Trains: Photography of A. Aubrey Bodine

Recently bought this one based on the glowing reviews, along with the similar but much larger format books showing the work of J. Parker Lamb, Shaughnessy, and Donald Furler, and this one, by FAR, is the worst of the bunch. Schiffer did their usual job of fantastic publishing, great binding, nice paper, very high quality, but a smaller format than I expected - should have read the description better.The really disappointing thing to me is the very limited scope of the photos. Almost everything in here is Western Maryland Railroad, with a few B&O shots. Many pics of F3's and F7's sitting still, lots of photos that don't show trains AT ALL! Some, you've got to hunt for the train in the photo because it was taken from so far away. The best photos in the book are the ones shown in the item description. This is only a 128 page book. 17 pages are filled with the daughter's intro talking about her dad.The BIG disappointment is the downright lazy and inaccurate captions above each photo - one liners with no details and they're wrong in many cases. Typical caption "Western Maryland Diesel (c. 1950)" and that's it! The bigger problem comes in when they are so far off on the dates of obvious photos. There are two that really blew me away - one shows an auto carrying car loaded with new '65 Mercurys and a '65 Mustang, and another that shows a nearly identical car loaded with new 1962 Thunderbirds. Both are captioned, "(c. 1950)- no kidding! Even if you don't know anything about trains, you can't recognize a 1965 Mustang? And say the photo was taken in 1950?WOULD NOT recommend this book. I do photography as a hobby and side job, the book isn't impressive and the captions are downright aweful. There are much better railroad photography books out there for the money. When this book is at Ollie's for $5.99, buy it then. There are about 20 good photos in it for the true railfan, but not many more.

I was not aware of A. Aubrey Bodine as a photographer until quite recently when I saw this book in a catalog. We are big fans of the Western Maryland Railway and when I saw that the WM was featured in this book, I had to have it. His daughter has produced a splendid digital library of his very skillful and artistic photographs for the Baltimore Sun. Some of the ones featured in this book were also published in the 1950s in a book written by Harold A. Williams, Jr.: The Western Maryland Railway Story. I am sure the reproduction in the 1950s book did not do justice to his beautiful images, knowing the printing standards of the time. In the Schiffer book, there are superb deep blacks and fine gradations of black and white shades, some of which is undoubtedly due to good scanning values used to produce the files for printing. Other railroads of the Baltimore and Maryland area are also included. I highly recommend this book to railroad photography fans and any lover of fine photographic books.

I enjoyed the selected photographs of railroad subjects taken by Baltimore's premier photographer. I grew up seeing his photos in the Sunday Sun newspaper. Bodine worked for the paper during the 50s and 60s, and took many notable, atmospheric photos in and around Baltimore, capturing the mood and industry of the City as it was then.The book relies heavily on photographs Bodine took for the Western Maryland Railway as part of it's 100th anniversary celebration. Those photos dominate the book; a few photos record other railroads in Baltimore, Pennsylvania and Virginia.Photos are printed clearly on high-quality coated paper, and afternoons describe most photos in more detail.

She is a great photographer and this is a nice book with great photos

My grandfather comes from a railroading family and loves this sort of gift — plus he found a photograph of his father in the book!

This is one of the best railroad books I’ve ever seen. My husband is the collector but I couldn’t put this book down myself. You get lost in these photographs, they are amazing. Engaging - even captivating.

Some very nice pictures here, however, if you are looking for more motion shots, you'll be disappointed like me. A lot of great shots of Locos sitting head-on at the station, if you like that, you'll love this.

What could be better???? I love this book!!!

It's always interesting to see how a non enthusiast photographer approaches the subject of railways. A. Aubrey Bodine was a feature photographer with the Baltimore Sunday Sun from 1927-1970. His approach to photography was that of an artist. This selection of his work by his daughter largely comprises images he made of the Western Maryland Railway. There are some stunning works that would have benefitted from a larger format book than this. Highly recommended to anyone interested in American railways and particularly to photographers looking for something a little different from the norm