Customer Reviews

The Southern Pacific in Oregon Pictorial

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I bought this book because I was raised in a Pullman passenger car sitting on the ground next to the Southern Pacific line in Southern Oregon. The book is a wonderful compilation of photos from all eras over all of the lines in Oregon. I was most interested in the Siskiyou line but the authors do an equally competent job covering the Cascade or Main line west to San Francisco (SF), the Coast line and all the branches around Portland. For you non-SP fans, trains going away from SF are headed East regardless of the direction and those headed toward SF are headed West. One of the best things I like about this book is the maps. There are strip maps of the entire SP system in Oregon showing terrain and all of the siding and communities of today and years long gone past and the mileposts. Mileage markers are also figured from San Francisco...SP headquarters on Market Street to be exact. The words that accompany the many photos provide a history of each segment of the line, some of the communities along the way as well as interesting stories the authors have acquired. One of the authors, Tom Dill, was a fireman-engineer for 18 years on the SP and Ed Austin's uncle worked for the company too. Over the years they took many great photos and you'll see them all in this book.

So you always wanted to be an engineer on one of those big locomotives climbing up out of Eugene into the Cascades and headed toward Klamath Falls. Here's a quote from the book:

Even with three AC's handling a train, speeds between Oakridge and Cascade Summit seldom exceeded twenty miles per hour and often dropped to ten miles per hour. Thus, heat and smoke in the longer tunnels on the Cascade line presented a significant problem for train crews...On one trip fireman Herb Abarr, using a thermometer in the cab of the second helper locomotive, measured a temperature of 176 degrees in tunnel No. 7.

As if the first book wasn't good enough, this is a equally prized sequel to the original creating one fantastic duo. A must have for all fans of the Southern Pacific Railroad, especially those in the PNW. This volume continues the excellent photos, maps, and yard layouts associated with the first volume. Ed and Tom also filled in more details on the Cascade Line that were left out of the first book due to space limitations. Also make sure to check out other books by Tom Dill and Ed Austin, as well as Jack Bowden's Klamath Country Railroads.