NEW LEHIGH VALLEY BOOK DUE OUT, SOON!!!

[GOLDEN-ARM]

I saw this on eBay. Not listing the link, but it's for the book LEHIGH VALLEY RAILROAD, Vol. 4, from Morning Sun Books.


Description




Lehigh Valley-4 In Color
by Mitchell E. Dakelman
Follow the fall of the LVRR through its Annual Reports and more than 250 color images from post WWII to Conrail in this new book. There’s much to see and read in these 128-pages! Item # 1287.

JUNE 1, 2007 RELEASE: Reserve your copy today

Just a "heads-up", to the rest of the "Followers of the Flag".

[jmp883]

Another gem from Morning Sun Books. They've never done a bad book yet. I have all the EL and LV books to this point. Can't wait for it.......

[CAR_FLOATER]

Overpriced, and probably unremarkable, in my opinion....This will probably be the first mainstream LV book I will not end up purchasing.....The only good books from Boring Sun as of late were the "uniuqe" ones.....Boyd/Antz L&HR, Yanoseys own Erie Facilities, and the 2 part Flagg NY Harbor opus.

CF

[lvrr325]

Yes, let's judge the book by it's cover (price).


I may have a couple of comp copies on the way anyhow, I need to get ahold of the author and see if they used the shots I lent or not. They were stuff I'd never seen before, which is why I lent them out -

[scottychaos]

CF,
I disagree!
I think the Morning Sun books are great!
I have all three of the LV books, plus some EL and DL&W ones and others..
sure, they are "picture books" and not "history books"..they contain virtually no usefull text..but so what?
thats whats good about them! lots of pictures!

I do however agree they always seem overpriced for what you get..
they arent very large books, and $45 to $60 is a bit much..
but I will still get them anyway..where else can you get collections of photos like in the MS books? So yeah, they are pricey, but still (just barely) worth it in my opinion..
they should really be $30 to $40 dollar books..
(I always buy new ones with Barnes & Noble gift certificates I get for Christmas!

How much is this new LV book going to be anyway?
(Scot checks the Morning Sun webpage..)
eek..$60 plus $6 shipping! thats close to $70!
(I was thinking it would be $45!)
ok, I agree that really IS overpriced!
I will probably wait and see if I can find it for less in years to come..I dont think I will buy it new for that price...I dont know.

But , price aside, personally im looking forward to a "Lehigh Valley in Color Volume 4"
bring it on!
and Volume 5, and 6, and etc...

Scot

[lvrr325]

The day of the $45 all-color book is gone. In case no one noticed, postage is up, gas prices are up, and I'm sure the chemicals needed to make the photos in the book are also up. The high quailty paper used, I'm not going to guess at. But even Railpace is up to $5 a shot now. EL In Color 3 was $49.95 and that came out in 1994 - a 20% price increase in 13 years isn't too bad. In 1994 I could buy gasoline for 90 cents to $1.10 a gallon. (FWIW, the 90 cent price was in Sayre PA). If this one is $60, that's going to be the list price on all their new books in the future.

I wouldn't complain if they offered softcover versions, but I bet they'd still be $45. My copy of Taibi's most recent O&W book was $32 for the softcover and while that's 400 pages it's of lesser paper and all black & white. The hardcover was $40 or $45. Where else can you find 120 pages of color photos of things you simply cannot go out and take yourself, today? I looked at Bednar's Buffalo Division book the other day and I think the list on that is $60, too.

And if you're going to buy it new, support your local hobby shop and look for it there first, then you save the $6 shipping cost.

If you can't afford it, then just wait around and buy them on eBay in a year or two. Most of the LV color books are going for $30 or so there, even out of print volume 1 which I've had for about 15 years now.

[GOLDEN-ARM]

FWIW, the pre-sale price, on eBay, was only $45.00, to reserve a copy, to be shipped on arrival. This time next year, they will be available, on the secondary market, for a lot less, if you could wait that long, that is. ( I can't ) Big, beautiful glossy pictures, always worth the price of admission. I have 400 original slides, shot in 1975 and 1976, full color, all Valley, mostly Alcos. Nobody ever asked to put them into a book. (anyone else thinking LV in color, volume 5 ? )

[CAR_FLOATER]

Scot -

Woah, me thinks you think I doth protest too much.......But see, you are right, they are getting WAYYY to expensive! If I had bought every NY/NJ/PA area book having any relation to LV (or CNJ, RDG, EL-DL&W-Erie, ect, ect) I would be living in a cardboard box, because I would be broke!
Now our friend GA is right, I think I will wait for the dust to settle before (or if) I buy. I also know some of the people involved in making this latest volume happen, and myself, I don't think I will be missing out much on what interests me (nd we all know what that is!)
Now, I could be wrong (I reserve that right!), but we'll have to see.
Then again, maybe I should put my money where my mouth is, and author (or more likely co-author) a book on the LV myself.

CF

[Matt Langworthy]

Another gem from Morning Sun Books. They've never done a bad book yet. I have all the EL and LV books to this point. Can't wait for it.......

I have the first two LV books (plus some EL and other subjects from Morning Sun), which I love dearly. Given my limited funding, should I get Vol. 3 or Vol. 4 next?

[GOLDEN-ARM]

CF/GA co-authored LV in Color, Volume V ? Fred W and Big Mike contributing? I was thinking of a book of advertisements, and collectibles, from the Valley. The same 4 guys could cover that, as well...........

For LV Matt. Looking at eBay, and setting a preference with those book titles listed, will alert you with an email, when one appears for sale. They are all excellent books, with giant, glossy color photos, of a lot of places, you might not have seen, or that no longer exist. Modelling an "all-time" diesel roster requires lots and lots of high quality color photos, and/or slides, to make it happen. The Bednar books just as good, if not better, for the personal tidbits included, about places and people on the job, not available anyplace else, and from places never to see a train again. You only live once, and you might have to eat Ramen noodles for a while, but every Color book, is worth the price of admission, in my book. (no pun intended ) Make a friend, and you buy one, let him buy the other, then swap books, for a while. Of course, you would have to live without one, for a while. (how could you manage that?) Now that would be a challenge......

[jmp883]

CF wrote:

Overpriced, and probably unremarkable, in my opinion....This will probably be the first mainstream LV book I will not end up purchasing.....The only good books from Boring Sun as of late were the "uniuqe" ones.....Boyd/Antz L&HR, Yanoseys own Erie Facilities, and the 2 part Flagg NY Harbor opus.

Yes, the prices are rising, but as several posters here have stated the pricing seems to be in line with inflation.

As for unremarkable I'll respect your opinion. I've bought all the LV books, 99% of the EL books, along with the NYS&W and L&HR books and they've all shown me scenes that I never would have seen otherwise. Especially someone like me...I was born in 1964 in Sayre, PA, moved to Scranton, PA, and then moved to northern NJ. 3 places of intense railroad activity and because of my age I missed a lot of it simply because I was too young to own a camera. For me the MSB books have allowed me to see the things I was too young to enjoy when they were actually happening.

Just my thoughts...

[lvrr325]

If you're going to do another LV book, cover stuff no one's seen before.

For instance, someone out there has slides of the last trip down to Aurora, stashed away in a closet. How about color shots of the LV in Canastota? Anywhere else on that branch, or the LO&NY branch? In Auburn? (That might be tough, from what I've gathered after '68 they ran at night).

The LV main in various little towns in New York would be interesting, too. Or the Rochester branch. I talked to someone who chased that branch and had slides put away, also. How about an LV job working in Elmira?

There is/as a great shot possible just below Geneva Jct. on the freight main, looking down a side road with the lake in the background. No one took that shot, ever?

Heck, I'd be happy to see more shots from the same roll of film in that "Rails Northeast: A Brief Look Back Before Conrail" series with the Southern Pacific SD40 that showed up in Sayre. I don't have that title right, but if anyone has the book you'll know what I mean.

I have tons of company paperwork that could be printed in a book of that type, too.

I mean, I've seen just about every possible angle of Sayre there is and you can find photos of every LV unit you want to. So if you show me Sayre, show me something weird, like a Union Pacific caboose being switched by an LV Baldwin S12. The DT&I GP35 set on a train - with borrowed PRR or pooled NKP units in the same shot (if that was even possible, just throwing it out there). That's the kind of thing that's going to sell a volume 5.


Maybe whoever has the best stuff is like I was when I was fresh out of high school and just embarassed to admit they spent a summer or two screwing around and chasing trains. If they ever need Conrail stuff, I have like 10,000 slides put away on the shelf here, mostly 1993-1997.

[CAR_FLOATER]

Wow, this thread has really taken on a life of it's own......I am VERY happy to read however, everyone's opinion on this, and how well thought out everyone's comments are - Just because I "lit a flame" with my personal opinion, everyone's thoughts are well sopken (or is that typed?) and is driving some intelligent discussion....
Now to respond to a few statements -

Matt - If you can find it (don't know off the top of my head or not if it's OOP or not) is Vol. 3 is the one to get first if you can.....It has some nice vintage steam and pre-war switcher shots, though the "flow" of the book does not follow the East-West progression over the RR like most MS books, or Vols. 1&2 to be exact. Not that it matters, it's just a observation. However, Vol.4 may end up having what interests you, and it'll be easier to get, too. I have seen this Vol. on Ebay recently.

GA - While I'd be the first person to buy a book like what you propose, MS would never ever publish a book like this, nor would I want them to.
I know too much about how the publisher conducts business to allow a lobor of love to be, well, I'll be polite and let you figure out what I may be thinking! That being said, I would be interested in persuing such a project, it's not like we don't have the material! LOL! From what I was told, the Boyd L&H book was a tough sell because it was too "wordy" and contained vintage B&W, but that is why, in my opinion, it was such a great book!
I also can't belive I didn't mention Mike B's books, I have both, and a few of the soft cover books he's done, too. His ancetodes lend the added spice that pictures alone just can't convey.

JMP883 - You are all too right about the MS books being a "window to the past"......I am only 37, and what I love about them is seing a place or stucture that is either now gone or abandoned, back in it's prime, and then going a finding that location, even if it means a road trip and some cuts and bruises in the process! I just reread my Erie Facilities Vol. 1 book again since Christmas, and I am lucky to know two of the photo contributors personally, which is a good thing, beasue I have lots of questions which will make my "discovery road trips" easier! Of course, Vol. 1 covers what was in my "backyard", and of course we all find (or in this case buy) what we grew up with or maybe model, and I'll freely admit, tend to ignore what we don't. Hence, you won't find me buying Vol. 3 in the series, covering facilities in OH, IN, and IL. Now, I would have bought more of the older Erie/DL&W/EL books myself already, but there are so many now (and hence the rising costs) have made catching up, for me, cost prohibitive. In line with something GA said, I started a book bibliography of "main stream" books for various railroads over on Railfan.net in the Fallen Flags section for a way for fans to not only know what's out there, but to post capsule "reviews" to allow potential buyer to know what they are getting before they buy. I have helped compile a LV, CNJ, O&W, and EL/DL&W/Erie list thus far.

LVRR325 - I couldn't have said it better myself. What we need is the unusual, the unique, the different! Vols. 1-3 have covered the engines, making the locations, in my opinion, secondary, and I have a feeling Vol.5 won't be much different. The publisher doesn't, (with the exception of the new Facilities series, or the older Equipment series) like to stray from the normal. What GA speaks of, tends to be more of a self published "labor of love" like the Outter Station or Gingerbread publications currently out there. It means smaller print runs, B&W repographics, ect., but that is probably how it is going to get done. But if the material you propose can be found and collected, it stands a good chance to be a very unique and make for an interesting "In Color" book. What the historians and diehard fans want and find interesting (see above) is unfortunately not what sells en masse to the hobby at large.

Thanks for allowing me to continue airing my thoughts,

CF

[TB Diamond]

lvrr325: You must have missed the book LEHIGH VALLEY RAILROAD THE WYOMING AND BUFFALO DIVISIONS by Mike Bednar. It contains color photos of the last trip to Aurora, some Elmira scenes and some of the Rochester Branch. There are also scenes of main line activity in the small New York towns including Lockwood, Cayuta, Burdett, Geneva, Victor and Batavia.

Will agree that some areas of the Lehigh Valley Railroad in the diesel era were seemingly rarely covered in color. Examples are Hemlock, NY or anywhere south of Lima on the Rochester Branch. The A&I Branch north of Ithaca proper, especially the power plant at Lake Ridge and the ex-DL&W spur up to Morse Chain. Passenger trains on the Niagara Falls Branch also come to mind.

Very doubtful that anyone would be embarrassed to admit that they had spent any time at all photographing the Lehigh Valley Railroad. More likely folks are reluctant to loan slides for various reasons: Fear of having them returned in origional condition (color slide film must be removed from the mounts in order to process it for publication. The mounts are damaged and damage can result to the film proper if not handled in a totally professional manner... spoken by experience, mind you); fear of loosing the slides, for whatever reason and simply not wanting to see the work published, for whatever reason.

You are correct about Auburn. In the early 1970s the Auburn job ran Tuesdays and Thursdays, on duty in the early evening. The only time I was ever able to photograph the job was once when the engine went on the ground next to the Agway mill in Auburn. Have seen, however, some color shots of the LVRR in Auburn circa 1971. Do not know why the job was working during the daylight, however.

BTW: The Al Withiam collection contained several color slides of the LVRR in both Canastota and Auburn circa the 1950s. Have dupes of same.

[scottychaos]

And dont forget "The Gangly Country Cousin: The Lehigh Valley's Auburn Division" by Herb Trice.

lots of great coverage of the LV's New York state branch lines!

Scot