Working Steam: Vintage Locomotives Today
by By Halberstadt, Hans
Category: Photography , Photoessays & Documentaries

About fourteen hundred steamers, of all sizes and types, exist in Canada and the United States today. Of those, an amazing three hundred or so are still operational. Many different types of locomotive - including tiny little switchers, giant 4-8-4 Northerns, and even a huge 4-6-6-4 Challenger - are still in business, and the Union Pacific Railroad, whose legend was built by steam, never retired one of its big old locomotives, No. 844. In one way or another, many steamers remain open for business, to be inspected, enjoyed, and even ridden by railroad aficionados who refuse to let these important symbols of the past be forgotten.Writer and photographer Hans Halberstadt invites railroad devotees to climb aboard some of these venerable iron horses in Working Steam. This treasury of vintage locomotives - with information on where and how modern-day travelers can see and ride the steam trains of old - presents a unique tour of restored and active locomotives from all over North America. Illustrated with more than one hundred full-color and archival images, and peppered with fascinating first-hand accounts of life on the rails from modern-day firemen and engineers, Working Steam is a photographic gallery of the living, working remnants of a bygone age.