Great, I'm looking forward to getting it. I'm more of a first generation diesel fan, than steam fan in my books, but I couldn't pass up an all-color SP book like this. I'm probably one of the first to get it, so I'll comment after I see it.

I was suggesting that someone do a full comprehensive book on the SP commutes, something along the lines of Signors books (e.g. Coast Line). I'd love to see that.

Karen quit Karen's Books a few months ago. Bill owns it and called it Karen's Books to have a more unique catchy name (since most railfans are men). Karen herself was just an employee. Bill does the packing and now has a new assistant and is looking for another person to assist with the paperwork.

I've bought over 100 train books in the past year and now refuse to buy from anyone other than Karen's Books. He's friendly and responsive; his packing is by far the best of anyone.

I've had bad experiences with several other guys like Rails'n'Shaft who rudely told me to take my business elsewhere because I made several e-mail inquiries about books (mainly because his web site is so poor, you can't figure out what is what) and that was too time consuming for him. I did. I was about to give him an order for 25 Morning Sun books when I got his rude e-mail, so Bill got the business.

Similar bad experience with Railbooks.biz. I had outstanding orders for about 12 simple in-print Morning Sun and Four Ways West books that were up to five months old. He owed me a replacement Northern Pacific in Color Vol. 1 for over six months because the first one had a gluing and page sticking problem. He wouldn't ever fill my order, even when I asked him to ship for three months and not be held for the replacement NP book. On August 5 I got an e-mail reply saying he was assembling the books and would ship that Monday. Nothing. 3 weeks later he told me that he'd get back with me later in the day and let me know which ones he had. Nothing. Same thing again three weeks later. No reply later in the day. When you start feeling like you are being lied to over and over, it's time to severe the business relationship. At least one of my previous orders was mostly garbage anyway, dented books that he'd taken to shows. So by late September the third time he told me he'd get back to me and then blew me off, I told him to cancel it and I gave the order to Bill at Karen's Books.

Ron's Books packs really poorly, but I don't have another other experience with them to comment.

I ordered once from Joe McMillan and had no problems. Books were in good shape, packed well.

Another seller is a wonderful man and has great product knowledge, but I also found his quality to be poor at times. Won't mention names because he's a super nice guy.

Morale of the story. I've bought a whole heck of a lot of books this year to stock up my collection (more than I'd care to admit...) and after a lot of experience, I won't touch anybody other than Bill at Karen's Books. He's far and above anyone else in quality, packing and responsiveness. Really nice guy too, who's fun to BS with by e-mail.