"End of the Line" - The next great American novel?

Trains Magazine General Discussion
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(From the TRAINS Newswire 10/05/05)

Banned in Fort Worth: Former BNSF exec tries writing about trains

FORT WORTH, Texas - When BNSF Railway executive Kem Parton got the proofs of his novel, “End of the Line,” he sent copies of the railroad action tale to various executives at BNSF’s Fort Worth headquarters hoping for a favorable cover blurb. Instead, says a story in the Ft. Worth Star-Telegram, Parton, a former U.S. Navy war planner turned railroader, got a pink slip.

The railroad told Parton last June that his career, which began as a trainmaster in Chicago in 1993 and continued as a labor-relations specialist since 1996, was over unless he scrapped his novel.

“They said it made the railroad and the industry look bad and that everybody would think that it was about them,” Parton says of the reaction to the book. “I could either work for BNSF or publi***he book, but not do both.”

“End of the Line” is a railroad thriller (“admittedly a limited genre,” Parton says), featuring multiple train disasters and explosions, bloody injuries, and greedy railroad managers. The hero and heroine triumph over the bad guy, a fired engineer, but not before many deaths and crashes.

Parton scoffs at the notion that “End of the Line” is a how-to book for terrorists. While his knowledge of railroad mechanics gives the book the kind of insider credibility that Tom Clancy brings to his military books, Parton said he deliberately implanted small technical errors in the narrative so as to foil would-be copycats.

As for the similarities to the real BNSF, Parton says his fictitious Transcon Railroad isn’t based on BNSF, and neither are any of its fictional executives.

“I started the book in 1996, when none of the current leadership [including Chief Executive Matt Rose] was in their present jobs,” Parton says.

The rookie author laughs at the possibility of a similarity, noting that BNSF is not a coast-to-coast transcont

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I remember the movie End of the Line. Actually it was filmed here in Arkansas and some of the extras were railroad people (you can thank Mary S. for that tho.)

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Rather than coming up with the same warmed-over pablum, why doesn’t someone write something concerning the dramatic tension of say a railroad employee struggling with the greater good of the demands of railroading and the importance of family life.

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“End of the Line”. One miserable movie. And nothing to do with this book.

This fellow must really believe in his book to give up his job over it. Somehow, I’ll be surprised if it makes him rich, don’t see a book about railroads becoming a big best seller. Wonder what technical details he changed to fool wannabes?

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The author, like any writer, thinks that he’s got really great stuff there. Like a lot of political novels and other works, the characters are probably pretty thin disguises of actual people and the disclaimer of coincidence is quite routine. It should be noted that the one publisher who actually picked up this novel appears to be more oriented to the modern version of pulp fiction.

The fact that the author was fired by BNSF is not surprising. He is part of management and even first-level supervisors are expected to be company men, it goes with the territory.

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DOES BIGFOOT MAKE A CAMEO APPEARANCE?

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I don’t see this book selling well among railfans as it makes the railroad out to be the bad guy.

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WTF was he thinking. He could have waited till after he left his position with BNSF to publish. What did he expect?

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Sounds like the author reached “The End of the Line” himself…

LC

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Oh the irony [(-D][(-D][(-D][(-D][(-D][(-D][(-D] too funny

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So many derogatory opinions, and no one has even read the thing yet! I at least will wait until I read it to decide if it is a worthwhile literary endeavor or fodder de jure for the Bill Moyer types

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I can’t tell you how impatient I am for your review. Perhaps you can get an advanced copy of the book.

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For you, I’ll make a special request. After I peruse the advanced copy, I might just start in on a screenplay, and then we’ll have the next great train movie.

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If its as good as your posts, it will be in theaters for, oh about 30 seconds…

FOFLMAO…

You MUST be kidding…LOL…

LC

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I’m envisioning one of those dinner theater, interactive shows. Locally, they do something like Frank(?) and Tina’s wedding, where the crowd gets involved in the story. I’m not the theater type, but if there’s dinner and beer involved…[;)]

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Needs a new title, but I wish it well. Theory of “no such thing as bad publicity,” after all.

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Good idea. That’s a practical way to test out a screenplay and refine it as necessary.

I was thinking of using a little artistic license for such a screenplay.

(The characters mentioned in the following absract are purely fictional, and are not intended to represent actual individuals)

I would develop a character (oh let’s see, let’s call him/her “Elcee”)[}:)] who likes to hide behind the cloak of anonymity whilst shooting orphans[sigh] in the back sniper-style[xx(]. He/she does this all from a secret[X-)] location under a tanker full of urea that somehow got sidetracked in a long abandoned railyard overlooking an orphanage. He/she is assisted in th

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LOLLZERZ LYK YA HE MAKS A CAMEO APPRNCE N HES LIKE WOH BIG SCARY LOLOLOL```!!!~!~!!!111ONE!!!ELVN!!!111! [;)]

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futuremodal: have you been hittin’ the sauce this evening?[:-,]

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Maybe he hit “use or lose” status with his smilies? [shrug]