Dear Friends,
Like many folks, I have a fascination with trains and mine began as I grew up in Omaha, a block away from the flood plain of the Missouri River where train tracks , and whistles, and hoboes went from Omaha to who knows
where. As a college kid, I jumped a freight train over the Santa Cruz mountains and lived to tell about it. And now, I see, almost daily, the fascination with trains in the eyes of little children who make a visit to the station to watch a train go through - this is the highlight of their day. I have trouble keeping kids’ books about trains in stock but at the moment I have three different stories, written in the 1950’s, in England, by the Rev. W. Awdrey, in which we meet Percy, the Small Engine, and Gordon, the Big Engine, each First Editions, in hardback, at $10 – those of you who have had train buff children 
know these are the original versions out of which grew Thomas the Tank Engine.
I also have quite a few wonderful books on very specific railroads, like Pennsylvania, Standard Railroad of the World, Volume 1, a first edition, by Plant and Yanosey at $28. But the rarest collection of railroad books are a collection of about 60 pamphlets, printed between 1898 and the 1921 entitled Record of Recent Construction,The Baldwin Locomotive Works, Philadelphia, each priced at $120. These extremely rare and fragile records of the huge variety of engines built by this company and shipped to banana plantations in Cuba, to mines in South America, to behind the allied lines in WW I are both detailed enough to be 
a true train buff’s idea of heaven and printed and photographed and typeset so elegantly to be of interest to artists. And to add to the historical interest of Philadelphians, these came from the collection of Paul Seel, Chief Mechanical Engineer for the Pennsylvania RR from the 1930’s to the 1960’s and some include notes, in his hand, correcting details in the publications.
Two books that stand out from our aviation collection almost bookend the history of flight. Heaven High, Hell Deep, 1917-1918, $60, signed by the author, Norman Archibald, is, if one can judge a book by the reviews on the cover, a very well written account of one WWI aviator’s training, fighting, and capture and imprisonment. It has a very cool, aluminum colored dust jacket, which, as you can see, was a challenge to photograph. On the other end is Learning to Fly Helicopters, a 1992 paperback, $9, by R. Randall Padfield. Let’s hope the book is just an introduction to further studies by any pilot !
This summer, we received a great collection of $3 paperback nautical adventures books the pit 19th century
English sea captains agaist Barbary Pirates, the Spanish Fleet, and Russian supply lines, just to name a few. Moving into the mid 20th century we have a wonderful paperback, Fabulous FOLBOT HOLIDAYS, signed by the author-editor, J. Kissner, $11, undated but 4th edition and appears to be 1950’s or 60’s. This company, still in existence, makes a variety of boats, mostly kayaks, that can be built at home or bought built from the factory and this book features articles and great color photos by users of the boats who 
use it birdwatching, kayaking among ice floes, running rapids etc. Great stuff that makes you want to join Toad and start messing around in boats.
I fear that this listing may be getting too long but there are two of our many travel books, at totally opposite ends of the spectrum, that I just have to share with you. The American Woman Abroad, 1911, $60 a first edtion by Blanche McManus with illustrations by the author, has this 
wonderful quote from the foreword, "To the American woman abroad is due the credit of having so far influenced the conventions and traditions of the Old World as to have it recognize and accept with good grace (in so far at least as her own acttions are concerned) a new standard of feminine conduct --- freer and more independent than its own, but none the less modest and self-protective." This may have been an early feminist but she was also carrying some pretty ethnocentric baggage, or I should say, her porters were carrying it for her.
On the other hand we have Traveling with Tramps, 1920, the 11th and scarcest in a series of pulp paperback books, this one, a first edition in incredibly clean condition $140, by A-No 1, 
"The Famous Tramp" who traveled 500,000 miles for $7.61, AKA Leon Ray Livingston. This equally modest writer, wrote in his foreword, "To Restless Young Men and Boys, Who Read this Book, the Author, who Has Led for Over a Quarter of a Century, the Pitiful and Dangerous Life of a Tramp, gives this Well-Meant Advice: DO NOT Jump on Moving Trains or Street Cars, even if only to ride to the next street crossing, because this might arouse the "Wanderlust" besides endangering needlessly your life and limbs."
Do as I say not as I do? I never read his book as a kid, but if I had, I might have tried to jump a train well before my college days.
Aren't books a wonder !
