Everything (and I mean EVERYTHING) you ever wanted to know about UP streamliners

This must have been a labor of love for the two authors considering the amount of information in the 592 pages. Covering the start of the company's involvement with streamliners from the M-10000 in 1934 (competing with Burlington's Zephyr 9900) to 1971 when the UP had 120 Model E-8 and E-9 units. The thirty-seven years are covered by 56,000 words, 1200 photos, forty-three timetables and seventy-three diagrams and unfortunately, they are just crammed into the pages of this chunky book.

It's a fascinating story and no stone has been left unturned and this is the problem. Too many words and photos just overwhelmed me because the book lacks any coherent editorial flow. If only an editor had got to grips with the material and knocked it into shape so that the words, photos and diagrams were presented to the reader in an easy-going narrative from page one.

There are plenty of photos showing trucks, carriage construction and interiors (with or without the PR model passengers) outside and inside power units and all these images vary in size throughout the book with the text filling up odd shapes that are left, the seventy-three diagrams are a trove of information but virtually unreadable because they are crammed onto spreads or single pages. The last chapter: Album, with thirty-eight pages of photos, is incredibly repetitive with frequently seven photos on a spread. At least half of the images in the chapter should have been deleted because of poor quality and a much more rigorous selection made of the rest so that the interesting photos really work for the reader.

Since the book came out in 1974 there have been several reprints (I bought my copy some years ago and it's number 4433 of the 1980 edition though why copies were numbered is beyond me, especially when the total print run is not revealed) and I think it really must be considered the last word regarding UP streamliners but I thought it was very frustrating that all this fascinating information is not presented in the way it deserves despite all the time and effort the two authors have devoted to the subject.