Illustrated Directory of Trains of the World (Illustrated Directory)

Following a reasonable timeline, some of our most importaint locomotives in the history of Railways are covered, Steam, Electric, Diesel and GasTurbine.

All regions are covered but the U.K., Europe and North America get the most coverage as the need to create communications in these large land mass areas saw the most development in locomotive technology.

The contentious issue of who built the first Pacific type (4-6-2)locomotve is settled with Baldwin winning by a couple of weeks with their order from the New Zealand Government Railways for that country's Q class locomotives in 1899-1900.

Other magnificent feats of engineering are covered, the mighty Big Boys, the sleek GG1s, the Hudsons, F7 Diesels etc and the modern locomotives and High Speed passenger trains of today all get a look in. Relevent data is included for those who want to know, other than that, what a great read.


Dynamite book about various locomotives   July 4, 2002
 2 out of 2 found this review helpful

If you want to know what different locomotives in different countries looked like, then this is a great source of information. Set up almost like an encyclopedia of locomotives and trains, you can find what you are looking for here.


A Superb Pictorial Survey Of Locomotives   March 26, 2001
 8 out of 8 found this review helpful

This wonderful book covers over 150 locomotives starting from the very early steam to present day high speed trains. Steam,Diesel and Electric traction are all covered with fairly good descriptions on each locomotive.Though majority of entries are from from US and UK, other countries are covered aswell. Locomotives which brought technological innovations and also ones which performed well are all included.Interesting historical information on each locomotive is also provided.The book contains beautiful color photographs and some superb highly detailed color line drawings.Though without an index this book is very informative and covers the most important locomotives of the past aswell as the present.