BNSF Northwest: The BNSF Railway in the Pacific Northwest

This book reaches back into BNSF's pre-merger railways with numerous historical summaries and facts on construction of the Great Northern, Northern Pacific and Spokane, Portland & Seattle as building blocks in the creation of BNSF Northwest. Discussed are the events that have shaped BNSF during the seven years since the merger with the Santa Fe Railway in 1995.

Contents:
BNSF Northwest System Map, pp. 4-5;
Ch. 1: BNSF Northwest: A Part of the Whole, pp. 6-12;
Ch. 2: Intermodal: BNSF's Growth Commodity, pp. 13-16;
Ch. 3: Stevens Pass, pp. 17-32;
Ch. 4: Preparing for the Future: main line Capacity Expansion Program, pp. 33-40;
Ch. 5: Stampede Pass, pp. 41-47;
Ch. 6: Grain, pp. 48-51;
Ch. 7: Portland to Spokane, pp. 52-65;
Ch. 8: Hi Line and Marias Pass, pp. 66-89;
Ch. 9: BNSF's Midwest Southeast Corridor: Shelby to Laurel, Montana, pp. 90-93;
Ch. 10: Vancouver, British Columbia, pp. 94-97;
Ch. 11, 12 and 13: Pacific Coast/I-5 Corridor, pp. 98-112;
Appendices (Train Symbols, Mileage Chart, Subdivisions, Port Statistics, Short Lines and BNSF Northwest Yard Schematics), pp. 113-128.

Great Northern Pacific Publications, laminated hard cover, 128 pages, 8.5 x 11 x .5 in., color photographs and b&w illustrations. GNPP100
Price: 41.95 USD

Great Northern Lines West (Revised Edition).

The Great Northern was among Americas most distinctive railroads. Though not the earliest of the transcontinental roads, it traversed scenery as varied and spectacular as any. Its operations over the years, in every kind of weather, were similarly diverse, from plains to mountains, from the Great Lakes shore in Minnesota to Pacific tidewater in Seattle. The style instilled in the Great Northern by its builder, James J. Hill, persisted well into the twentieth century. From its characteristic designs of large steam locomotives and its electrified operations over the Cascade Range, to its superb streamliner after World War II, the Empire Builder, and its unique fleet of diesel locomotives, the Great Northern was always a railroad apart.

The book tells the story of the Great Northern Railway, concentrating on it's western half, the Lines West, which conquered both the Rocky and Cascade Mountains. From its earliest beginnings in 1857, to the completion of the line to the Pacific Coast in 1893, to the modernization of the railroad, first with heavy steam locomotives and then with diesels, and to the merger into Burlington Northern in 1970, the sweep of this great history is here.

Noted Northwest railroad historian Charles R. Wood has combined extensive research and a superb collection of photographs to produce an outstanding history of this noteworthy railroad. With the deftness of a writer who knows his subject, Wood presents a wide-ranging description of the life and times of the western half of the Great Northern. This book is a detailed and complete account of one of America's most fascinating roads, the Great Northern Railway.

The first edition of Lines West was published in 1967. Subsequent printings were in some cases unfortunately of poor quality, which has damaged the reputation of this fine book, and it has now been out-of-print for a number of years. This new edition, made with the original page negatives, restores the quality of the first edition while updating and replacing some photographs and adding a color section and an index. Newly revised with numerous new photographs and a superb new painting by Northwest artist J. Craig Thorpe on the dust jacket and frontispiece, this edition will take its place in the literature of the Great Northern Railway.

Signature Press, hard cover with jacket, 208 pages, 8.5 x 11 x 1.75 in., 283 b&w photographs plus 24 in color. SP177
Price: 46.95 USD

Logging Railroads in Skagit County: The First Comprehensive History of the Logging Railroads in Skagit County, Washington State, USA.

This book is packed full of striking black and white photographs of early country logging camps, unique engines and the men who worked-and occasionally died-operating the huge machines.

Author Dennis Thompson spent more than 10 years painstakingly researching the fascinating and colorful early logging operations in Washington State's Skagit County. The result, 308 pages with 411 photographs and dozens of drawings, is an incredible portrayal of an important early industry in a rugged and untamed land. Through a combination of personal experience, countless interviews, and scores of hours pouring over historical archives, Dennis presents a complete and very interesting account and a well-chronicled period of our history.

From the small operations that probably would have faded from memory forever to the area giants such as English Logging Company and Bloedel-Donovan Lumber Mills, you'll get complete details: How, why, where and when they started, what kind of equipment they used, what areas they worked, and ultimately what became of them. Backing up the concise, interesting, and often amusing text are some outstanding photographs that complete the story. From life in a logging camp to the perils of a locomotive wreck, you'll see it all.

The first printing of this book sold out quickly after readers discovered exactly how interesting and unique this work truly is. This printing features the same high-quality 80# acid-free glossy stock and is hard covered with a dust jacket.

Contents:
English Lumber Company, pp. 1-50;
Scott Paper Company and Early Hamilton Loggers, pp. 51-96;
Heislers at Birdsview, pp. 97-112;
Salt Water and Inclines, pp. 113-126;
Rails From the North, pp. 127-142;
Steam Dummies and Disconnects, pp. 143-178;
The Heyday of Big Lake, pp. 179-190;
The Devil's Lake by Rail, pp. 191-198;
And Behind Every Tree: A Thumbnail Sketch of Thirty-eight Logging Railroads, pp. 199-242;
Appendices:
List of Logging Railroads in Skagit County;
Blackman Locomotive and Car Patent Drawings;
Skagit Steel and Iron Works;
Scale Drawings of Pilchuck Creek Bridge, Fordson Locomotive Conversion, Sessoms Lowering System;
Rosters of Locomotives;
Foldout Map: English Lumber Company all-time railroad grades;
Logging Railroads of Skagit County, Map of abandoned railroads.

NorthWest Short Line, hard cover with jacket, 308 pages, 8.5 x 11 x 1 in., b&w photographs, maps and illustrations. NWSL061
Price: 50.95 USD

Detailed captions along with rare color photography of the early Milwaukee electric operations make this a must have book.

Morning Sun Books, hard cover with jacket, 128 pages, 8.5 x 11 x .5 in., all color photographs with captions. MSB1309
Price: 46.95 USD

Jim Frederickson's Northern Pacific.

Practically growing up with a camera in his hand, Jim Fredrickson of Tacoma, Washington, took his first picture of a steam locomotive in 1936. In a few years, railroad men were regularly seeing the kid with a camera alongside the tracks and in the rail yards. Then, one day in 1942, one of the men said You're always hanging around here, kid, you might as well go to work.

The chief dispatcher at Tacoma's Union Station hired the sixteen-year-old high school student to serve as a callboy, telephoning conductors, brakemen, engineers, and firemen an hour-and-a-half in advance of when they were scheduled for duty. Thus began Frederickson's thirty-nine year career with the Northern Pacific Railways telegraph and dispatching departments.

Fredrickson continued to take exceptional photographs--his many pictures depict the last great glories of the Steam Era as coal-fired locomotives were replaced by diesel engines in the 1940s and 1950s. His photographs and stories tell of the NPs men and women as well as the steam engines, depots, diners, cabooses, sidings, yards, shops, bridges and tunnels. This is a good railroad book and its rare to get this kind of insight and detail.

Washington State University Press, hard cover with jacket, 9.25 by 11 in. horizontal format. WSU100
Price: 38.95 USD

SPV's Comprehensive Railroad Atlas of North America: Pacific Northwest USA

Covers the states of Alaska, Hawaii, Oregon and Washington after the Union Pacific-Southern Pacific merger.

Includes detail maps of:
Alaska: Fairbanks, Juneau, Katalia, Kennecott, Valdez and Yakutat
Hawaii: Kauai, Maui and Oahu
Oregon: Albany, Cascade Loops, Eugene, Klamath Falls, Portland, Prineville and Salem
Washington: Aberdeen, Centralia, Everett, Longview, Maple Valley, Mount Vernon, Palouse, Paso-Kennewick, Stampede Pass, Stevens Pass, Walla Walla and Yakima
78 maps total

This atlas is designed to provide a single source of reference to the North American rail network, past and present in greater detail than has readily available until now. Each sheet is drawn to a constant scale of 8 miles to 1 inch for easy distance comparisons with 2 miles to 1 inch enlargements of complex areas.

All extant rail lines are shown together with stations, junctions, yards, principal bridges and tunnels. Former lines, now abandoned, are also shown. Ownership, current and past, and trackage rights are shown. An index of stations is included.

Steam Powered Video, soft cover, 76 pages, 8.5 x 11 x .25 in., printed on heavy enameled paper. SPVATPN
Price: 22.95 USD

The Milwaukee Road Olympian: A Ride to Remember.

A 1941 train trip from Chicago to Tacoma combines sights, sounds, historical asides, and behind the scenes operations of a railroad gone forever. Hundreds of photographs, charts, diagrams, floor plans, dining car menus, and reproduced timetables of the time augment the story. This book is capable of making the oldest train fan remember and the youngest truly envious of such memories, as it describes in detail what it was like to ride more than half way across the country from Chicago to Tacoma in 1941, the last year such trains ran.

Imagine a 13 year old boy, already sophisticated beyond his years in train travel through numerous long vacation trips with his parents and just pure fun working trips with his father who was a conductor on the Olympian, being given the opportunity to travel alone from Kansas City to Chicago. Beginning with a day of sight seeing on his own in the Windy City, spent mostly looking at trains, then boarding the Olympian in Chicago's Union Station for a train ride west through nine states to the Pacific Coast.

Experience this true adventure with him as he writes of it in detail, still remembered sixty years later. Recall with him the flash of passing streamliners, the view from bridges across the Mississippi, the waving tall grasses of the prairie and forbidding badlands of the American Desert, the ascent of the Rockies and the twisting rights of way through the magnificent fir and cedar of the Bitterroot and Cascade mountains. See the panorama of passing towns from Midwestern cities to prairie hamlets to mountain villages. Traverse tunnels, trestles and mountain passes with him as his ride is assured of becoming a treasured memory by the careful assistance of train crewmen, dining car personnel and a porter who was a personal friend of the lads conductor father. Nothing is forgotten. No detail is overlooked that might help satisfy the hunger of today's reader for such an experience.

The book is probably best described by a reader who said, I rode that train at almost that time and when I read these pages I recalled things long since forgotten. It has made forgotten things live again and cherished things still remembered even more treasured as I fit them once more into a past that I thought was gone forever.

Contents:
Introduction, pp. 1-8;
Ch. 1: Before You Hear All Aboard, pp. 9-28;
Ch. 2: Off on the Right Foot: Chicago's Union Station, pp. 29-50;
Ch. 3: The Land of Hiawatha, pp. 51-88;
Ch. 4: Where the Grass Whispers Secrets, pp. 89-120;
Ch. 5: Hoof beats, Drumbeats, and Prairie Ghosts, pp. 121-148;
Ch. 6: Electrified and Smooth as Glass, pp. 149-180;
Ch. 7: Challenging the Rockies, pp. 181-202;
Ch. 8: Train Races, Bearmouths, and Hell Gates, pp. 203-226;
Ch. 9: Trestles, Tunnels, and Trolley Wires, pp. 227-260;
Ch. 10: Steaming Through the Gap, pp. 261-292;
Ch. 11: Over the Mountains to the Sea, pp. 293-320;
Photo Credits, pp. 321-322;
Index, 323-333.

Museum of North Idaho, hard cover with dust jacket, 360 pages, 11 x 8.5 x .75 in., illustrated with b&w photographs, maps and ephemera. MNI776
Price: 31.95 USD

The Northwest's Own Railway: The Spokane, Portland & Seattle Railway and its Subsidiaries

Volume 2: The Subsidiaries

This is a thorough history of this railroad and its subsidiaries with many early and contemporary photographs (as of 1997). Many contemporary photographs are in color.

Contents:
Astoria Line, pp. 10-87;
Goldendale Branch, pp. 86-101;
Gales Creek & Wilson River Road, pp. 102-117;
Great Northern Pacific Steamship Company, pp. 118-137;
Oregon Electric Railway, pp. 138-251;
Oregon Trunk Railway, pp. 252-359;
Pacific & Eastern Railway, pp. 360-369;
Spokane & Inland Empire Railroad Company, pp. 370-391;
SP&S Transportation Company, pp. 392-403;
United Railways Company, 404-451;
Epilogue, Bibliography, acknowledgments, Index, pp. 452-464.

Grande Press, hard cover with jacket, 464 pages, 11 x 9.25 x 1.5 in., b&w and color photographs and illustrations. GPS100
Price: 59.95 USD

The editor emeritus of Railfan Magazine continues his journey west on the Milwaukee Road photographing everything from new EMD FP45s to ancient E50 electrics. Contents:
1. Delivering the FP45s;
2. On Across Wisconsin;
3. The Twin Cities;
4. West to the Wires;
5. Westward to New Jersey (a job offer in New Jersey for Carstens Publications begins a Railfan trek to the West).

The bulk of the book is the Milwaukee Road in the West but includes photographs of Butte, Anaconda & Pacific;
NP, GN, CGW (motorcar);
B&w, Soo Line, Rock Island (at the Milwaukee's Minneapolis depot), C&NW, Amtrak, and ALCos C415 Demonstrator and Baldwin's in the Twin Cities (Milwaukee, MN&S, Soo).

Morning Sun Books, hard cover with jacket, 128 pages, 8.5 x 11 x .5 in., all color photographs with captions. MSB1250
Price: 46.95 USD

Ships in a non-bending mailer, not an envelope, plus sealed in plastic.

The DeLorme Publishing Atlas and Gazetteer provides a wealth of information for trip planning and back country access. Each volume contains topographic maps with unbeatable detail plus gazetteer information on great places to go and things to do. Detail includes railroads, back roads, dirt roads, elevation contours, remote lakes & streams, boat ramps, public lands for recreation, land use (forests, wetlands, agriculture), trailheads, campgrounds, and hunting and fishing spots.

Gazetteer information includes information on hiking, bicycling, museums and historic sites, campgrounds, scenic drives, unique natural features and state and national parks.

DeLorme Publishing, soft cover, 120 pages, 11 x 15.5 x .25 in., color maps. DLWA
Price: 13.95 USD