I've not had the problem with dings and dents others have had, but maybe I'm just been lucky.

As far a Joe himself I think he's slowly winding down the book business. I believe it's just increasingly difficult for him to find enough quality material to do a book plus I get the sense he's getting burned out. I've heard him say, at Winterail, the book business isn't what it once was. People are balking at the book prices mostly. But Joe has to take some blame for the rather inconsistent photo reproduction and incorrect caption information in some of his books. As an example the relatively new "Milwaukee Road Locomotives, Vol Four" has some of the better photo reproductions in any book he has done, yet some of the caption info is wrong and/or confusing, especially the Lines West stuff. There are some knockout photos in there to be sure, one's I've never seen before. I just wish some of the caption info was better.

I was told Joe took a beating on the "Pool Power" book. Had too many books made. After that maybe he decided to reduce the number of books printed.

As a side note many of us are looking forward to the new "Western Pacific" book by the late Ken Meeker. Should be a stunner. However it's the usual WTF took so long?? I was told the book could have been published before Ken's passing but Dale and others were hellbent on filling all the photo holes and having the book as perfect as possible. My question would be "is that really necessary"??