Recent reads

Railroads of Colorado : your guide to Colorado's historic trains and railway sites, by Claude Watrowski. At first glance, this looks like one of those generic, cheaply produced coffee table books that feature lots of pretty pictures with vague and occasionally inaccurate text and captions.

However, on closer examination, it's more than that. The author -- a railroad enthusiast and videographer, according to the publisher's blurb on the book jacket -- briefly but accurately surveys the history of most of the legendary railroads of Colorado's Rocky Mountains. (The more profitable but less glamorous railroads of the flatter eastern half of the state are largely ignored.) All of the well-known Colorado mountain lines are addressed in short chapters: the famous Colorado Central with its spectacular Georgetown Loop; the picturesque but traffic-starved South Park line; the Rio Grande's mountain-vaulting lines to Cumbres and Silverton; the Denver, Northwestern & Pacific with its quixotic assault on the Front Range directly west of Denver; the scenic but perpetually-impoverished Rio Grande Southern; the impossibly convoluted railroads of the Cripple Creek mining district, and the standard-gauge Colorado Midland and its ludicrously difficult route through the sheer cliffs and brutal blizzards of Hagerman Pass. The author also briefly addresses lesser-known operations such as the quarry lines of the Crystal River valley and the mining shortlines of the Silverton area, as well as a couple of streetcar lines and small but popular tourist operations like the Pike's Peak cog railway. Two concluding chapters describe the Colorado Railroad Museum and the Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad, a preserved remnant of the state's narrow gauge network which was featured the Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

The descriptions are short but accurate, and do a good job of pointing out the most noteworthy features of each line. The photographic coverage will leave dedicated fans wanting more, but the photos present are a well-chosen mix of historical and contemporary images that serve to convey the distinctive style of each railroad described. Sidebar articles explain basic railroading concepts and present amusing anecdotes about the difficulties of mountain railroading.

It's a good basic introduction to a popular subject among railfans and modelers.