Amtrak Book

[Meat Puppet]

Amtrak (Mbi Railroad Color History)

by Brian Solomon (Author)

Anyone have any opinions on this? Worthwhile to buy?

Thanks.

 

[transit54]

Amtrak (Mbi Railroad Color History) by Brian Solomon (Author)

Anyone have any opinions on this? Worthwhile to buy?

Thanks.

I happen to own it. I was given it by a friend and I really enjoyed it. It has a lot of nice photos and some interesting history - I enjoyed it because I'm not all that well reversed in Amtrak's history - I didn't really come upon train travel till about three years ago. I enjoyed the discussion and photos of a lot of the old equipment that I never was familiar with as well as the history of particular routes that have risen and fallen. If you know every last thing about Amtrak, I assume it would mainly be worthwhile for it's photos, however if you're interested in Amtrak's history, I think it's a good buy. I'm sure its not the most comprehensive book on the market, but it also makes a nice coffee table book when you're done with it.

 

[Green Maned Lion]

If you are looking for indepth information or high degrees of accuracy, its not very good. But it is a nice consolidated bit of information for the mildly interested.

 

[transit54]

If you are looking for indepth information or high degrees of accuracy, its not very good. But it is a nice consolidated bit of information for the mildly interested.

Could you recommend something better?

 

[Green Maned Lion]

If you are looking for indepth information or high degrees of accuracy, its not very good. But it is a nice consolidated bit of information for the mildly interested.

Could you recommend something better?

Sure. Green Maned Lion's Encyclopedia Of Amtrak due out, at this rate, in about 2020. Honestly, I've been derailed by Amtrak who is being so damned unresponsive in giving me information on heritage fleet cars that I'm beginning to think that some of the cars supposedly transferred to them 38 years ago were scrapped more than 38 years ago, and somebody is covering someone else's ass somewhere.

Soloman's book isn't bad. Its just that it's the front page New York Times version of it. Its watered down and simplified for consumption by the average person mildly interested in the history of Amtrak. Also, its sorta grade-schooled. There are a lot of figurative bodies buried in Amtrak's closets and he glosses over all of 'em. If the OP wants more basic history of Amtrak then Soloman's book'll do.

If he wants to know about the lies, the corporate and political backstabbing, the impressive degrees of incompetence, the total waste of a lot of heritage equipment, botched repair work, inappropriate usages of equipment, and all the other stuff that you'd have to hear about and understand in order to fully grasp the entire history of the company, you won't find it.