Cabinet 17: Railroad Books
Joseph L. Scott, Rails Across Panama. The Story of the Building of the Panama Railroad 1849-1855. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1967.
Eddie Sand, boomer telegraph operator, was ‘about as happy and content as any man could be’. So reads the blurb on the back of this United States Armed Forces publication (below). Indeed, Eddie was ‘the real thing – Railroading, with a capital R’. Other ‘real thing’ titles collected by Webber include Schott’s book on constructing the Panama Line between 1849 and 1855, where cholera, bandits, swamp, and mosquitoes plagued ‘the Yankee Strip’; Dee Brown’s classic work on the East to West construction of the American rail; and a biography on Casey Jones, a real ‘Rail-hero’, who did not just live momentarily on Sunday morning radio-request shows during the 1960s. The ‘happy-yeeha’ cover on Bourne’s novel is in direct contrast to the title, where thousands did die when the 47.6 mile line from Aspinwall (now Colón) to Panama City was constructed.
Harry Bedwell, The Boomer. New York: Editions for the Armed Services, Inc., 1942.
Fred J. Lee, Casey Jones. Epic of the American Railroad. Kingsport, Tennessee: Southern Publishers, 1939.
Dee Brown, Hear that Lonesome Whistle Blow. London: Chatto & Windus, 1978.
Peter Bourne, Ten Thousand Shall Die. London: Hutchinson & Co., 1951.