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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 transcontinental carrier like Transcon. That fact, plus the close working relationship between a railroad division superintendent and a labor official, "makes it obviously fiction." But it's easy to see why railroad executives wouldn't put “End of the Line” on their personal favorite list: Transcon executives are 21st-century versions of the 19th-century robber barons. Bribery, insider trading and corporate downsizing — one exec's nickname is "The Axeman" — put Transcon's management safely in the villain category. The fictitious Transcon is based in Dallas, about 35 miles from BNSF's real-life headquarters in north Fort Worth. Like BNSF, Transcon has a campus headquarters complete with a network operations center, whose description would pass for BNSF's similar central control facility at its headquarters. BNSF isn't talking about Parton. "We simply are not going to discuss the matter," spokesman Richard Russack said. Parton has been unemployed since being fired in late June. Thanks to a working spouse, a small Navy pension, and some investments, he has kept his house in nearby Keller, Texas. But “End of the Line” needs to be a big seller to return Parton, his wife, and two children to the ranks of the financially secure. Cardoza Publishing, a small New York house that has specialized in books about gambling and card games during its 25 years of existence, is publishing the book. Parton and a Los Angeles literary manager are trying to put together a pre-packaged movie production that would include screenwriting, cast, and financing that can be taken to a studio for a movie deal.
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