The Electric Way Across The Mountains: Stories Of The Milwaukee Road Electrification

Cloth with dust jacket, 192 pages, 8.5x11"; 321 photos; maps and drawings, timetables, bibliography, index. "Through the rugged Western mountains of Montana, Idaho and Washington, the Milwaukee Road electrification powered heavy-duty railroading in a challenging environment. Richard Steinheimer's classic interpretive photographs and stories have no peer as an account of what the men and machines of this operation were like. This famous book now is back in print in a second edition. "For nearly 60 years, the orange and black locomotives of the Milwaukee Road's western electrified lines wheeled tonnage freights and deluxe passenger trains up and over the tortuous grades of the Bitterroot and Cascade mountain ranges. From its inception, this pioneer mainline railroad electrification project proved to the world that heavy service utilization of long-distance electric railway technology was one possible vision of railroading's bright future. "Richard Steinheimer is the Dean of railroad photographers in the American West. Born in 1929, he began photography as part of his boyhood interest in trains in Glendale, California, starting out with a 127 Baby Brownie Special in the mid-1940s. He soon was taking distinctive photographs which were recognized across the United States and beyond as among the finest being created by any railroad photographer. "In his career, he has become well known throughout the photographic and railfan worlds, and his emphasis on railroads of the West has yielded numerous publications in magazines and books, as well as his own volumes, Backwoods Railroads of the West and Western Trains, and co-authored volumes such as Growing Up With Trains, Diesels Over Donner, and Whistles Across the Land. He has also been the subject of two books, Done Honest & True, and A Passion for Trains. In 1983 the Railway & Locomotive Historical Society presented him their first-ever Senior Achievement Award in Photography.