NEW BOOK: "The Long Island Railroad" Volume 1 1949-1966

The second order of alco 420's were on the property as late as 1989-1990

Thank you for that update!

I had a "black-out" period with my hobby between 1975 and 1985 due to personal reasons and then I left Long Island a few years later. I'm pretty much non-conversant with the history of the road after that period and, judging by what I've seen, I don't think I've missed anything.

Didn't get back in the loop until I joined the forums some years back. This one in 2004.

Dave

I still like the book even with the negative comments. I know Morning Sun is lax in proofreading. But having heard for years about LIRR color books coming out, one is finally here. There were reports over the years about three different people doing a LIRR book. But good, bad or whatever this book is here. Maybe someone will do a better one someday. Im glad I bought one and am happy with it errors and all.

Found an additional location error. Page 66 top. The freight is passing Floral Park station, not Queens Village.
Someone needs to print an errata sheet.

LIRR Agent - Retired wrote:Found an additional location error. Page 66 top. The freight is passing Floral Park station, not Queens Village.
Someone needs to print an errata sheet.

Looks like it will be as big as the original book.

mark777 wrote:I made an error myself with reference of the shot on page 88-89 where an RDC Fan trip is stopped at F interlocking. The more I look at this photo, the more it does not fit that location. Problem is, I'm not sure where exactly this shot was taken. The left of the photo with a coach in the lower track, and a rising elevated track behind it, originally made me think that it was the Montauk Cutoff at the west end of Harold, and that the coach in the background is entering one of the East river tunnels. But the right side of the photo behind the RDCs threw me off. Too many elevated structures in the background for it to be Harold, but I could be wrong. Does anyone have any ideas where this is? Part of this photo still has an air of Harold, but now i'm not too sure.

This photo appears to be in Degnon Terminal, with the RDCs at the bottom of the track that leads from the Montauk Cutoff into Degnon Terminal. There was at least one fan trip into Degnon with the RDCs, on 3/23/1958. There is a photo of that outing on Steve's site: http://www.trainsarefun.com/lirr/licity ... rminal.htm.

Henry

hjw3001 :

Thanks a million!! So either way, it wasn't on the Bushwick branch! We had to walk the lower Montauk around that area before we qualified, but since the day that we did it, it was pouring rain, I wasn't able to scan the area for this, and actually, I had little knowledge of it until now. Thanks very much for the info!

Dave Keller wrote:There are various mistakes: captioning, identifying, dating, historical fact and spelling. I do not consider myself an expert on LIRR operations in the L. I. City / Area A/ Sunnyside/Montauk Cutoff/Hunterspoint Ave. areas, so photos shot in those areas may have captioning errors as well, but unless I saw something blatantly obvious, like a shot at “F” tower and they identified it as “HAROLD” (which I did not, I’m just using that as an example) then I didn’t pick up on those. I’ll leave that for the “city boys” to catch. I’m sure they have already...

I thank Dave for taking the time to present his list of corrections. We all know book projects are difficult to manage, and you can't catch everything. Hopefully Dave's list serves as a guide not to poke fun, but to help make the work more acurrate.

-otto-

Crabman1130 wrote:I'm not buying this book. The publisher should be contacted and told that their books are no longer desireable due to all the mistakes that are contained in them.

I don't know how the book was produced, but unfortunately, you can't hold the publisher liable for any warranty on information. Use the book at your own risk. That said, it sounds like the author felt he was familiar enough with the system to write his own captions, and they were probably not proofread or checked over by anyone else... That's how errors creep in!

-otto-

Otto:

You're absolutely right.

I'd never poke fun at someone or their work . . . especially on a public forum.

I merely listed the errors that I managed to find in going through the book.

Gene Collora, retired LIRR veteran and avid railfan, has done the same thing and has a list about as long as mine and, sad to say, none of it is duplication of my list!

I DID mention that the color photos were nice and that the book may interest others who just wanted the nice photos or, perhaps, could use it for modeling purposes.

But I'd never poke fun at anyone.

I'm serious about LIRR history and its correct preservation is important to me and other "old timers" who've been pursuing this hobby for 30 or more years. Errors need to be brought forward and corrected so incorrect information does not get passed along and, over a period of time, become accepted as "truth" when it is actually fiction or "hearsay."

Dave

Because some folks view the book publication business as somewhat "competitive," people are afraid to share their manuscripts with anybody. When I was working on my NYC Putnam Division material back in 2006/2007, I shared my manuscript with four or five knowledgable folks to read it over and give advice. Two of those people were working on their own Putnam Division books and didn't even tell me!! They even used photos I was using, and had better caption information than I did (and in some cases, better copies of the photos)! If anything, I would have changed my info or dropped the photo (no one wants to see the same image over and over)... But people are weird like that. (Oh, and only one of those people managed to publish their own book.) So who knows what went into the production of this latest LIRR volume and why there was not more outside collaboration. No one tries to purposely put out inaccurate information. Often in publishing, as in life, it's not the people who are knowledgable who are put to work, it's the people who simply have the time...

-otto-

All the copies at Willis are sealed, so you won't be able to check it out first.
They had about half a dozen when I was there recently.

Okay, Dave, so when are we going to see all those wonderful pictures of yours in a book with your byline?

Dave has 2 great books out with Steve Lynch - correct captions and everything!

All that's needed is a caption that duplicates the same caption in the book.
Stating, Above/Below/Right/Left. and the corrected caption in addition to the page number where it belongs.
Hopefully before any more copies of this edition are printed, sealed and shipped, the publisher could send a edited edition to the print shop.