Kansas Curve

Robert Olmsted, well-known railroad photographer and prolific Publisher//of railroad books, has teamed up with South Platte Press to publish a pictorial about Don Ball Curve, located in Roberts hometown of Lawrence, Kansas. Informally named for another master of railroad photography and book publishing, the curve is located along the Kansas City-Denver main line of the Union Pacific.

Using Robert's own excellent black & white photography, the book is devoted to the Union Pacific and Rock Island trains (the latter using trackage rights) that have rolled through Don Ball Curve between 1948 and 2007. It can also serve as a guide for railfans interested in visiting Lawrence and the Curve with its current high Volume of train traffic.

Most photographs are from the 1950s and 60s. There is as much Rock Island as Union Pacific subjects in the selection of photographs-especially a number of RI 4-8-4s. Plus see Wabash Es on The City of St. Louis, detouring Burlington Es, and the last page is the observation car of RIs Texas Rocket in 1948.

South Platte Press, softcover, 48 pages., 8.5 x 11 x .25 in., B&W photographs with captions.