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Reply to "Witnessing steam engines in actual service rather than as excursion trains"

Because of your age, yes, you did miss steam, and also the most interesting era of diesels, but all is not lost.

If you use a PC, you can get Trains Magazine's first 70 years on a set of DVD's, and read the magazine issues online.  They are full of first-hand accounts of steam railroading, both from employees and from railroad enthusiast authors.  If you are like me, and use a MAC, well, there is always Classic Trains Magazine, published quarterly by Kalmbach, which reprints some old articles from Trains, has new content about the steam to early diesel era, and has some first-person articles about the writer's memories of railroading past.

If you are ever at a railroad or model train flea market, old copies of Trains Magazine and Railroad Magazine are often available from vendors.  Some vendors think they are gold, but the reality is that the paper copies just don't have the market they once did, because of the DVD set I mentioned at the beginning of this post.  Toward the end of the day, aging vendors sometimes can be quite reasonable when they think about loading up all those heavy boxes of magazines and hauling them home one more time.  Some hobby shops have some old copies of railroad magazines for sale.  You can make a few calls and probably find one that does.

Finally, if you are thinking about subscribing to Classic Trains, may I suggest that you first be sure that you are subscribed to O Gauge Railroading, which provides this forum where you posed your question, without making us pay a fee.  A few of the Forum advertisers handle old copies of Trains.  And the advertisers financially support this forum.

For trackside observations of revenue steam railroading, David P. Morgan is unbeatable.  Two fine railroaders who wrote first-hand steam articles are Walter Thrall and a guy from the Pennsy named Crosby (I can't recall his first name).  in Trains, is the largest depository of the information you said you are seeking.

Kalmbach is a good publisher, but is a competitor to much smaller O Gauge Railroading.  Don't forget to support OGR.

Last edited by Number 90

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