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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Very Thorough Historical Survey, Too Bad It is no Longer In Print,
By El Cutachero (MD USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Encyclopedia of Western Railroad History: The Desert States, Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah (Hardcover)
Railroad buffs, and other sorts--fire buffs, gun and edged weapons collectors and reenactors are an obsessive lot of people.
Probably most obsessive are members of the living history and reenactment groups commemorating past times and events. Of all these probably the most intense are those who do the War Between the States. In addition to spending hundreds of dollars on reproductions of period arms, clothing and equipment of the soldiers, they include their whole families with wives and children dressing in period clothing and also living in the conditions of the period. You have to be obsessive to run around on a hot July day wearing period scratchy wool clothes. Even their underwear is made in the old fashion!:o) World War Two buffs also include a whole subset who collect and resdore old soft-skinned and armored vwhicles, gathering several times a year at rallies. Fire buffs mostly seem to be content with artifacts and books. Those who run antique fire engines usually are members of established volunteer companies who paticipates in rallies known as musters and compete in fire fighter skills. Most buffs (those who are professional hiatorians and curators as well as the otherwise employed) think often about their subjects in the hours they are not eating, sleeping, doing other life activites or making a living. You might well ask, how does a buff differ from a fan? Iit is a continuum. Most fans are content to go rah rah when their temams win but think of other things mostly. Those football attendees who get drunk, paint themselves up and go half-naked in cold weather, are way beyond buffery. Buffery mesns thinking constantly of a favorite subject, devoting most of their spare time to the neglect of household chores, and lots of money on trips, activities, and memoribilia. Most collect bookss on their favorite subjects and willingly spend beaucoup bucks. You have to f0cus or specialize on a place, an activity, or a particular railroad. The publishers who serve these niche markets mostly strive to turn out definitive accurate and complete works. But they are often private groups, museums, or private individuals who can't afford large press runs which end up in remainder. Instead, usually often when produced by subscription, they go out of print almost immediately. Railroad books, especially are expensive itmems to produce; photograde coated paper, quarto size ans landscape format are deriguer, while hard bindings are aleays desired. When I first began collecting railroad books some forty years ago, the average hardback novel or history then sold for two or three dollars: railroad books were over ten dollars and were printed on non glossy paper. Fans buy everything on their favorite line. But since the short-run books soon go out of print, (If they were ever sold to specialist dealers at all) in contrast to the general market trade book, there is no drop in price, instead it keeps going up. The book here is one good example. It has to be useful and well made or it would not be so high in the market. High demand and short supply, a basic rule of economics. I don't have this one, though I am a buff in many respects, my railroad buffery is down in third or fourth priority. The Santa Fe is my focus and the B&O comes a distant second One must regret the demise of Bonanza Books which forty some years ago would reprint many small runs and hobby books. Only Dover seems to still be in the game, and they stick mostly to public domain titles.
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