Red Letter Day

Well, here's something! I really love the Southern Pacific 'GS' classes and ever since I first visited the California Railroad Museum in Sacramento for the first time in 1990 I've been watching for a copy of this book! It's Robert Church's "Those Daylight 4-8-4's" published by Kratsville in 1976 around the time that GS4 no 4449 was restored to pull the bicentennial 'Freedom Train'. I saw a copy in the museum library there and photocopied one of the general arrangement drawings in the appendix. The librarian commented to me "You'll be lucky if you can ever find a copy of this!"

Now 16 years later I have one at last. I've seen two copies for sale down the years but both at around the $175 mark. This one was less than half that so a real 'snip'

I spotted it on the American 'Amazon' site. The miserable shop owner wouldn't mail to me abroad but thankfully my friend Dave in New York agreed to forward it for me.

It's one of the best loco class books I've ever seen and full of photographs of the constuction of the engines at Lima Locomotive Company. Maybe in the coming weeks I'll include a few photographs here