to Cresson, Cleburne, Dublin, and back on up to Fort Worth and covers the line in great detail — detail that I was missing at the time and detail that will help you plan a very productive trip to see the line in all its Texan glory. We start out by seeing a variety of action at
the site of the former Tower 60 in Fort Worth. The action is fast and furious as the FW&W shares screen time with UP, BNSF, and Am- trak trains. I especially liked the footage of the eastbound UP train with former SP AC- 44CW 6415 pushing on the rear. (How gor- geous those SP units looked when they were new, and how bad they look now all faded, is a story for another time.) A wide variety of angles is shown as we
work our way to Hodge Yard and points west. The Fort Worth skyline looms in the back- ground of a few shots, and we are treated to a few neat scenes showing trains crossing the Clear Fork of the Trinity River and the very photogenic bridge over Mustang Creek. We then head west as the line goes into
“hill and dale country.” If you think Texas is miles and miles of flat boring prairie, think
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