This Was Railroading

Book excerpt: This is Part 1 of a historical collection of rare photos and true stories about the tracks, trains and trainmen of the Pacific Northwest...including Northern California. Railroading is the massive Mallet and the caboose hop. It is the lonely track walker, the roundhouse rumors, the water tender, the engineer’s long-spouted oil can. It is the age of steam centered in the most romantic field of industry and commerce ever to intrigue Mr. America. And here in this book of beauty and memory is the graphic story of railroading as the “New West” saw it and rode with it. Railroading to author George B. Abdill is the sound and picture of black bulk streaking and shrieking through the night with a jet of steam trailing back along the boiler. He saw and heard this as a boy on an Oregon farm and has carried it in his heart ever since. Now as a Southern Pacific engineer—“hoghead” to you—and a dedicated collector of railroadiana, he raises the lid of his personal locker to all other railroaders, active and armchair. Get into the cab and as Engineer Abdill steams up the grade he’ll spin you tales of the rails and illustrate them with a part of his precious collection, many of these photographs museum pieces of the first water, most of them never before published, all are rare.