Book Review – The Monongahela Railway in Color, Volume 2

By Stephen M. Timko
Morning Sun Books, 2020
ISBN 1582487103

Review by Dan Bourque

Stephen Timko’s newest foray into the coal fields comes in the form of The Monongahela Railway in Color, Volume 2. This book is part of an anticipated three-part series, and volume 2 covers the West Division and branches, primarily the more modern branches on the road. If you’ve read Timko’s Appalachian Coal Mines and Railroads in Color series, then you know exactly what to expect from this book–it’s a really excellent and well documented photo album with the outstanding photos supplied by E. Roy Ward. Instead of multiple railroads, the focus of this volume is singular. This focus means every key scene of the western portion of the Monongahela is well covered in both photos and detailed captions. Most of the Monongahela’s lines west of the river were built very late in the railroad’s history, so this book only covers the last 18 years of the Monongahela, from 1975 to the Conrail takeover in 1993.

If you like black GP38s, they’re in here! If you like Super 7s, they’re in here! If you like Detroit Edison unit trains, they’re in here! If you like borrowed P&LE and Conrail power, they’re in here! In addition, the big flood loaders and even a couple smaller load-outs are covered, as well as plenty of in-between scenes. While the Monongahela was a small road, it coal operations were big time including big lash-ups, long trains, and even helpers, and this book gives a great feel for the scale of this railroad. The captions for every photo are lengthy and first-rate, giving dates, train names, details about what the train is doing, where it’s going, and plenty of tidbits about the details in the scenes. It goes scene by scene to give the reader a good feel for each line covered as well as how operations evolved over time.

Even though this book is “Volume 2,” it covers a different part of the Monongahela, so it has no difficultly standing on it’s own. There aren’t a lot of books on the Monongahela, so this beautiful book is an essential for any post-1995 Monongahela modeler, and it’s a great read for any fan of modern coal railroading. I enjoyed it so much I’ve ordered Volume 1 as well, and I’m greatly looking forward to Volume 3!

Subject:	The Monongahela Railway’s western half in the last 18 years of the railroad’s independence
Primary Era:	1908s-1990s
Facts:	Pages: 128, Cover: hardcover, Photos: 290+, all color
Photos:		Great photos throughout
Text:		Almost entirely captions but very informative with great details about each train and scene
Maps and Diagrams:		Just a single map to help the reader with bearings–this is not why you would get this book
Value for the Modeler:		Excellent photos of scenes, often from multiple angles over multiple years and seasons
Purchase Value:		Reasonable for the number of quality photos and information

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