Western Pacific Steam Locomotives, Passenger Trains and Cars 4

Western Pacific Steam Locomotives, Passenger Trains and Cars
privately published at Modesto, California
second printing October 1988 (1,000 copies)
title page inscribed "to John Grant a good union brother and real gentleman" and signed by author
478 illustrations, 9 maps, 27 locomotive diagrams, 24 passenger car diagrams, reprint, first timetable, condensed history

Having almost completely disappeared from the American scene is one of the most fascinating machines man has ever been privileged to invent, the steam locomotive. About it hundreds of books have been written and of it, especially between 1930 and 1953, an incalculable number of photographs have been taken. This book deals with one group of those machines, those of the Western Pacific Railroad, all 208.

The Western Pacific, extending between Salt Lake City and Oakland and San Francisco was one of the first major railroads to become completely dieselized. From 1949 to 1970, along with the Denver & Rio Grande Western and Chicago, Burlington & Quincy, it operated one of the country's spectacular (and until 1962 highly successful) passenger trains, the California Zephyr.

As is probably commonly known, the Western Pacific is the youngest of the so called transcontinental railroads, having been origanized on March 3 and incorporated on March 6, 1903. Construction was started in 1905 and original track laying was completed on a high bridge in the California mountains near Keddie on November 1, 1909. The first through passenger train arrived in Oakland, August 22, 1910.

But it is not the Western Pacific of today about which we are writing. With full knowledge of the diesel's efficient but uninteresting supremacy, we are writing about the glamorous yesteryear on the Western Pacific when steam was king.

To supplement the photographic and historical coverage of the title subjects a thoroughly researched but condensed history of the road also has been provided along with some timetable schedule page reproductions, maps, profile and tunnel list, offering a general overview of the railroad.