Robert
It does mention Algernon Weston and Weston Pass in several settings; as a (hazardous) route to Leadville before the railroads and as a considered rail route-both over and under-by several of the proposals. The Appendix is a compilation of the many "paper railroads" that were proposed but never built, a number of which considered a Weston Pass route.
Chris
The book does present the LMB, a railway that in its incorporation papers was originally going to go all the way to South Park via the 13,000 foot saddle between Mt. Sherman and Mt. Sheridan and down to Leavick. It doesn't go into great depth on the LMB itself, as it was so quickly subsumed by the C&S.
Percentage…hmmmm… hard to say. I did utilized a lot of the older books as sources, but at the same time when I did original research in the old newspapers and records, most of those facts were confirmed so I felt OK using "secondary" sources as some of the "primary" sources for this project. But there was a lot of great new stuff, though perhaps nothing earth shattering, in the Leadville papers of the day. Back when Mac Poor, Morris Cafky and others were writing in the 40s - 60s the incredible (and searchable!) resource of the Colorado Historic Newspaper Collection at http://www.coloradohistoricnewspapers.org didn't exist, so digging through there unearthed a lot of little and interesting quotes and factoids, a process much easier than searching through fragile volumes of newprint or losing your eyesight with microfiche, both of which almost guarantee that you will miss interesting stuff.
To give you an idea of the scope and content level of detail of the book, allow me to quote from the introduction:
"So unlike cities like Denver or places with romantic-sounding names like Aspen, Durango, and Manitou Springs, much of the rich history of Leadville (“Lead-ville?”) has been largely overlooked, condensed or forgotten. Popular historical works often distill the town and its mines down to The Unsinkable Molly Brown, H. A. W. Tabor, Baby Doe and “Never sell the Matchless!” The railroads are only mentioned in passing if they are mentioned at all.
At the same time, many of the major historical works about the railroads that served Leadville include deeply researched information of each line’s activities, their accountants’ ledgers, board members, and technical details of each piece of rolling stock from the locomotive to the caboose down to the last rivet. The railroads themselves are often portrayed in print as eager to get to somewhere else, the West Coast perhaps, or Salt Lake City or Santa Fe. Leadville is generally mentioned on but a few pages appropriate to each railroad’s history.
Silver Rails: The Railroads of Leadville, Colorado hopes to strike a balance. It is not a complete and detailed history of each railroad that served Leadville and the region. Nor is it a complete and detailed history of the town of Leadville, its people, its mines, and its boom-and-bust economy. Both of those particular threads are available elsewhere. Silver Rails tells the story of four railroads and their quests to reach the Magic City. The railroads used the wealth and notoriety of the town and the mining district as stepping stones, they hoped, to greatness and profitability. Silver Rails charts the railroads’ struggles, successes and, ultimately, their failures in and around Leadville. It also tells the story of a wild Colorado mining camp that, for a time and with the help of the railroads, became one of the most famous cities in the world.
So if you already own the Mac Poor books, the Morris Cafky book and any number of the D&RG books, you probably have 60% of what's presented here (plus a whole lot more in great detail). This volume pulls much of the Leadville information together under one cover. The other 40% includes the history of the Royal Gorge War, including its precursor on Raton Pass, building the D&RG and DSP&P/UP up Ten Mile Canyon, the more resent history of the Leadville Colorado & Southern, and a number of photographs that, to my knowledge, haven't seen the printed page before. A percentage of new photos? 25% maybe (not all relate to the railroads, but most do)? I haven't seen every single photo in every single book but a quick look through the volume showed about 100 images that I don't have in any other source.
I'm biased, but I think even if you own all the other books of the region you will still enjoy and find some new material in this one. At least I hope so. Thanks for asking!
Oh yeah - Zip Code: Enter any 5 numbers. The only reason its there is so the web site doesn't get bombarded with ads for male enhancement medications…. The numerical entry keeps the spam away.
Chris J
Locked
As many of you may have already heard, there's a new book out there, Silver Rails: The Railroads of Leadville, Colorado by Christopher James. That happens to be me. I checked with Darel to make sure it was OK to toot my own whistle here and he gave me the OK. The book is the culmination of a seven-year project that began - oddly enough - in the book isle of Caboose Hobbies in 2008. As a fan (and former resident) of Leadville, I couldn't find a book about Leadville's railroads. The die was cast. Seven years later, having met with many wonderful photographic image collectors, researched many a file and old newspaper clipping and poured through every railroad history book that I could find that included Leadville (many of which I already owned), Silver Rails is now ready for you. 
This hardcover, 288 page, four-color book tells the history of four Colorado railroads—the Denver & Rio Grande, the Atchison Topeka & Santa Fe and the Royal Gorge War with the D&RG for a route to Leadville, the Colorado Midland and the Denver South Park & Pacific and its various offspring as they battled mountains, weather, finances, murder and each other to reach the wealth that was pouring out of the Leadville mines in the late 19th century. It follows these lines as they built, succeeded, ultimately failed and disappeared from the upper Arkansas Valley. It also tells the story of the Leadville Colorado & Southern—the $10 Railroad—that still carries passengers over a right-of-way built in 1884.
