Outbound Trains: In the Era Before Mergers (Masters of Railroad Photography)
This gorgeous color album for railroad fans depicts diesel engines from the late 1960s and early 1970s, along with a few steam engines still operating then. Organizing the hundreds of pictures geographically, Boyd relates how he converted his train-chasing hobby into a lifelong career. By Boyd's account, he got a job taking new engines on their shakedown runs, but his passion is clearly for photography. The initial set of images consists of trains that rumbled through his hometown of Dixon, Illinois. Photographically, Boyd strives for accuracy over artistry, and seeks out the technically unusual in diesel engines. This leads to captions that tend to be jargon-ridden--though not to readers who can decode 2-8-2 or GP7. What redeems Boyd for nonfanatics is his attraction to the paint schemes and company logos on engines, a crucial nostalgic point that will make this pictorial popular in libraries, for in this period most regional railroads went out of existence, extinguishing one more bit of Americana. A well-designed and sturdy book that should appeal to browsers.Gilbert TaylorCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved