Steam Beneath The Red Star
Following World War II, when the Iron Curtain isolated Communist countries from the West, the opportunities for railway photography were severely restricted. East Bloc regimes considered railroad operations to be strategically vital and usually banned picture-taking. Requests for photo permits were usually ignored. If any visitor who violated the rules was caught, his film might be confiscated; sometimes, he went to prison. By 1970 the situation has eased somewhat, and more railway photographers applied for visas in order to record the last steam operations on the rail system of the Soviet Union, its satellites and other Marxist countries
"Steam Beneath The Red Star", one of the first Cold War nostalgia books, is illustrated with 88 colour and 368 black and white photographs, many obtained at great personal risk at great personal risk and under trying circumstances.
