Encyclopedia of Western Railroad History, Volume IV: California

Don Denevi, Palo Alto Daily News, CA, July 11, 1998
The 8-by-11 text, written in way to please both railroad buff and the lay person.

Book Description
Donald Robertson presents Volume Iv of his Encyclopedia of Western Railroad History-this one dedicated entirely to California. Detailed company descriptions include dates of operation, miles of track, maximum grade, gauge, rail weight, and the histories of thousands of locomotives.

About the Author
Donald B. Robertson was born and reared in Nampa, Idaho. Looking at a map will show Nampa has railroad tracks leading in five directions, and as such is a major rail center, with a plant where refrigerator cars were built. While attending high school he was a proofreader for the weekly newspaper. The learning of attention to detail was to prove useful in writing this book, particularly the locomotive rosters. During the summer of 1941 he worked on the local section gang of the Union Pacific. Nampa was the place to develop a taste for the heavy steam engine. Every afternoon, a full train of orange refrigerator cars headed east-pulled by a 4-12-2, a unique Union Pacific design. The war years, 1942-46, were spent in the merchant marine where the author was ship's purser, again a detail job. In 1948 he graduated from the University of Idaho where he was active in journalism and a member of Sigma Delta. That fall found him married, in San Francisco and working as a department store statistician. The next ten years were spent in the credit department of the Shell Oil Company and in 1961 he bought a hardware store. The store was closed in 1982 to devote full time to railroad research. Railroad history became a hobby about 1968-there was nothing to watch on television-and became a serious avocation in 1970 when the author discovered the treasure of old books at nearby Stanford University. About this time he joined The Railway & Locomotive Historical Society, which gave him access to the locomotive builder records which were used for the rosters. He is also a member of the National Railway Society. For recreation he reads and enjoys the magazine American History Illustrated. Mr. Robertson has traveled extensively in the eleven Western states, visiting the major libraries and historical archives. This has been by automobile, bus, and train, as well as by air, and thus he has a good understanding of the area about which he is writing. He owns a set of 1890 Encyclopedia Brittanica and a large collection of other reference and railroad books. When these fail, a day at the Stanford libraries is indicated. Another useful facility is the US Geological Survey map center, in his hometown of Menlo Park, California.


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