Seaboard Air Line Railway : The Route of Courteous Service by William E. Griffin

If anyone has seen/read this book, and can offer up any opinions on it, it would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks,

Tom Randall

-- Tom Randall (tkrandall@mindspring.com), July 20, 2000

Answers

I should have bought one while I could!

The book is now out of print and hard to find.

If anyone has a copy to sell or knows of a place that has it in stock - please let me know.

Thanks.

-- Tom Randall (tkrandall@mindspring.com), November 26, 2003.

Re: Griffin's SAL book

BUY IT!

Bob Hanson

-- Robert H. Hanson (RHanson669@aol.com), July 22, 2000.

Hi Tom! Denis is right...the book is definitely worth the bucks. It's not just another diesel locomotive book, but covers the entire railroad well. Lots of great steam and early diesel-era portraits by the great photographers. The text is well written and is interesting too. Almost every railroad book ever written has some errors and omissions, but don't let them deter you from enjoying it. It'll give you plenty of inspiration for modeling and research!

-- John Golden (Golden1014@yahoo.com), July 20, 2000.

It generally is a well written book. There are some errors, especially in the equipment descriptions, but these are not serious enough to cause the book not to be of interest to a SAL devotee. Based upon my research, most of the errors are due to mislabled photographs. Go to the Passenger Car section of the Forum and look under the Gulf Wind Observation car item. I did a listing of the errors which I found in the book. These errors may be more due to TLC whose collections may need to be gone over with a fine tooth comb. Also, some shots from the Budd files are mislabled, but this is due to the fact that the original Budd files have been decimated and what is left is often in the wrong files, etc.

However, Mr. Griffin did sit down and write the book, and he has to be given credit for doing so. I definately would buy the book, keeping in mind the errors, but in no way should they deter you from enjoying the book.

-- Michael W. Savchak (Savchak @MNR.org), July 20, 2000.