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Classic American Streamliners
Gorgeous archival photographs combine with original brochures, time tables and menus to illustrate the great story of the streamlined trains that reigned supreme from the 1930s through the 1950s. Union Pacifics City of Salina, Santa Fes Chiefs and Rock Islands Rockets are among the many streamliners featured. Filled with everything pertaining to streamlined trains including their development, rolling stock, motive power, designs, operations, and appointments. Fabulous!
- GenresTransport
160 pages, Hardcover
First published November 13, 1997
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
August 15, 2023
This book is a celebration of the streamline passenger trains that operated across the United States from 1934 through the start of Amtrak in 1971. I liked the photos of the Rock Island streamliner Peoria Rocket the best! I liked the photo of Rock Island ALCo-EMD DL-109M passenger diesel #621 as it hauled the Des Moines Rocket out of LaSalle Street Station, Chicago. Anyone who is a passenger train enthusiast will want to read this book!
July 1, 2023
Mike Schafer and Joe Welsh's 1997 Classic American Streamliners is a beautifully illustrated coffee-table book covering the development of streamlined passenger trains in the United States from the 1930s to the Amtrak era of 1971, with appropriate information and context also provided from either side of the endpoints here and there.
Really, even simply flipping through the piece to admire the copious, carefully captioned pictures--period photographs both black-and-white and color, along with old promotional artwork done in smart pen-and-ink or evocative paint--could bring delight enough. But of course there indeed is plenty of text as well, in easily digestible chapters, chapter sections, and sidebars. Whether it is New York Central's famed 20th Century Limited, Burlington's California Zephyr, the Santa Fe Chief and Super Chief, Rock Island's various Rockets, or lesser-known trains on more local routes, the book provides much historical and occasionally even technical information.
Now, occasionally writing could be a tad tighter, as certain mechanical errors crop up up now and then, and sometimes style was a bit over-broad, with a boosterish tendency to attribute the affection or appreciation of a particular train uniformly to an entire state or region. Another slight flaw is that--with artwork of smiling passengers uniformly White rather than of any other backgrounds, and especially with the lauding of the hospitality of particular Southern lines--it was strange indeed that the book contained no mention of any then-common race-based custom or, in the South, law, with the sole exception of a single mention of one Southern carrier ordering coaches that were subdivided for racial segregation. Really, in a book eulogizing the comfort, cuisine, and service of an era of travel long past, I do not expect some searing historical indictment, but a few mentions here and there that the experience someone who was not a White businessman in suit and tie or his smilingly proper wife would have been much, much different than that depicted in the brochures of carefree dining cars and whatnot.
Even these quibbles, though, for me pull the book down only half a star, to 4.5...which I naturally will round back up to 5 stars anyway. For anyone interested in the history and culture of passenger transportation in the United States, and of course especially railroads, Mike Schafer and Joe Welsh's gorgeously illustrated Classic American Streamliners will be a most enjoyable read.
Really, even simply flipping through the piece to admire the copious, carefully captioned pictures--period photographs both black-and-white and color, along with old promotional artwork done in smart pen-and-ink or evocative paint--could bring delight enough. But of course there indeed is plenty of text as well, in easily digestible chapters, chapter sections, and sidebars. Whether it is New York Central's famed 20th Century Limited, Burlington's California Zephyr, the Santa Fe Chief and Super Chief, Rock Island's various Rockets, or lesser-known trains on more local routes, the book provides much historical and occasionally even technical information.
Now, occasionally writing could be a tad tighter, as certain mechanical errors crop up up now and then, and sometimes style was a bit over-broad, with a boosterish tendency to attribute the affection or appreciation of a particular train uniformly to an entire state or region. Another slight flaw is that--with artwork of smiling passengers uniformly White rather than of any other backgrounds, and especially with the lauding of the hospitality of particular Southern lines--it was strange indeed that the book contained no mention of any then-common race-based custom or, in the South, law, with the sole exception of a single mention of one Southern carrier ordering coaches that were subdivided for racial segregation. Really, in a book eulogizing the comfort, cuisine, and service of an era of travel long past, I do not expect some searing historical indictment, but a few mentions here and there that the experience someone who was not a White businessman in suit and tie or his smilingly proper wife would have been much, much different than that depicted in the brochures of carefree dining cars and whatnot.
Even these quibbles, though, for me pull the book down only half a star, to 4.5...which I naturally will round back up to 5 stars anyway. For anyone interested in the history and culture of passenger transportation in the United States, and of course especially railroads, Mike Schafer and Joe Welsh's gorgeously illustrated Classic American Streamliners will be a most enjoyable read.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews