Railscapes: A Northern Pacfic Brasspounder’s Album

Packed with spectacular photographs and a trainman’s vivid memories, Railscapes reflects the author’s unbounded enthusiasm, love, and respect for the whole world of trains. Once again, Jim Fredrickson opens the shutter wide on more than six decades of American railroading, and offers an insider’s insights on the business of moving men and materials via the great steel ribbons that connected the Pacific Northwest with the rest of the world. For 39 years, the author worked for the Northern Pacific Railway in Washington state as a telegraph operator–a brasspounder–and dispatcher. He had the good fortune to travel in some of the most beautiful parts of the United States, and his camera covered it all–from the Bitterroot Mountains of Montana and Idaho to the Cascade Range of Washington, to the Puget Sound coastal region. Since his teens, Fredrickson has been ready to capture by a shutter’s click both ordinary workhorse engines as well as special, magnificent, vintage, or futuristic trains. Drawn from an immense collection of railroad images, Railscapes features more of Jim’s favorite photographs of train wrecks, premier passenger trains, the last of the steam engines, railroad folks, and more.