Hello folks. I am a railfan from Nova Scotia, Canada who collects railroad books that focus on the human side of the railroad industry (memoirs, tall tales, etc…) Four books are proving downright impossible to find and I was wondering if anyone has ever heard of them or has any leads on where one could find a copy. The books are:
Thirty Years Over Donner (Bill Fisher)
Semaphores and Desert Rails (James Staggs)
The Boomer (Harry Bedwell)
Snowflaker (Bill Kachler)
You may already know this, but a good companion book to “30 Years Over Donner” is " A Baggage Car with Lace Curtains" by Kay Fisher, Bill’s wife.
Jay
BTW, I remember reading a review about “Semaphores and Desert Rails” in Model Railroading a few years ago (2000-01 maybe). I tried finding a copy for about a year but was never successful. I should have contacted the publisher I guess.
My long search for “J. Edgar Thomson, Master of the Pennsylvania” ended last week. The publisher, Greenwood Press, has made it available as a print-on-demand book. If anyone is interested, you can find it at www.greenwood.com. The quality is very good with the only difference from the original editions being a different hardcover.
Hi Jay. I just got a copy of the Baggage Car with Lace Curtains and it looks to be a great read. About the Staggers book, it is hard to find info on it. I tried contacting the publisher in Arizona, and they had no extra copies left and had no record of where the author lives now. I also tried every major search engine for books on the internet with no results. Hard to believe a book after only six years literally vanishes into thin air!