Last year I covered the first volume in Richard Carpenter’s series of historical railroad atlases covering the United States in 1946. I actually got it for Christmas last year: because I’m not familiar with the mid-Atlantic states the first volume covers, I found it a bit overwhelming — the maps show just the rail lines and stations, along with county lines and rivers, on a white background, so they’re a little stark if you don’t know the area. (But they correspond to USGS grid maps, and it’s almost essential in some of the more track-crowded areas.)

Having said that, though, I reminded myself that if this had been done with, say, Canadian railroads, or another area with which I had more familiarity, I wouldn’t mind the lack of non-railroad features one bit. Case in point: my father, who’s entirely responsible for my interest in trains, and knows much more than I do, likes the book quite a bit — strangely enough, I gave it to him for Christmas at the same time as Jennifer gave it to me.

Anyway, this is all to say that volume two of the series, which covers New York and New England, is now available.

• Buy A Railroad Atlas of the United States in 1946, Vol. 2: New York and New England at Amazon.com
• Buy A Railroad Atlas of the United States in 1946, Vol. 1: The Mid-Atlantic States at Amazon.com