Re: In general: Railroad Books

I hope to find a younger person that wants to learn what I learned from my railroad books. What I sell a book for is going to be what a person is willing to offer. The books have some value to someone somewhere and it sounds like not many people want to buy books anymore like I did 30 to 40 years ago. My Dad liked to explore abandoned railroad grades in the 60's when I was growing up so I saw first hand what many people nowadays cannot see. But I can get some of that back in review when I take a look at a book someone wrote 40 years ago. What my Dad exposed us kids to exploring railroad history was continued by me well into my adult life. Traveling to a certain abandoned railroad location cannot be experienced in books, but many of my books cover a railroad line extensively so the book supplements what I saw, or will see, and adds a great deal of information that I would not get on my own, and certainly not from the Internet. The Internet won't tell me the same rich researched history of the D&SPRR that Mac Poor or Tom Klinger wrote about. The Denver to Leadville passenger train had to back into Como after using the King branch wye located near the present US 285 a bit Northeast of Como. Take this book learned information with you when you visit Como and you can experience what the passenger train had to do to reach the depot. Borneman wrote extensively about the Marshall Pass line. It's all there in a book in great detail, and the Internet won't offer the same.

Today I started an Excel spreadsheet of the list of books I have. When I think about the content of my railroad books and what I can learn from them, then compare what I can get from the Internet, there is no comparison. I use the Internet to get an idea of current conditions or to see if someone posted a picture of the current state of the top of Marshall Pass to see if my car might make it there as it did in 1976. The rail line over LaVeta is another area where the book written by Stephen Rasmussen tells a rich story I cannot get by driving to the area and exploring on my own in 2020. The Internet does not offer much but only supplements in a very superficial way. A trip to Alpine Tunnel means so much more if Dow Helmer's book, or the Mineral Belt series by Sundance is read before going there to see what's left at Romley or Pitkin. Jerry Day's books tell a story about a particular locomotive or place a railroad ran to in depth not offered by the Internet.

So the moral of the story offered to a younger person interested in exploring rail history is to first read the books that are out there, then go to those places to see the place the railroad operated in. It ties the physical experience to the historical significance in great detail. The Internet cannot do this.