Trains and Railroads Books

I bought this book along with another because I wanted to model a small circus train for my model railroad. I didn't want anything too elaborate, just a 'representation' that there was a circus coming to town. With this in mind, the best resource for me is photographs, and this book has plenty of them. Nearly the entire page, apart from the small white border and caption below, is all picture, and every page has one. The first two pages is the introduction, and the entire rest of the book is a picture history. My only wish was that there was some color but in those days of old there wasn't any. The pictures are not as much of the circus, as they are of the transportation that bought them there, the unloading of the cars, the staging in the yards or terminals and unloading the open wagons off flat cars. I love it.

"Trains of the Circus, 1872 - 1956" is a soft cover book measuring 10" x 8 1/2". It was published by Iconografix. The cover is attractive, depicting an extensive circus unloading scene in the form of art work. The pages are printed on good quality paper stock. Excluding the 2 page introduction, most of this book is a photographic essay. Of the 126 pages in this book, only 5 pages are photo free; the photos cover the expanse of the pages. The clarity and detail of the photos are excellent. There are 9 pages of various car interior views. Historical tidbits and information about the photos are succintly written within 3 to 4 lines of text below each photograph. The sources of the photographs are diverse and are credited below each photograph with any pertinent dates. There is a chronological flow to the book. There are various scenes presented of unloading, loading, sleepers, flat cars, and stock cars. Many of the photos are new to me. This book is not a detailed analysis of the inter-twined histories of the circus and the railroad. It should, however, fill a void in the libraries of the circus fans and should be a helpful resource for the Circus Model Builders.

Lehman does it again. The illustrations are luminous and the story engaging enough for all ages. My little ones love her books, and my big ones do too.

On a train trip between cityscapes young girls watches as her view in a black tunnel is replaced by a vibrant countryside. When the train is flagged down mysteriously the girl notices she is the only one on the train who isn't asleep. Stepping off the train she finds a group of people gathered around a tree where a person and their plane have become lodged. What isn't apparent until she reaches the tree is that the people are all tiny, as if the remained frozen the height they were from her train window perspective. While the people are as real as the girl, the plane in the tree is one of those balsa wood planes with a rubber band powering the propeller. Once she has rescued the tiny pilot she returns to the train and resumes her ride home, out the of the fantasy and out of the tunnel, back to the city where she lives.

Out in front of her townhouse, standing in her stone yard, she looks up and sees the rescued pilot and a co-pilot flying toward her. They come with a gift of thanks, a small seedling for an apple tree that is planted in the crack in her stone yard. As a parting shot the girl sits on her stoop admiring her now-grown tree while all over the city other trees have begun sprouting up, no doubt from kindred daydreaming souls looking to return nature to the cities.

Lehman set herself an impossible bar with The Red Book a few years back and, unfairly perhaps, everything since has been measured against that amazing snake-eating-its-tale fantasy. If the impression -- mine at least -- was that her subsequent books (Museum Trip, Rainstorm) were increasingly weaker attempts to capture lighting in a bottle, Trainstop manages to stand apart from the others, on its own and with very sturdy legs. As with her previous books Lehman mines the theme of a child's daydream world, but here the idea of an fantasy taking place while the rest of the world sleeps, coupled with the message of bringing nature back to the cities, is perhaps the strongest, most direct message delivered yet. Where in previous books the children imagine or discover worlds for their own purposes and keeping, Trainstop gives us a child looking to share her fantasy with the world. It's almost a subtle environmental message, a quiet Lorax making a last call on those with eyes and ears enough to still listen.

For those unfamiliar with Lehman's work, the book is as wordless as her previous books, filled with the same thick-outlined ligne claire illustrations that are her trademark. Probably the simplest of her picture books to date, but no less engaging. I think what I'd really like to see is what Lehman can do with the long-form: graphic novels. Her sense of pacing, her imagination, I think make her an ideal candidate for an extended fantasy romp a la Sara Varon's Robot Dreams or, on a more picture book level, Regis Faller's The Adventures of Polo.

If one is just starting on the fascinating journey of discovery about the Lionel Corporation and the marvelous electric trains that it made, this is not the book with which to begin. Carp's collection of reminiscences by nine former Lionel employees will not acquaint the reader with a comprehensive or chronological history of the company and will add very little to whatever knowledge the reader may already bring concerning the company's products. Anyone still early in the journey will find Ron Hollander's "All Aboard! The Story of Joshua Lionel Cowen and His Lionel Train Company" the book to read.

Once the reader has the main history of the company under his belt and is familiar with the names of its movers and shakers, then is the time to open Carp's book on "the world's greatest toy train maker" and to appreciate the experiences of the former employees therein. At its economic height, Lionel was quite a large company and employed workers with many diverse skills. In Carp's book, the reader will meet assembly line foremen, tool room supervisors, administrative assistants, illustrators, electrical engineers, salesmen, photographers, publicists, and innovators in electronics-all people whose names went unknown to the children who played with Lionel trains and to most other people outside the industry. Yet these largely unknown and unseen employees all influenced the development, production and marketing of the trains and of Lionel's military products. Without employees such as those in Carp's book, Lionel could never have achieved the market dominance that it enjoyed for many years, nor would the name carry the fiercely loved emotional reactions that it still evokes among thousands of toy train aficionados and hobbyists today. In short, Carp's book shows us the Lionel Corporation from the viewpoint of employees who labored in supporting roles rather than in the limelight of the executive boardroom.

Reading this collection of memory-lane stories did reveal one proposed product that I had not run across before in any of the other company histories that have been published. I certainly would like to see a sample of that steam locomotive tender with the chickens popping out of the coal pile pursued by a would-be chicken-catcher! Reading also revealed one rather significant factual error relative to a Lionel product: Page 99 describes Lionel's Super-O track as having a "darkened center rail and ample wood ties." In reality, the center rail was bright copper, darkening over time only through normal oxidation, and the closely spaced ties were wood-grained plastic. The track used no actual wood whatsoever. While this is only one error, to be sure, it is a very blatant one, immediately obvious to anyone with common knowledge of Lionel's products.

At 112 pages, the book is also a rather thin volume, but it is nonetheless a useful addition to one's library on the Lionel Corporation and is worth the reading-just not as the first book to be read on this topic.

Each of 9 chapters is devoted to the quite candid account of a particular worker who describes his experiences while working at Lionel. Areas covered are engineering, sales, and management. The many photos are from Lionel archives, private collections, and taken by the employees themselves. Narratives closely conform to the many extensive, taped interviews conducted by the author over a period of years. Since I am the subject of Chapter 9, I can attest to the authenticity. Many facts are presented for the first time and should be valuable additions to the collections of toy train enthusiasts.

I found this a very good book, even though I skipped through several selections.First of all,this is not a book about the lore of Railroading.If it were, it would have been about the people who operated and serviced these wonderful trains.I knew many Railroaders and their jobs were much more than a job,it was a passion with them.My father was a Railroader and I grew up listening to all the stories about storms,accidents,breakdowns,late arrivals,special customers,hobo's, union strikes,and on and on.I can remember during WW11,the troop trains going through my town with all the windows covered.I also remember the company rounding up all available men to take "down the line" to help dig out by shovel the train stuck in a 20 foot deep cutting filled with snow.I made dozens of trips by rail in Nova Scotia;but none compared with the three return trips I made from NS to British Columbia ;particularly in the dome car.This book relates experiences these writers had in travelling by rail and while reading them;many similar memories were brought back to me.
About the time I was finishing High School,my father asked me what I would like to do.Living in a small Railway town ;two "high tech" jobs were Dispatcher (Morse Code and all) and the Watchmaker who checked and repaired the Railroader's watches.My Dad said I should give it a little more thought.One day the watches won't need repairs and one day Morse Code will be replaced.Little did he know that not only are those jobs gone;but so is the Railway,trains,tracks,stations and people now say my town "used to be a railway town."
Overall this book has a large variety of stories ,by many well known writers and thoroughly enjoyable.

From Langston Hughes ,charles Dickens,John steinbeck,Czar Alexander III,and more...80 plus authors..It seems every word ever said or written regarding a train is compiled in this book. Poets,authors,kings,popes ect... If you love trains,if you love a great book that tells almost all that could be said this one may be your adventure of the rails without leaving your chair..I loved it,

For those interested in technological history this is a great book to start with. While it may look daunting this book analyzes the social, political and technological implications of building a railroad that spans the country. It looks at the corruption and mismanagement of workers as well as looking at how the country benefited from being made whole. This is a great place to start for understanding the United States economic rise to power after the Civil War.

Although animation movies are usually fun to watch and take less, MUCH less time to complete, they are not always the better part. As for this book, it ain't the Polar Express and even without big names like Tom Hanks, this book has it's share of characters.

This compelling book takes you back into time when The America's have had their first settlers on both sides of the country and cities were emerging. East coast and west coast are battling for the first railroad from east to west. Powerful alliances are forged and tremendous labour is being made. Who will win?

If you ask me, the reader has won. All details about indians, labour-, cultural- and financial problems are brought forward and it really gives you a good view of the times.

This book is a great history novel, but don't expect a fairytale.

Empire Express: Building the First Transcontinental Railroad

"Light at the End of the Tunnel"


It took me nearly as long to read this mammoth book as it took to build the Railroad upon which it is based. But the effort was worth it in both instances: the Great Transcontinental Railroad literally united the Union at the same time the Civil War was jeopardizing it. There is enough material here for several books: the Railroad Surveys which opened the west to exploration; the visionary dreams of the Chief Engineers (of which there were several); the desperate attempts to fund the project; the physical and logistical challenges; and the political scandal that nearly wrecked it (the Credit Mobilier Scandal).

A lot to attempt, and to a large degree David Howard Bain accomplishes it. But there is simply too much detail, too many names and dates, too involved a plot. I can't help but compare it to David McCullough's excellent history of the building of the Brooklyn Bridge, The Great Bridge. Had he written the story, it might have been more manageable. But Bain deserves an A for effort.

In a highly-visual story like this, the publisher could have made better use of the ample photographic record of the railroad.

Holding companies, stock watering, stock certificate bribery on the floor of Congress, no less!

The story of the building of the transcontinental railroad is far more than the story of Irish and Chinese laborers moving toward an unknown meeting point in the west. And Bain paints that story in detail.

Changes in railroad legislation were bought off by stock contributions and other favors. Congress was for sale rather than dealing with serious measures like Reconstruction.

Meanwhile, Union Pacific VP Thomas Durant was bleeding and skimming the company dry, including changing the UP's course and more.

Read all about America's first huge business scandal, intertwined with one of its biggest political ones, in this hard hitting book. And, read about those Irish and Chinese laborers as well.

Empire Express is an amazingly well done epic.

Starting at the beginning of the Age of Steam when only dreamers thought that America's greatest mid century engineering feat was a remote possibility, and winding up at the beginning of the Gilded Age, when only scoundrels seemed to be the survivors of this series of events, David Haward Bain weavers the tale of the building of the first Transcontinental Railroad. From the passes and tunnels of the Sierra Pacific and the Indian dislocations caused by the construction of the route, to the New York Boardroom skirmishes and battles, the swindles and the amazing Washington bribery that embittered two US Presidencies, Bain leaves no stone unturned in the description of THE event that finally bound the East and West coasts of the United States together for the for the time.

Starting in the mid 1840's when mountain men still roamed the American West and finishing in the early 1870's amid complex scandals quite beyond belief, Bain highlights just what an economic driver capitalism has been in the settlement and development of America as we know it today. For over 250 years men of all nations searched for the fabled Northwest Passage, the non existent sea lane that supposedly connected the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. It wasn't until 1862, during the height of the American Civil War that America decided to create on land the passage that did not exist by sea.

This is the story of that incredible undertaking, truly the final step in America's Manifest Destiny.

I enjoy the writing of Paul Theroux. This book is a train book about crossing China in the 80's. It gives a glimpse into life in China post mao.
If you enjoy Paul Theroux's writing this want disappoint.

Armchair travelers and actual travelers will positively become immersed in the lives and countries of fellow travelers and foreigners as Paul Theroux journeys accross Europe. Scents, sights, sounds and a dead-on ability to skewer irritating passengers and crew, off-train traits and culture give much zing to the chugging train trip. Another Theroux treat.

From curmudgeon to comedian, Paul Theroux plays many roles. So too does China, and this is why they make such a good match. Certainly, this book drags in places, but to that end it only mirrors actual travel. It isn't just about the destinations, but the time spent between the destinations, or in this case the time the author spends riding China's trains. Those looking for an informative history of the Great Wall or an amusing anecdote concerning the Terracotta Warriors will have to look elsewhere. Theroux shuns tourist sites almost as much as he shuns foreign tourists. When he does encounter a famous place, he often gives it a one-line assessment. He sums up Beijing's abundant cultural offerings, for example, by saying that everything was "very big and very impressive."

There is no doubt that Theroux can be caustic, but his cold appraisals should ring true for anyone who has traveled in China, at least to some degree. The problem with many China books is that they are often penned by people who are smitten by the Middle Kingdom and therefore don't wish to offend. But Paul Theroux doesn't care who he offends. In any of his books. Period. Simply put, he calls it as he sees it. Despite his penchant for snobbery, one thing that Theroux is exceptionally good at is getting in on the ground level and talking to people. This makes for many of the volume's brighter moments, like when he asks to see a commune and a group of Cantonese laugh so hard they almost fall over.

RIDING THE IRON ROOSTER is a thorough inspection (pun intended) of China during the days it was emerging from the long shadow if Maoism, but before it had begun rocketing toward the realm of capitalism. As mentioned, it can be frustrating, but no more frustrating than China itself. And like China, it's worth it for those gripping moments and laugh-out-loud encounters. I have to hand it to Mr. Theroux. He traveled around China for an entire year, a trip so extensive that he visited several places twice. To my way of thinking, he deserves four stars just for that.

Troy Parfitt, author

I read this book over a week-long period, almost 20 years after he rode the Iron Rooster through China. The many commentaries of country life, the weird customs of the people and the constant yearning to shoot birds for food made me wonder if China today is still like it was 20 years ago. I certainly hope it is not, but Theroux's style and detailed observations of miniscule events make this a very interesting, graphic read. I had the sense of where I was in the country, from the barren desert to the freezing mountains and every track inbetween. I didn't want to get off the train.

This was my first Theroux travelogue. I will certainly read many more.

For many travel writers, the point is more in the journey than the destination. That is especially true with Paul Theroux here. Whether it is the rubble of the Great Wall, the desolate wastes of Inner Mongolia, or the awe-inspiring vistas of Tibet, Theroux uses the various places of China he encounters by rail as a backdrop for what interests him most, the people.

Published in 1988, as China emerged from the darkness of the Cultural Revolution and just before the Tiananmen crackdown of 1989, "Riding The Iron Rooster" captures the world's most populous nation catching a wave of democratic sentiment, embracing materialism and such symbols of Western decadence as Jan and Dean. Whether government handler or fellow rail passenger, most everyone Theroux meets has regrets about the country's hardline past and doesn't mince words expressing it, in the process challenging his (and our) expectations of encountering a continent of doctrinaire Maoists.

"We can always fool a foreigner" is a Chinese proverb Theroux quotes right off the bat, and he takes it as his job proving otherwise. Better equipped than most Westerners, he has not only been to China before but speaks the language, enough so he can distinguish genuine laughs from politeness or insecure warning, while asking questions that would have gotten him in trouble ten years ago but now evoke amusement and curiosity.

The result is a highly subjective, idiosyncratic blast, of a self-admittedly rude foreigner pushing boundaries in an attempt to uncover deeper truths from a populace unaccustomed to giving them. His admiration of the Chinese is not without frustration. "I hated sight-seeing in China," he writes. "I felt the Chinese hid behind their rebuilt ruins so that no one could look closely at their lives."

Score this one China 1, Theroux 0, but he does put up a noble fight, and provides you with an entertaining glimpse at a country that engages your deeper interest, and admiration for an author always willing to go the extra mile, even in a cold and filthy railcar.

The book does lack some sense of geography; even consulting the map on the flyleaf doesn't help as Theroux expands and contracts the reader's sense of time and space. He may dismiss the terra-cotta soldiers' ranks of Xi'an with a couple of paragraphs, while spending pages on the quality and universality of public spitting. But you wind up with a journey that tells you as much about the complexity of Theroux, a dyspeptic but very talented observer in the tradition of Evelyn Waugh, as it does about the great land he visits here.

"Travel is frequently a matter of seizing a moment," he writes. "It is personal. Even if I were traveling with you, your trip would not be mine." Here, you sort of are traveling with him, and the result is a literary journey as intoxicating as it is educational.

I enjoyed this book for its wonderful sensuosity, but found the author's superior and condescending tone frustrating. I found myself wondering why on Earth he took the trip if he wasn't going to at least try to appreciate the people and cultures he visited? Still, he took me on a journey I'll probably make myself and, while Theroux may not have relished the adventure, I did.

... and this book is indeed an old friend, for it is the work that introduced me - and many others - to Paul Theroux. It was this book that introduced me to Theroux's charming crankiness, his wickedly astute ability to size up a human interaction and make the most of it - almost like a young boy who starts to craft a "whopper" - but most of all, his uncanny talent for observing a scene for nary a moment and offering up visualization that stays in the mind's eye for ages.

Here is Theroux's oft-quoted take on pulling into one of Europe's crown jewels: "Venice, like a drawing room in a gas station, is approached through a vast apron of infertile industrial flatlands, criss-crossed with black sewer troughs and stinking of oil, the gigantic sinks and stoves of refineries and factories, all intimidating the delicate dwarfed city beyond."

But there is more, just as artful, sometimes better:

"...modernization stopped in Turkey with the death of Ataturk, at five minutes past nine on November 10, 1938. As if to demonstrate this, the room in which he died is as he left it, and all the clocks in the palace show the time as 9:05. This seemed to explain why the Turks typically dress the way people did in 1938, in hairy brown sweaters and argyle socks, in baggy pinstriped pants and blue serge suits with padded shoulders, flapping winglike lapels and a three-pointed hanky in the breast pocket. Their hair is wavy with brilliantine and their mustaches are waxed..."

Or this: "Laos, a river bank, had been overrun and ransacked; it was one of America's expensive practical jokes, a motiveless place where nothing was made, everything imported; a kingdom with baffling pretensions to Frenchness... the more I thought of it, the more it seemed like a lower form of life, like the cross-eyed planarian or squashy amoeba, the sort of creature that can't even die when it is cut to ribbons."

Or: "The mountains had begun to rise, acquiring the shape of ampitheaters with a prospect of the China Sea; eerie and bare and blue, their summits smothered in mist, they trailed smoke from slash-and-burn fires... Now it was sunny and warm: the Vietnamese climbed up to the roofs of the coaches and sat with their legs hanging past the eaves. We were close enough to the beach to hear the pounding surf, and ahead in the curving inlets that doubled up the train, fishing smacks and canoes rode the frothy breakers to the shore, where men in parasol hats spun circular webbed nets over the crayfish."

"Railway Bazaar" has been derided by some for offering only a fleeting glimpse of various cultures from a train window and a quick layover; truth be told, that is what foreign travel consists of even for the most intrepid traveler who is not an anthropologist or social scientist. Theroux does a perfectly splendid job painting a portrait of a war-ravaged Vietnam where GIs and the locals have come to somewhat cynical terms with the denouement, and his vivid and disquieting depiction of the infusion of sexual violence into mainstream entertainment (theater and even comic books) in Japan is among the best I have read about this dark underside of that culture.

And then there are the characters of his passing parade, the bit real-life players that Theroux shapes into larger-than-life caricatures. They are at turns annoying, stealthy, invasive, pedantic, morose and beatific, and Theroux breathes life into them - each a literary joy in his or her own way.

Theroux has a wonderful knack for taking the last paragraph of his creations (many, at least) and crystallizing the mood of that work within a final sentence or two (think "Saint Jack" and "My Secret History"). He does that in "Railway Bazaar" and when the literary train pulls into the station, you want to step off quickly, grab a refreshment, then reboard for another ride.

Old Friends like this do need revisiting every so often.

I've read a bunch of his travel books now. I always find them fun to read. This one, however, I found a little more difficult than the others. To me often it was like a crazy quilt of scenes and I felt overwhelmed at times. I enjoyed learning about the Sikhs and northern India in general. But what do I know about the Biharis vs. the Bengalis? I formed pictures, but felt I didn't know what it was all about. Though after reading what he writes about India, I never want to go there. But then I found it so interesting to read about how the people of Japan are so entertained by violent sex with blood and murder. That young girl with the comic book depicting all that violence! Why is that so entertaining to them? Well, Americans like that stuff too. But I'd rather read about what it is really like than about some phony everyone is so loving to everyone else sort of thing. And I will never forget the one-legged man, hopping ahead so fast that Paul couldn't catch up with him. All in all, I am immensely grateful to Paul Theroux for his showing me all these things around the world while I am safely ensconced in my comforable easy chair at home.

Note: I made some immature Mormon angry because of my negative reviews of books that attempted to prove the Book of Mormon, and that person has been slamming my reviews almost as fast as they are posted.

So, your "helpful" votes are appreciated. Thanks, and note that a short review is not necessarily a bad review if it leads you to a great book.

If you always dreamed of traveling, then do it the easy way by reading one of Paul Theroux's accounts of his travels. They are funny and insightful and grand adventures. Check out these lines:

"The sad engineer would never go back to England; he would become one of these elderly expatriates who hide out in remote countries, with odd sympathies, a weakness for the local religion, an unreasonable anger, and the kind of total recall that drives curious strangers away."

Speaking of young foreign travelers, Theroux says:

"Occasionally, I saw an amorous pair leave their compartment hand in hand to go copulate in the toilet.
Most were on their way to India and Nepal, because
`the wildest dreams of Kew are the facts of Khatmandhu
And the crimes of Clapham chaste in Martaban.'
But the majority of them, going for the first time, had that look of frozen apprehension that is the mask of the face of an excapee."

Theroux has a great quote in the beginning of the first chapter--"The journey is the goal."

It hardly needs repeating that Paul Theroux is an exceptionally gifted writer. Moreover, this is a very skilfully written story, full of original and acute perceptions put across with wit and point. Theroux recounts a series of train journeys, interspersed with boat trips or aeroplane links where the rail option is not available, as for instance when making a sea crossing or in railless Afghanistan. In the course of this journey he has a number of lecturing engagements, presumably arranged in advance, for which I assume (although he does not say so) that he received a fee. I assume also that what took him away from his home and family for so many long months was not just the enjoyment of rail travel that he owns up to, but financial recompense for the book that he intended to publish as a record of his trip.

Earning an honest living by writing, and by travel writing in particular, is a worthy and honourable pursuit. However when the people represented in the story are real people, and the incidents are true occurrences, and the statements recorded are what people really said, there are to my way of thinking certain standards of taste and propriety that should be carefully adhered to. Personal records of travel and encounters along the way are presented impeccably in, say, Germaine Greer's `Daddy We Hardly Knew You' or in Peter Hessler's River Town and Oracle Bones. In these narratives the authors have reasons for being where they are and for meeting who they meet. These are accounts of research, investigation and exploration from which the books are a spin-off. They have not just taken a trip with a view to parading whoever they might happen to meet before the public at large, which is really what Theroux is doing here. Was the permission of Mr Duffill or Mr Molesworth sought before their statements and actions were made public? I doubt it somehow, but my idea of propriety doesn't even necessarily require that. The parties reported sympathetically by Dr Greer obviously knew what she was doing, but the personae she disliked would not have been consulted about what she intended to say about that them, and that is fine by me. What I am not happy about is going out on a fishing trip and subsequently dangling the fish on a line to be gawped at or derided. Some instances are worse than others. It is not particularly offensive to pillory the downmarket press of any country, such as the Indian weekly `Blitz' which informed him regarding some rowdy individual that `He was high and headstrong...Hurled abuse at some and then fisted a guest', in which the last verb is not used in a more recent sense but means `punched'. I also can't deny that I was amused (rather guiltily) at the clever representation of his Japanese host's offer to show him the local Tiergarten `You want to see tzu?' `What kind of tzu?' `Wid enemas'. Very smart, very clever, but coming from someone who spoke no Japanese more than a little patronising and de haut en bas.

I think it is perhaps the chapter on Japan that brings out in particular the slight sense of distaste I feel for this book. Theroux recounts at some length and with some particularity erotic shows and publications patronised by placid-seeming middle-class Japanese. I confess I find the shows as he describes them somewhat disgusting, but in a rather detached way. What revolts me more acutely is the spectacle of the audiences themselves, and that brings to the fore in my mind the nature of Theroux's own narration. What exactly is he doing there in the first place? He is another audience on the next tier. Does he have some mission to tell the world about all this? Is he engaged in academic research? None of that, and he does at least show awareness of the issue, admitting that he is a bit of a drone amusing himself idly and in the process making rather free with other people's privacy for the entertainment of a paying public.

All that said, the book still has plenty to recommend it. I felt that the later chapters are better than the earlier, which have too much sense about them of `oh look at these people doing these things' and `this guy said this three-quarter's of a page worth to me'. There was a sharp improvement starting with the chapter on Singapore, where Theroux's trenchant comments seem to me to be not only valid in themselves but also to satisfy one of my own requirements from a book of this kind by offering analysis and generalisation rather than just random detail. Also, the book was written in the early 1970's, and so is a reminder of an epoch. This was pre-junta Burmah, for instance. It was the time of the cold war. South Africa was still under apartheid although the availability of the industrial capacity of the Japanese obtained for them the status of `white' from Mr Botha or whoever was in charge in South Africa at the time in question. Above all, it was the time of the war in Vietnam, and the vignettes of that ravaged nation as recounted by so talented and independent a storyteller made a vivid impression on one reader at least.

At one point Theroux comments that travel narratives turn into autobiography. The books I have instanced by Greer and Hessler are certainly autobiography and rightly so. I only wish this book had practised what it preaches. Theroux gives away comparatively little about himself apart from his participation in a few dialogues, the purpose of which is largely to pillory his interlocutors, and I particularly miss precisely this sense of personal development which he himself says one should expect.

There is next to nothing for railway geeks, but if I remember one thing above all from the book, it is the tantalising semi-description of the viaduct at Gokteik in Burmah.

Terrific in every way, as all of Theroux's travel books are! Not a word too many, and not an insight overlooked in this adventure through the Americas. Wonderful, beautiful, and a treasured book in my library.

One of Theroux's best train trips. You can really feel the shifting landscapes as he moves through the latitudes...

A remark that one reads often about Paul Theroux is that he is grouchy, critical of the people he meets, and generally unpleasant. Some readers seem to suggest that this makes him a worse traveller, not being pure-of-heart or sufficiently open-minded. On the other hand, some others suggest he is worth reading as a travel writer precisely because he's not afraid to tell-it-like-it-is. I think it is likely that both of these ideas are wrong.

When Paul Theroux writes a travel book, he is not a journalist writing simply to produce a faithful depicition of the places he visits. He is not a social crusader writing in order educate the reader about the lives of the poor or to stimulate the reader to see the richness of life outside of North American. He certainly not an egotist like Thomas Friedman who writes in order to put himself in a positive light. He is simply an intelligent man who has enough humility to try to write down what he has experienced without drawing too many clumsy conclusions or false symmetries. When he writes that he didn't like a certain person sleeping in his train compartment, he doesn't expect the reader to sympathize with either him or the unpleasant companion. I don't think he means to argue that his dislike has any special significance beyond the fact that it was part of the travel story that he is telling. I like the fact that when Theroux narrates an encounter with someone in his travels he doesn't smooth out the details to make the encounter unambiguously positive or negative. For example, when he describes meeting Jorge Borges, the Argentine writer, he clearly admires Borges' memory and sensitivity and yet he doesn't avoid commenting on Borges' stuttering and his clowning smile. And yet again I don't think Theroux's remarks are meant to be cynical or knowing. When he tells-it-like-it-is he is not trying to steer an intellectual or moral high road and he is not valiantly trying to see past illusions. I believe that when he writes down a conversation or encounter he intends only to include his side as one of the characters in his story.

Theroux has the patience to travel by train across a hemisphere and, thankfully for this reader, he has the patience to delay the moment when the mind can no longer calmly observe and rashly commits itself to streamlined answers and silly pet theories about what one sees and what it 'really' means. His books are, to me, humble because in them he shows us moments when he feels superior and they are wise because he doesn't try to step outside of his story to engage in falsely-wise pronoucements.

It doesn't matter whether Paul Therous is a 'good' traveller or not. Few travellers have the writing ability to produce any sort of record of their travels anyway, whatever their nature. The reason one ought to read Paul Theroux is be reminded of what the world and oneself can look like through the eyes of an ardent traveller who just happens to love books a bit more than he loves people.

In 1979, Paul Theroux departed from his childhood home in Medford, Massachusetts, and began his train journey from the East Coast of the United States to Patagonia, on the southern tip of Argentina. A seasoned traveler, fluent in Spanish, Theroux brings to life his trip through the northern and southern hemispheres, traveling without a schedule and observing his fellow passengers on the train and people at stops along the way.

In Texas he is astonished at the contrasts between Laredo on the Texas side of the Rio Grande and Nuevo Laredo across the border in Mexico, commenting on society and governments. Traveling through Mexico and Guatemala, he observes the poverty of the Indians and their lack of opportunities. In El Salvador he attends a soccer game and gets caught up in the melee and riots which follow it. In Costa Rica, the cleanest country he has visited, he finds himself stuck on the train with Mr. Thornberry, a New Hampshire tourist so boring that Theroux cannot wait to escape him--only to have Mr. Thornberry "save his life" by offering him a place to stay upon his arrival in Limon. In Panama he meets the "Zonians," from the Canal Zone, and in Cali, Colombia, he meets a married "priest" who cannot tell his devout mother in Belfast that he has "left" the church to marry and have children.

Throughout his trip, Theroux reads classics, particularly enjoying Boswell's Life of Dr. Johnson and Edgar Allen Poe's The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, both of which provide ironic reference points for his own journey. For literature lovers, the most fascinating section occurs in Buenos Aires, where Theroux spends many days visiting blind writer Jorge Luis Borges, who persuades Theroux to read to him. Ironically, one of Borges's favorite novels is The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym. As Theroux takes notes on his meetings with Borges, he becomes Borges's Boswell.

More an observer than a participant, Theroux has an unfortunate air of superiority about what he sees and hears. Sparing little sympathy for American and German tourists, he rarely gets excited about his surroundings, expressing genuine emotion only when he talks with three boys, ages ten to twelve, who live in a doorway and scavenge for food because their rural families have abandoned them. Theroux's self-congratulatory attitude gets a bit wearisome, but the picture of Central and South America, thirty years ago, and the section with Borges are unparalleled. With beautiful, carefully observed prose and a great ear for dialogue, Theroux's Patagonia Express is a landmark travel memoir. n Mary Whipple

Note: I made some immature Mormon angry because of my negative reviews of books that attempted to prove the Book of Mormon, and that person has been slamming my reviews almost as fast as they are posted.

So, your "helpful" votes are appreciated. Thanks, and note that a short review is not necessarily a bad review if it leads you to a great book.

From Boston to Patagonia by train. What an adventure. As I wrote in my review of the "Great Railway Bazaar," treat yourself to traveling the easy way and read one of Paul Theroux's books.

Peter Mathiessen described the "Old Patagonian Express" perfectly: "Sharp-eyed, honest, and exceptionally well-written...an implacable landscape, conveyed through a series of marvelous encounters."

The idea of an individual seeking to right a perceived wrong through violent means is something that many writers have used in the past, yet few have done it in as gogent a manner as this writer. The story begins with three dostinct story lines that converge, as the book progresses, into a real page turner. The chacters have depth and become more meaningful as the story is skilfully woven. The witer is from the South and his personal knowedge and lifetime experiences come through well in this work. It is easy to ascertain that he has spent a goodly amount of time in research and this does much to enrich the work. His time in the military has taught him much about beauracracies and the "back-stabbing" and the manipulation of people that is commonplace. The characters are strong and serve to make this book a most satisfying read.

The Bookcassette Adapter gives you balance control on your headphones and is so easy to use: Plug it into the stereo jack of your personal tapeplayer and then plug your headphones into the other side. The Bookcassette Adapter Works ONLY on Stereo Tapeplayers.

If you plan on listening to Bookcassette audio books on a stereo system where you can adjust the sound between the left and right speakers separately, such as a rack system with separate left and right speaker controls or a car stereo with a left and right balance dial, you will be able to listen to Bookcassette audio books without a problem. If you plan on listening to these audio books on a portable cassette player that does not have this capability, such as a Walkman with headphones, you will require an adapter.

As I said, it would be cheaper to buy it on the Internet, especially on eBay, instead of directly from the company (Brilliance Corporation) at 1-800-697-6797

In recent years I have become hugely disappointed in most of the mediocre scrawlings which have been recently published as novels; however, on the highest recommendation of a much-trusted literary friend, I began reading the works of P.T. Deutermann and I'm so glad that I did.

I haven't completed reading all his works but "Train Man" is my favorite so far. The story, (oversimplified), is essentially this: Someone is destroying the train bridges/trestles which cross the Mississippi River, an unrivaled commercial transportation crisis and one which takes years and billions of dollars to rectify. There is also a palatable love element which does not at all diminish the action of this superb thriller.

Deutermann is a master of sub-plots and he possesses a literary gift which is rare in the world of novelists: he gets you rooting for "the bad guy". Not outright, but readers are inclined to want to see the next bridge go down. It's a strange phenomenon but it's there for some of us who are anarchists at heart.

The atmosphere, characters, and locations in this work are all quite credible. I loved this book and I'd give it SIX stars if I could.

This is way down the list of Deutermann's novels. Read DARKSIDE, but skp this one. Three "Deus ex machinas" stopped me at page 110.
1. Army has 3 Russian nuclear torpedos "leaking radiation?", and decide to fly them to Utah?
2. C130 has a fire on board, and crash lands on a derelict Army landing field?
3. And that Army base just happens to be loading a train of chemical weapons for a ride to Utah?

And the nutcase blowing bridges waited five years to go to work?

Stan Beattie

A man on a vendetta for his lost loved ones. A train killed his family so he decides to bring down the railroad traffic for good. To succeed he starts to destroy the six major railroad bridges across the Mississippi. Unfortunately on top of the resulting catastrophic traffic scenario the army plans to transport hazardous material via train through the country from Alabama to the Army's destruction facility in Utah - and there is no way around the Mississippi. FBI agents Hush Hanson and Carolyn Lang have to stop the Train Man before a major disaster plunges the area into doomsday...

Deutermann spends a lot of details on how the train system in the USA works and shows that he researched quite a lot. Therefore the technical general framework for the plot is set.
The book features some interesting characters both within the FBI and in the Army. A lot of details are spent on their problems and the rising tension among them. These parts are quite interesting.
In fact the story is more about the main characters and their relationship as well as about inner Bureau/Army tension and set ups than about solving the crime.
This is also the biggest weakness of the book and as a result the featured story is not really gripping.

Furthermore the preparations of setting the bombs at the bridges are always way too detailed. (Almost as if every reader should be able to build and place its own bomb.) On the other hand the hunt for the perpetrator is much too short and the disclosure of this identity too easy - especially since the main FBI characters have almost no input here.

The book is neither fast paced nor is the detective aspect of the story gripping. To be more precise I found the book actually a bit boring. As a result it did not keep me up late to finish it. It is easy to read but that's about it.

In his first two books "Scorpion in the Sea" and "The Edge of Honor" Deutermann showed that he can write a gripping page turner. Both books also contained passages where I had tears in my eyes from laughing. Unfortunately ever since then Deutermann's skills seem to vanish more and more with every new book. With "Train Man" the author wrote another one that is easy to read but has none of the tension and the humor from both books mentioned before. Too bad really...

PS
A very similar subject/motive can be found in Ridley Pearson's "Parallel Lies". I strongly recommend reading that book instead of "Train Man" because "Parallel Lies" is much more thrilling and entertaining. The featured characters are great as well. On top of that it has by far the more convincing overall plot and conclusion.

My three year old loves this book. The book is simple to read & the pictures are very eye catching.

THis is one of the BEST books for early readers. Many common words are repeated. I have many books from various early reading programs(some have too many difficult words and too many different words) and this is one of the best. The vocabulary is limited, just what a new reader needs. My 4 year old can read many of the words.

Thomas the Tank Engine books and DVD's are the best, and kids love them. At 2 1/2 years old, my grandson is a little frightened of the stories on DVD, I think it's because of the intense facial expressions (I'm sure he'll outgrow it soon), but he loves the books.

My son loves this book, and constantly brings it to me to read. It's such a simple book, I think he can understand it easily. I'm guessing before too long, he's going to be able to almost read it on his own. I think it's a great book for beginning readers. I'm not very concerned about the message that it sends, I see it as an entertaining Thomas story. I just don't see it as a negative book.

Great pictures, but did Donald Trump write the story line? The books ends with a smug Thomas exclaiming "I am first and you are last!"