Book Idea (don't steal)

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
1

I am thinking about writing a book on special paint schemes from 1970-2006.
would anyone buy a book like this, and should I persue this book? Any information and pictures would be a great help to me.

Some of the topics covered would be:

1.)Bicentinel Locomotives of Major Railroads
2.)Olympic Units
3.)UP Heritage units
4.)Merger prototype schemes
5.)United Way/Commeritve Units
6.)Paint Scheme and Lettering Goof’s
7.)Expierimental Paint Schemes
and maybe
8.) Demo Paint Schemes

Would anybody buy this book and would it be a good help to historians and Model Railroaders?

2

I probably would. Plus I’m working on a book about the history of the GDRMCo, would anyone buy it?
Mitchell

3

Hire a good editor

4

2 words COLOR PHOTOS.

Any black and white pics would kill the project being Paint schemes is the topic.

Also include M.O.W equipment as some are different then road locos.

5

Don’t forget about the special passenger schemes the railroads used as well as those tentative merger schemes that never worked out, i.e. SPSF. Both SP and ATSF started to paint their locomotives for the merger that never happened. Why stop with special paint schemes? I think the book could be more marketable if it also included the regular paint schemes of the major railroads, since quite a few roads had several schemes over the years. For example (using SP again) there was the Daylight, Black Widow and Bloody Nose schemes of SP. Any details you can add about the guidelines the railroads used (colors, dimensions, lettering, etc.) would make the book more marketable to modelers.

Most of my suggestions are regarding the painting of locomotives, but anything you can add about passenger cars, freight cars and cabooses (cabeese?) would be a wonderful inclusion as well.

6

I would be interested in a book like that. However, I would also like to see a chapter on the paint schemes of shortlines. They have some of the nicest colors and graphic designs. At least to my eyes.

Tom

7

If I were to do this book, would you guys help out with photos and information?

8

include the arizonia and california, they have a real nice paint scheme, and the Burlington Northern Executive f units, they are so pretty

9

Alright I’m off to propose this idea to the nearest publisher, thanks for the idea!

10

I have a pic of an I&O locomovtive #71 in red white and orange scheme somewhere around the nineties that I took could mail a copy in exchange for a copy of book.[:D][8D]

11

I would assume when proposing such a project to a publisher, one would need to have a good handle on being able to obtain the many images required. Finding such quality photos can probably take quite a bit of time, tracking down the photographers, arranging to get copies of their slides, etc.

A fellow I know has had a Morning Sun book published on Canadian Railways. He’s quite a prolific photographer himself, but has obviously spent a lot of time accumulating photos from others for the book. He mentioned to me that it took a long time to get the material and get everything ready for the book. It’s not something that would be done casually.

Good luck in any case! Come back in several years and tell us how it’s going!

Bob Boudreau

12

I think that there might be a couple of those topics and photos of interest to me, but the topics are at the same time very specific but diverse. Most of the book would not be of interest. I’ve also found that many of the existing books (unfortunately) seem to focus more on the unusual rather than the common. One of my Santa Fe books has 13 pages out of 176 featuring the Santa Fe bicentenial locomotive(s) and Freedom train pulled by 4449. Made me quite angry when I discovered this. So a book dedicated to these sorts of things would be redundant to the specifics I am already interested in. So I would probably not purchase it. That is the sort of the book I would check out from the library if I needed one or two bits of info from it.