Classic American Streamliners

I bought this for a train buff friend, and here's what he said:A lot of such books like this are filled with only fancy pictures, like a calendar, for people who just like to see pictures of trains and don’t care about any story.But this one is a serious analysis of an industry-wide move in the middle of the Depression to try to resuscitate rail passenger travel, beset from two sides by the Depression and by competition from the automobile. Some quite creative simultaneous parallel moves by various companies. As well as a lot of pictures of streamliners designed and built by different rail companies and manufacturers, but with lots of similarities in concept. I am really enjoying it.

This book is loaded with colorful and spectacular photos of a time go by. Any railroad buff will have a visual feast with photos and text about a U.S. heritage sadly no longer with us.I for one caught the tail end of this great era. I feel fortunate to have traveled aboard the SP Daylight south from San Francisco to the southland. The orange and red color scheme was thrilling to see. For a young ten year old, this was an experience not to be forgotten. The technical aspect of these train lines is accurate and the book makes a great addition to anyones library. Highly recommend this book.

Appreciate the crisp and large pictures of the most-popular passenger trains on every page of this book. The book also provides a brief history of the American streamlined trains from the 1930's to their demise and limited runs with Amtrak. The book shows that the authors have a great love and experience with these classic passenger trains.

This is such a great book. Just beautiful - every page has something to cherish about the great, long lost era of the passenger train.What a shame that the magnificent locomotives, Pullman coaches, sightseeing coaches, etc, have disappeared, and that we can no longer book passage on a fantastic, scenic train excursion, to just relax and enjoy the moment.So sad that it's all gone.

Kudos to Mssrs. Schafer & Welsh. CLASSIC AMERICAN STREAMLINERS is worth its price just for the wealth of photographs (the majority in color) of these stylish steel titans of a bygone era! Its more than just a picture book as the text is also extremely informative.I especially enjoyed learning where a vintage locomotive wound up after its days on the raills ended (Scrapheap? Museum?) If you're a train buff, you NEED this book! Not a train buff? If you read this book and you just might become one!

This is a good book for train buffs. I had it with a different cover. If I had known that or previewed the contents, I wouldn't have bought it.

Great book

This book contains excellent illustrations and very good segmenting into roads and regions. The content is informative and easy to read. It is definitely worth owning.The only disappointment to me was the emphasis on diesel/diesel electric streamliners and not enough focus on steam conversions. While all streamliners ushered in a new era in passenger traffic, the more compelling area of interest, and the more romanticized, is the efforts made by the railroads' own shops or design departments to build or participate in the development of a radical new steam engine.These streamlined engines are what that line staked its future on by differentiating it from the black boiler plate that often served dual purpose as freight hauler and in passenger service for other lines. These engines had a purpose; to make a statement and to lure passengers. They can tell a better story than the F and E units that most will realize originated with a one-size-fits all offering. This was a lead essentially followed by other manufacturers. The War Production Board may have inadvertently given EMD an advantage that gave us a homogenized diesel electric look resulting in generic engines that didn't begin to match the imaginative styling of the steam conversions.