“Coast Lines and Valley Freights” is a 348-page, 8 1/2 x 11-inch, hardbound volume with 630 color photos. It will quicken the pulse of any diehard Santa Fe fan. Covering the last three decades of the Santa Fe Railway in California, this superb book is an excellent and magical tribute to the Santa Fe and its long-running and captivating colorful diesels and trains.
The routes covered in the weighty book extend from Oakland on the north to National City, Calif., at the Mexican border, encompassing the Los Angeles and Valley divisions of the railroad. There is a four-page historical account of the railroad of this area starting in 1542 and extending to about 2003, and then it’s page-after-page of photos and detailed captions of Santa Fe’s iconic yellow and blue, and red, yellow, and silver diesel motive power pulling both freight and regularly scheduled and special passenger trains.
There are so many excellent photos herein it’s hard to pinpoint those that are extra special. The July 1972 photo of 5584 West in the siding with Amtrak 19 passing on the next track is a picture-perfect shot of the railroad in action, while the sunset photo of 5513 East freight train at Cadiz with a box car train is magical. The half-page shot at Ash Hill in 1973 as a five-unit local tops the summit surrounded by thousands of yellow desert wildflowers is spectacular, as is a four-unit intermodal manifest train with three GP50s and a GP60 snaking through Caliente horseshoe and encompassing three angles of the train. Another superb 1970 photo shows Santa Fe F3 and F7 red-yellow-silver units idling near the Redondo Junction sanding tower. Container, piggyback, and general merchandise trains are all featured. Steam is not entirely forgotten in the book, but only appears on special excursions.
Several points stand out with this book. First is the photographer’s ability to capture photos of so many different locomotive and train types on the Santa Fe through the years, to do it with such superb photography and then also to identify the location, the locomotive and train designations. Second, the reader is treated to a lot of eye candy, but it’s followed up with an outstanding amount of back-up information as text.
Several photographers contributed to this book, with author and publisher Joe McMillan the leading photographer.
It would be difficult for any Santa Fe fan to pass on “Coast Lines and Valley Freights” with its incredible all-color collection of dazzling photos and well-written text.
McMillan Publications, 9968 West 70th Place, Arvada, Colorado 80004-1622. Price: $89.95 and $8 shipping
