  We present a systematic and detailed review of the application of the method
of Hirota and the rational dressing method to abelian Toda systems associated
with the untwisted loop groups of complex general linear groups. Emphasizing
the rational dressing method, we compare the soliton solutions constructed
within these two approaches, and show that the solutions obtained by the
Hirota's method are a subset of those obtained by the rational dressing method.
