Guide to North American Diesel Locomotives

This book is a good primer for the topic. One star deducted because the locomotive type and number featured on the cover is not in BN's roster in the book. How could that be?

Great history here with dates and photos of the evolution of the diesel engine. How a diesel works, Major class one and two railroad rosters. Great for scale modelers and rail fans in general. Whats not to like. I refer to it all the time for detailing my HO scale locomotives. Buy it!

Excellent review of North American Diesel locomotives Roasters.Extremely usefull for a European fan where our locomotives are totally different.When entering the book at the first moment, it may be a little difficult to understand how to use it.Each locomotive type / model could also have a synthesis of technical characteristics, much easier to read. Information should be presented in a table form for instance (Max speed, Overall rating, Overall 1 hour rating, Efforts available, Fuel capacity, Diesel Engine type, Motor type, Electrical technology, etc....)

This was a gift for my grandson, age 16. He loves trains, and we go to the local train yard every Saturday to watch. He loves this book.

I wanted a book to learn the history of these locomotives and to identify my HO models. This did both with tons of details and photos. Very pleased!

Lots of OUTSTANDING information on diesel locomotives. I'd give this book 5 stars except for one thing... My favorite railroad is/was Western Maryland. They forgot a whole section of Western Maryland's locomotives (GP7's and GP9's). The list started with the F3's numbered 51 & 52. They forgot numbers 20 through 45. I noticed because I know Western Maryland's history. It makes me wonder what else they missed on other railroads. Maybe it was just a sloppy edit, but disappointing just the same. Great information otherwise.

Picked this up for my dad as a gift, as he has become quite the rail fan. From the sound of it, it has been an outstanding resource for identifying engines, and has most certainly enhanced the 'rail-fanning' experience for him in the southeast U.S.

A good primer on the history and operation of diesel locomotives in North America; basically this is an oversized version of the old Diesel Spotters Guides. About half the book consists of locomotive rosters, and despite publisher's advertising that they are accurate "thru the 70's", the rosters for current railroads are "to the present", which is a plus.

This is a great book if you're interested in the detail of North American diesel locomotives. It has sections with small photos of every type and their main characteristics for identification. There are many pages of this, although the main thing it shows is that most locomotives look pretty much the same. Not the book's fault.There's a good overview of general locomotive development, and sections on all the major manufacturers, plus tables with series numbers and timelines of development.There are also plenty of decent photos, so it's not all tabular information, and some good commentary.Recommended. It's certainly more information than I'll ever need, but very interesting and good quality.

Like many railway enthusiasts in the UK, I find American railroads fascinating. However, the great variety of locomotive types can be quite bewildering for those of us new to the subject. This book provides an excellent introduction to the subject. It's a good starting point for those not familiar with the story of the the transition from steam to diesel power in North America and gives potted histories of each of the main locomotive builders. There is an excellent guide to the development of each manufacturers locomotive design (so you'll no longer need to wonder what the difference is between a GP38 and GP40). A large part of the book is given over to rosters for the major railroad companies, both historical and current (as of 2017) as well as those of a good number of smaller lines.Well worth adding to your bookshelf if North American railroads of the last 60 or 70 years are even of passing interest.

This is a leap forward from the original Diesel Locomotive guides. For a start it covers EARLY and CURRENT motive power and rosters. However, as other reviewers have mentioned, it could have used more technical information on each specific type. A specification with dimensions would have been a big plus.The Roster section shows where the printed medium loses out over the digital. If you are drawing up Rosters you need to consider a number of factors. Number (roads "serial number" in their roster), the locomotive make and type, the years introduced etc. NOW all this information is here.... BUT the editorial decision was made that the Roster/Engine Number should be the "sort" of this data. As railroads don't all start at 1 and build on that, even re-use old number sequences from retired classes, this means you have a rather bizarre roster listing where 1st generation diesels are mixed with much later models. On a web site such information can be called up as you require it. Sort by Type, sort by date introduced, sort by NUmber. Obviously on the smaller roads with fewer loco's and types this isn't much of an issue but I don't have to spell out the roads where this becomes rather a poor choice of "sort". Personally I would have liked to see a sort by date introduced/type/number. I can get that online of course AND the book does offer more than just rosters.The quality of the printing is excellent and the larger format far better than earlier editions. So too is the quality of the photographs.I would recommend this to rail fans who own the older "Early Diesel" and "Modern Diesel" volumes because it is newer and it certainly compliments the older content.

For the price it is very detailed and worth it.

This is a good reference book, that I have needed for years, it is finely here !