 |
Railroads of Montana |
||
|
SECTION
1 2012 Railroads of Montana Calendar 2011 Railroads of Montana Calendar
Link to
SECTION
2
|
GREAT NORTHERN'S KETTLE FALLS, WASHINGTON BRANCH - THE STORY The Kettle Falls, Washington Branch of the Great Northern Railway has an interesting history that goes back to the 1880's in Washington State's "Inland Empire." This 100-mile rail line that runs north from Spokane was first built to the Columbia River at Marcus tapping into the lucrative mining districts near the Washington/British Columbia borders. Through time and circumstance, the terminus at Marcus was changed to Kettle Falls where two separate rail lines left basically east and west of Kettle Falls to Nelson and Grand Forks, British Columbia. As the northeastern Washington area grew in population, so did the diversity of commodities change. Mining still played a key role in traffic shipments, but they also started to include many non-precious minerals which to this day are the backbone of freight business. Not to be forgotten, as with anywhere in the Pacific Northwest, timber is a major player - as on the Kettle Falls line in the past and today. Not so well known was the booming tourist business that in the early part of the twentieth Century drew Spokane residents to Loon Lake. All these aspects of the Kettle Falls Branch will be covered in this publication. My first small 28-page publication about this rail line developed from the fact the I grew up in the Spokane Valley, Washington area and became a Great Northern fan at a young age. When I was growing up in the 1960's, there really weren't as many "railfans" as there may be today; my High School friend Dave and I, along with literally a handful of other old-timers formed the entire membership of the Inland Empire Railway Historical Society, making us the only ones capturing the rapidly changing railroad scene around Spokane. Since Dave and I were still living
at home and neither of us had our drivers licenses, we walked So...I suppose it could be said that this book was decades in the making. [on a sad note - my good friend Dave Emerson died November 2009 from complications of diabetes] THIS BOOK - THE STORY This 8½ x 11 landscape format 192-page book traces the history of the line from it's conception and early days with D.C. Corbin to the present day, There are 235 color and B&W photographs, nearly 50 maps and track profiles with a comprehensive reference and index section of over 400 entries. There are links to various parts of the book in this website so you can see what the actual pages look like. When I first started re-writing this book five years ago - my thoughts were just to perhaps include a few new photographs and add a little text. As I continued on in my work, I realized that there was indeed a larger story that could be told. So that's how a small 28-page booklet was transformed into a 192-page book. Along with the added information and images came the dilemma of how just to publish this book when it was completed. The reasons that I have taken on the role of both author and publisher comes from my experience in printing calendars and other publications during the late 1990’s and early 2000’s. Most folks probably do not realize the “hoops” that an author must go through to get their information out to the public, but many times they are expensive and sometimes by the nature of the process, prohibitive to the free flow of information. Four color printing is especially expensive and I wanted to be able to include as many color images as possible. Some may note - "Well, many authors have done full-color Great Northern books. What's the big deal?" The biggest drawback to having publications printed is the fact you just don't know how many you may sell. The more you have printed - the cheaper they are per unit to print and a lower cost to you the book buyer. If you don't print enough, you may sell out [which isn't too good, if you have a good seller], and if you print too many, you may end up with hundreds of books you can never sell. [which isn't too good either, as you can sit on them for years - you don't just want to give them away or lower the price to a "bargain basement" as that rightfully upsets the customer that paid full price] Hence, the dilemma. WHY AN "E-BOOK"? First of all, no one can deny that “railroad” related books are pigeonholed into quite a narrow market, which does not make them very “marketable” to most booksellers, so rather follow the traditional publishing path - I decided to offer this book and all future publications as an "E-Book." This way I can pretty much print on-demand the quantity of books that I sell. "E-Books" are fairly new to the book publishing scene and there is certainly pros & cons. Here are a few positives that I have found in praise of an "E-Book" format. First of all, I am just publishing my book into an Adobe Acrobat® .pdf format. This is good for the consumer as they can print the whole book on their own printer or they may only print whatever pages they want to print, which means that if they need just the information for a particular subject - they can print just that. You don't need a special viewer or any other equipment - just your current PC [Mac or Windows], monitor and printer. When you purchase the book DVD, I will send along a copyright release waiver that allows you to have a copy printed at a commercial printer or "quick copy" establishment. Second, in .pdf format, the consumer can magnify the page as large as they want and really see the detail of an image or just read the text in a larger font. [a real plus as one becomes older!] Some other pros are: "E-books" take up less space
which may be important to some, they may be more environmentally friendly
as only as many copies as needed are printed - not hundreds printed and
stored tying up valuable resources and finally, if there are any additions or
corrections, they can be made without having to re-print an entire press
run. Just a side note here - once you purchase the Now...here are some of the cons about an "E-Book." I suppose the main complaint about an "E-Book" would be not having the traditional "Hard-Cover" bound book. That is a legitimate concern, but with an "E-Book," it can still be printed out with the consumer binding it however they desire. This brings us to one of the big disadvantages, at least in my .pdf style of "E-Books" - and it's mostly a negative to me the author and publisher. Someone can easily copy the computer disc and give away as many copies of the book as they want and I don't get a cent. That's a real concern, but a chance that has to be taken. I feel most folks are honest and can be trusted to do the right thing. So...I will be offering for sale the DVD disc of the book with an option to get the disc and a printed copy of the book spiral bound. Click the link below for further ordering information:
Click the
link below to view a sample index page and an actual copy of the index: Click the
link below to view some actual pages: Click the
link below to view some links to web sites with information about the
Kettle Falls Branch from
_________________________________________________________________________
_ BTW: The reason I ask you to use
your email program is that the automatic email program popup does not work
with my simple .ftp web server :] All material and photos that does not list specific sources are copyrighted by Dale Jones Railroads of
Montana Home
Montana Railroad
History Home
Kettle Falls Book
Spokane International Book
|
