Customer Reviews

Super Steam Locomotives (Enthusiast Color)

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Having been a British & Australian steam fan for many years, this is my first book on American Steam. I found the book easy to read, with many great colour & monochrome images covering quite a few popular locomotives. For the Hardened American steam fan, more content will probably be appreciated.
It is sad, and unfortunately common for books on steam trains, to place the images of the locomotive in the crease of the book & the rest of the train or scenery on the centre of the page. There were nine images ruined in this book, that could have been easily been moved left or right, without reducing the size of the image. If you buy a book on Steam Locomotives, you expect the Focus to be on Steam Locomotives, not trees, platforms & coaches.A nine photo loss is not bad for a Rail book.
An otherwise pleasant book marred by poor attention to some photo content. This book is still very welcome on my bookshelf especially for its clear photographs & easy text.

The problem with Brian Solomon is that he churns out so many books you have to worry about his research. This is a pretty superficial guide to US steam locomotives and gives a reasonable overview. But there are too many views of a limited number of engines and the whole thing has an air of being thrown together fairly quickly. This doesn't automatically make it a bad book, and it's a cheap way to acquire some decent quality steam photography. But expect more than that and you might be disappointed. Solomon is actually a good writer. I'd like fewer books from him, with more interesting subjects.