Off the Main Lines
A Photographic Odyssey
By Don L. Hofsommer.
softcover, 9.5x8.5", 320 pages, 454 b&w photos. August 2013.
"In this visually stunning and comprehensive photographic essay, railroad historian and photographer Donovan L. Hofsommer records the end of branchline passenger service, the demise of electric railroads, the transition from steam to diesel power, as well as the end of common carrier freight service on the Colorado narrow gauge.
"Off the Main Lines carries readers along out-of-the-way railways in Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Colorado, Oklahoma, Texas, Montana, and South Dakota to see the changes that occurred on these lines from the 1940s to the 1990s.
"Donovan L. Hofsommer is Professor of History at St. Cloud State University and president of the Lexington Group. He is author of Steel Trails of Hawkeyeland (IUP, 2005) and (with H. Roger Grant) of Iowa's Railroads: An Album (IUP, 2009).