Gilbert A. Lathrop

Little Engines and Big Men is the first of two books Lathrop wrote about narrow gauge railroading in the Colorado Rockies (the other is Rio Grande Glory Days). The time frame is 1880’s – early 1900’s - the heyday of U.S. narrow gauge railroading. A note to the reader: In the U.S. after the Civil War there were two primary railroad gauges –Standard at 4 feet 8.5 inches between the rails and Narrow with 3 feet between the rails and the largest concentration of 3 foot gauge railroads was in Colorado. The difference in size of narrow gauge engines and rolling stock when compared to standard gauge trains was substantial. As Lathrop states on the opening page “…those valiant little thirty-six-inch lines with their toy locomotives, their plaything cars and coaches…opened to men and their families homes in the then inaccessible high country [of Colorado].” The title of the book refers to the fact that if you were a large adult male (Gilbert’s father was 6 foot 4 inches tall) you would find the confines of a narrow gauge locomotive cab to be a very tight fit.

Lathrop lived his first years in a boxcar converted into a home in Crested Butte, Colorado. His father was an engineer on Denver and Rio Grande narrow gauge as was his uncle. When Gilbert came of age in 1913 he joined them in their work as an engine watchman in the 10 stall roundhouse at Gunnison, was promoted to brakeman in 1917 and to conductor in 1924. In 1928 he quit the narrow gauge and went to work for the Western Pacific Railroad as an engine foreman and was working in that capacity at the time he wrote this book (1954).

The author's objective in writing this book “[was] to acquaint you with the men and women who worked and lived along these narrow-gauge lines.” He accomplishes this by focusing on the lives of two men – his father and his uncle. Between them they worked on several of the narrow gauge and standard gauge railroads in Colorado – Denver and Rio Grande, Florence and Cripple Creek, and Colorado Midland. His father’s stories of the Denver and Rio Grande and his uncle’s stories about the Florence and Cripple Creek are written as they were told to Gilbert. His uncle’s stories about the Colorado Midland are, with a little editing on Gilbert’s part, as he set them down in his own hand.

Lathrop’s writing style is very engaging and his word pictures and descriptions of the daily life of narrow gauge railroading hold the readers interest. I think Little Engines and Big Men is a well written book and, should you be at all curious about an interesting chapter in U.S. and Colorado history, worth adding to your TBR book collection. (Text Length - 326 pages, Total Length - 326 pages)… (altro)