Dale Wilson. A National Passenger Chronicle, Vol. 2 (2000)

     Dale Wilson. A National Passenger Chronicle, Vol. 2 (2000) A jackdaw’s collection of information and pictures about CNR and predecessor lines’ passenger services. The bias is towards Ontario, not surprising when you consider Wilson’s location (Sudbury). One of the more interesting chapters consists of W. A. Corkill’s recollections of his travels as a boy, mostly during wartime. The human interest bits add to the chronicle, and I hope Dale has more of them in future editions.
     The pictures are all interesting, though (as Paul Levin pointed out) they could have been reprinted a little better. Some of them show enough of the station and yard to have increased value, but most are cropped tightly on the trains. Pity; I like the incidental information in the background.
     Nevertheless, this is a valuable book for anyone interested in the subject, and full of other incidental information. For example, most of the local trains were short, half a dozen cars or less, including the head end cars. Also, heavyweight cars lasted well into the 60s, especially on local trains, and as work cars lasted into the 70s. Most sleepers and other special cars were rebuilt several times; they must have ended up like the legendary grandfather’s axe, which had two new heads and five new handles.
     The other tidbit I noted was the number of cars bought or leased from US roads; a table listing these would be useful to anyone trying to figure out which US models are convertible to Canadian roads. The lack of tables is the only real fault; but I guess Dale had enough troubles putting the book together. He alludes to desk top publishing, and must have used this book and its predecessor as a learning project. **½ (2003)