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Book Review: Great American Railroad Stories
I love this book. These are stories by some of the greatest of railroad wordsmiths. Just a quick look at the table of contents and their authors should convince you if you’ve been reading railroad books for very long. David Morgan, Lucius Beebe, Al Kalmbach, Linn Westcott, Helen Thompson, John Crosby, and Wallace Abbey to name a few. Then there’s John Norwood; one of the last of the old-time railroaders on the D&RGW Narrow Gauge. His story gives you the “being there” feel of what it’s like when your luck gauge is running dry, the weather is unbearable, but you happen to be a railroader. You just keep going and trust that sooner or later you’ll get through this, because that’s the only choice that railroaders will accept. I single him out, because his stories and books are amazing, and because his mother and my great grandmother were sisters. He was destined to be a railroader, having come from a railroad family of many generations. And there are many more authors and stories, and they’re all good. Linn Westcott tells the history of some mining railroads around Cripple Creek, Colorado, but he does so through the voices of other people, making it a story rather than a dry history.
These are some of the best stories ever published in Trains Magazine. If you like railroad stories, you’ll love this book!
Shooshie