Mr. Prager’s first-person account of working on the railroad (in this case the Spokane, Portland & Seattle railroad) as a fireman and an engineer is split into a series of short articles divided into 6 sections: Hogheads & Other Funny People, My Stories, Articles, Engine SP&S 700, Pacific Railroad Preservation Association and The For-Now Track.

Hogheads & Other Funny People is a series of short written sketches of individuals who were contemporaries of Mr. Prager during his working life. They are well written and give the reader a sense of the individual described.

My Stories is just that. Various short pieces about interesting/funny/frightening events that happened to the author in his career.

Articles has additional stories with a broader scope. Some are like those in My Stories whereas others describe events that happened on the SP&S in which the author may or may not have been involved.

Engine SP&S 700 is a compilation of brief articles about various aspects of this engine during its time in actual service – a brief history of its construction and arrival on the SP&S, engineering specifications, firing the 700, running the 700 and an amusing incident with the 700 titled simply “Oil.”

Pacific Railroad Preservation Association discusses the organization, its efforts concerning the restoration of SP&S 700 and the first movements of the engine under steam upon the completion of the restoration effort.

The For-Now Track is a collection of jokes, definitions of railroad words and phrases, and an interesting collection of the names of enginemen, trainmen, and others who worked on the SP&S along with their working nicknames.

The book is well written and I enjoyed the time spent reading it.

If I had to choose just one of the sketches it would be 102&103 in the Articles section. The author describes a typical night time run of a mixed train from Wishram, Oregon up the Deschutes River Canyon in the early 1940’s. The author really conveys to the reader how it was and how it felt. The route still exists and if you read this sketch you should follow it with Google Maps up and running to get an even better understanding of the author’s experience.

Book Length 167 pages. Dimensions LxWxH (6” x .5” x 9”) ( )