Sandrin, James. 1999. Rio Grande Trackside with Jim Ozment. Scotch Plains, NJ: Morning Sun Books. 128 pages (all color). An avid rail photographer from childhood, Jim Ozment, an engineer, joined the Rio Grande engineering staff in 1958. His 36-year career saw hiim posted throughout the Grande's system, and wherever Jim went, he took his camera. Featuring Jim's beautifully reproduced photographs on 128 all-color pages, Rio Grande Trackside with Jim Ozment is an indispensable title for the library of any Rio Grande railfan or modeler. Emphasizing a period of approximately 15 years, beginning in 1955, Jim's photographs chronicle the Rio Grande's rise to prominence as one of the most innovative and well-managed bridge railroads of its time. There are dozens upon dozens of photographs of locomotives and rolling stock from this period, of course, and often from unique points of view, since Jim was often posted on trackwork projects in remote locations that other photographers could access only with difficulty. For me, though, what makes this book so special is Jim's instinct for capturing the human dimension of Grande railroading. On p. 83, for example, there's a wonderful photograph of a ballast tamper, with a Grande trackwork engineer controlling the beast; in the distance is the ballast train, waiting to dump more ballast for the tamper to work with; waiting in front of the car is a group of ten or fifteen workers. Throughout the book, you see steel gangs repairing track and bridges in remote locations that have seldom been photographed. On p. 59, for example, there's a wonderful picture of the hand powered aerial cable car that Grande workers had to use to cross the Colorado River in Glenwood Canyon in order to access the track. As you page through the book, you develop a sense of the how the Grande looked from the ground, through the eyes of trackwork engineers tramping over what seems like every last mile of the system. This is, in short, a wonderful book that provides Grande fans with a unique view of our favorite American railroad. Bryan Pfaffenberger University of Virginia
Bryan, Thanks for your review. Can you please mention the time period focused in the book? As a fan of the 1990-1996 period after the merger with SP, will I find any interest in this book?
TM, I'll bet you'd find it useful, even for your era. Bryan, Gee, thanks! Now I need another book! Great! Thanks for the great overview!
1955-1970. However, the up-close and personal view of railroad engineering operations is timeless and gives a good sense of the Grande's quality as a railroad. This survived, to some extent, well into the merger period. Bryan
I guess I'll find out soon--I just ordered this one from Amazon.com, along with 6 other Grande books I have wanted, and I found a few I never knew existed. I'll give a report on each when they arrive!
Well done Bryan,summed up the book nicely. Jere,I'm shocked to hear you haven't got his book yet...... Abit off topic,but in line with Jeremiah's luv of the tunnel district & for the other DRGW minded forumites,a link to a site I found off DRGW yahoo. Click on the "state/territory" drop down box,select Colorado & hang onto your eye balls! http://railsproject.com/R/Aspfiles/indexRP.asp
Jason, that's cool! It's even better than my shots of the area! I neglected a few areas, but they are well-covered in that show. The photographer did miss the area between Tunnels 5 and 6. That's a fav. location for me! The first part of the tunnel district is well-covered, but from Tunnl 8 to 18, he missed it all. There's also a glaring error--the phtographer notes Tunnel 27 as #28. Tunnel 28 was daylighted in 1951... Other than that, he has some neat photo angles on the tunnel 19-20 area, and tunnel 27/29 area.
The Tennessee Pass section was fantastic!!! It was taken during the tail end of Golden Week, and the colors are lovely! I wonder when it was dated? The few rockslides would make opening the line again a challenge, too.
From what I've read jere,there will be some clean up works because of the contamination from the Gilman mine site.Thought they's use side dump gons or something for the clean up but they will be running trucks up the row. But yes your right,some fantastic pic's in that site!
Trucks? Hi-railers? Wouldn't they get more bang from their buck if they leased D&RGW 5371, and a small group of D&RGW side-dumps? If they did, I'd be down there for the first movement! How far, in miles is Gilman mine from Minturn? It's all on the 3%, right? I'm also assuming that this is the mine near Belden Siding...
LoL,sending then an email crossed my mind,about using some rolling stock & a loco.Although what they state is"prime movers" from memory. If you want to read about it let me know & I'll hunt it out for you. I know they are very worried about the cribbing letting go,holding back thousands of tons of contaminated fill,if it goes the river will be in strife. I'm not sure how many miles,but it's not that far.2.4% grade I tink.
The grade out of Minturn is only 2.3% for a few miles. I just paged thru my copy of this book, after it arrived yesterday--I noted a shot on the west portal of Tunnel 24 that not even the Secret Places book has. WOW! Loads of unique shots I hadn't seen done before.
While the book is a little early for me, as is Rio Grande in Color Vol 3, both are still very nice books about some of the most interesting times of the RR. I'm focusing on the mid-1960's thru the end of the 80's for modeling purposes. I do own both books and highly recommend them.
