The great trains [Hardcover]

Bryan Morgan (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 259 pages
• Publisher: Crown; First U.S. Edition edition (1973)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0850591457
• ISBN-13: 978-0850591453
• Product Dimensions: 12 x 10.3 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #10,628,668 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3.0 out of 5 stars Broad Topic, Hefty Book, April 12, 2009

By 

Timothy J. Mccarthy "Mongo" (Chicago) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

Trying to cover the history of passenger rail service and the most famous of passenger trains, worldwide, is a lofty ambition, and this book takes a decent stab at it. It's big - 12"x10" and 259 pages - and covers a lot of ground. Each chapter has a different author, so you can get some specialized perspectives, rather than having one person try to handle everything. Overall though, the writing is a bit dry, reminiscent of high school history books. There are 340 illustrations, some in colour, but most are small and lacking in details.
If you are a true fan of passenger railroads, you should find this interesting. You can concentrate in the areas you are interested in, and ignore the rest. Given the attempt to cover the entire world here, most people would be better off to get a more narrowly-focused book. Look over a copy before you buy, but you may just find you like it.

Here are the chapters and authors:
Introduction (Bryan Morgan), Passenger Discomforts (David Elliot), Two Pioneers (B. Morgan), The Golden Age of Steam (John Snell), Stations & Structures (Alan A. Jackson & B. Morgan), Railways Afloat (Philip Unwin), Great Trains of Britain (B. Morgan), Great Trains of Europe (Charles Owen), Great Trains of Russia (K. Wescott Jones), Great Trains of North America (Arthur D. Dubin), Great Trains of India (David Tennant), Great Trains of the World (J. Snell), Imagined Journeys (B. Morgan), and Blue Horizons (John Foster White).

For reference, here's an extract from the front dustcover:
"The chime whistle fading on the American night; the long line of blue and gold cars drawn up by the Channel, waiting to speed off east to Russia, south to the Côte d'Azur and Italy; the smokey purlieus of Paddington, with the trim line of glittering brass and glass which was the Cornish Riveria Limited. The Orient Express, the Train Bleu, the Golden Arrow, the 20th Century Limited, the Empire Builder, the Bombay Mail, the Indian-Pacific Express. Here they all are, waiting to bear the reader off into the steamscented distances . . .
"For this is a book about Great Trains - a world-wide round up of expresses that link town to town, and state to state, and which still keep their glamour today. . . . The book is introduced by chapters on the development and the design, the pioneers and the spreading of the system across the land. . . .
"The Great Trains, then, is a ticket to the scores of colorful trains which ran or run all around the world. Illustrated by some 300 black and white illustrations, specially collected for this book, and many of which have never before been published, and 40 full color illustrations, which combine with the text to provide a nostalgic and all-embracing picture of the famous trains of the world. . . . "