Railroad Fiction

[Anonymous]

All of the "other" technical avocations (aviation, space, ships, boats, antique & collector cars, even computers) are well represented in published fiction, but I'm having trouble finding much railroad fiction. Has "Trains" or any other publication ever compiled a bibligraphy?

[garr]

JBRogers,

I don't know of a bibliography or any other listing of railroad fiction. I have a number of books in my collection and will post a listing for you later. Railroad fiction was popular from the 1950's/1960's back with the peak probably somewhere between WWI and WWII. In addition to books, check out any copy of the old "Railroad" magazine ( late 1970's and back, before Carstens bought it). Every issue had at least one fiction story in it.

Jay

[Anonymous]

There's an interesting piece of RR fiction entitled Two Track Main, which was published in 2002. It's about several characters affected by the changeover from steam to diesels during the 1950's. Very descriptive. The book is available via amazon.com, barnes and noble.com, and xlibris.com

[Anonymous]

After reading some of the posts in the "SD39--Russian Locomotive???" thread I think there are several budding authors of railroad fiction right here among us!

[gbrewer]

Here is an interesting web site containing quite a bit of interesting railraod fiction.

http://home.mindspring.com/~railroadstories/index.htm

[garr]

JBRogers,

Three good anthologies from some classic railroad fiction authors are:

Headlights and Markers, edited by Frank Donovan and Robert Henry

Rail Fiction Classics, edited by William C. Jones

More Rail Classics, edited by William C. Jones and Charles Albi

A more recent book is "Double Jacks" by McGinley.

Also, if you do an advanced search using-- fiction --in the search box and -- garr -- in the author box and back dating the search to July 2004, you will find my post listing a few more books, both fiction and nonfiction.

Jay

[dknelson]

Some of the writing is a bit flowery by today's standards, and the "love" scenes are enough to make one squirm, but a classic old piece of railroad fiction is Frank Spearman's "Whispering Smith" -- it is about a railroad detective. It has some very atmospheric scenes involving track gangs, brave engineers, bad weather, bad track, virginal [but lovely] maidens, dastardly evildoers of the Snidely Whiplash variety, and so on. It was also made into a pretty tolerable movie (better acting than "Danger Lights" but the trains are better in Danger Lights).
Also on the goofy side but rather fun, and with a couple of neat illustrations if you can find an original edition, is Tom Swift and his Electric Locomotive. It is a book for boys but back then boys were expected to be pretty good readers.
Dave Nelson

[garr]

Dave,

A couple of years back, The Paper Tiger reprinted four of Frank Spearman's books; "Whispering Smith", "Held for Orders", "The Nerve of Foley", and "The Daughter of a Magnate". All four are hardbound. BTW, can't remember which, but one of these is also reprinted in "Rail Fiction Classics" or "More Rail Classics" mentioned above.

Jay

[joseph2]

Thanks for the link gbrewer,interesting old factsand fiction there. Joe G.

[Anonymous]

Thanks Everybody. Looks like I've got some research and reading to do.