Stopped off at Borders tonight and found a book I'd been wanting to buy: Pennsylvania Railroad, by Mike Schafer and Brian Solomon, part of the Railroad Color History series. It's a good book, in my opinion. I haven't fully read the thing to review it, but I'll say two things against it:
1. The authors apologize several times for the incompleteness of the work. This seems more a pre-emptive response to fanatical PRR fans who would whine that the book is neither authoritative nor complete. To this, I can only say, "Why bother?" The book is 120 pages long. It's not going to cover 121 years of a company that at one point had more in bonded debt than the United States government and served something like half the population of the United States.
2. There are, however, spelling errors; I caught two of them on the first read. I can be somewhat sympathetic for a Tom Clancy 800 page plus doorstop, but for this book, good grief!
Still, if you're a fan of the Standard Railroad of the World, give it a look and a buy; it's good for quick reference.
Posted by Country Pundit at April 3, 2004 09:13 PM