Outbound Trains: In the Era Before Mergers (Masters of Railroad Photography)

From the early 1960s through the 1970s.

Outbound Trains features distinguished photographer, writer and rail magazine editor Jim Boyd's best images, with emphasis on the colorful first-generation diesel railroads. A lively text and scores of incomparable photographs take the reader coast to coast with most major American railroads and provide a sampling of interesting short lines and restored steam or main-line steam.

There are spectacular photographs of aging roundhouses, country stations, busy interlocking towers and the great stations of Chicago; pre-Amtrak passenger trains, from the Twentieth Century Limited and the Midnight Special to lowly locals, mail trains and branch-line doodlebugs; N and W Geeps and SDs in the West Virginia coalfields, the California Zephyr threading through the Feather River canyon, and slant-nose, stainless-steel-paneled Burlington E5s racing across the Illinois prairie; Pennsylvania GG1 electrics, Milwaukee Road boxcabs and Little Joes; and the historic steam of Southern Pacific Daylight and Union Pacific Challenger 3985, the world's largest operating steam locomotive.

Outbound Trains is an absolute must for every railfan's bookshelf.