Volume 1 in this series showcasing the steam and diesel locomotives on the railroads of northern California in the fifteen years after World War II. While the Southern Pacific and Western Pacific obviously play starring roles, the book also covers San Francisco's Market Street Railway and Key System and other trolley lines, Bay area shortlines, the Modesto & Empire Traction Co., Tidewater Southern, Stockton Terminal & Eastern, Sacramento Northern, the Virginia & Truckee and the Owens Valley. Illustrated throughout with a mix of black and white and color photos. With maps and timetables.

Northern California Railroads: The Silver Age, Volume I

History

MATTHEWS, Fred

Americas

Sundance Books

Volume 2 in this series showcasing the railroads of San Francisco and the surrounding countryside in northern California in the fifteen years after World War II. While the Southern Pacific obviously plays a major starring role, the book also covers the logging railroads (such as West Side Lumber and Yreka Western), the Northwestern Pacific, the Petaluma & Santa Rosa, and the Bay area ferries. Illustrated throughout with a mix of black and white and color photographs, all informatively captioned. With several maps and bibliography.

Northern California Railroads: The Silver Age, Vol. 2

The first of three volumes that illustrate a tour of Spanish railways and tramways in summer 1963, just before the traditional rail scene - which resembled that of North America around 1920 - was swept away by modernization. Volume One focuses on Catalonia, including broad-gauge steam activity, the narrow-gauge "toy trains" of Gerona, the remarkable rural tramway of Mataró, and Barcelona with its huge city network and American-style interurbans. The text gives background on Spanish railway history and the specific enterprises covered.

Iberian Rails, 1963: Last Days of the Old Order - Part 1: Catalonia

Engineering & Transportation

Transportation

Trafford

This is the second part of a survey of Iberian railways and tramways in 1963, when the author and his friend Larry Veysey and I made a long circular tour of the Peninsula. In 1963 the traditional tramways were large and busy, though already in the sights of modernizing bureaucrats. The broad-gauge national RENFE and most independent railways were still largely powered by steam; many passengers rode in wood-bodied coaches. Much of the railway scene was comparable to that of North America around 1910. Volume I covered the railways and tramways of Catalonia. Here we make a loop south along the Mediterranean Coast to Valencia and Alicante, inland to Granada, and north via Madrid and Leon to the Costa Verde along the bay of Biscay. The RENFE (Red National des Ferrocariles Espagnoles) is a government owned system created in 1941 to consolidate four major and some minor broad-gauge companies left without reconstruction funds at the end of the bloody, destructive Civil War in 1939. Despite inheriting a broken and bankrupt group of companies, RENFE had little new funding until the late 1940s, except for necessary repairs and replacements. Spain was struggling with savage domestic repression, then ostracism and isolation by the victorious democratic powers after Generalissimo Franco's Axis friends were finally defeated in 1945. While certainly the largest, longest, and loudest, the RENFE was only one (very large) part of the overall rail scene in 1963. Spanish governments over the years between 1875 and 1930 had encouraged a flowering of narrow-gauge lines to open up the rich but usually-impoverished country away from the coasts and Madrid-centred main lines. Most of these were metre-gauge railways, but there were still some of the 75cm (2'5½") gauge toy trains, like the charming El Parderole, the FC Onda y Castellón, which opens this volume. We continue south to Spain's fascinating third city, Valencia, where a carnival of steam activity centered on the grand Norte Station (then called Termino). The Mediterranean from Valencia to Alicante enjoyed three separate metre-gauge lines plus two tramways, and RENFE super-power tackling steep mountain grades. Then on to Granada on a vintage train and track preserved in aspic from the 1910s. More trams in Granada and Madrid, plus main-line steam action. We ended in Leon and Asturias, where industrial narrow-gauge lines were in their last burst of steam action. It was a wonderful, if exhausting, trip, recreated here in vivid color photos and extensive explanatory text.

Iberian Rail 1963: Valencia, Granada, Meseta.

Arts & Photography

Photography & Video

Xlibris

Sierra And Desert Rails: Donner, Feather River, Owens Valley at the End of the Steam Age

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