Frank P. Donovan

This collection of railroad short stories (fiction with one exception) was published in 1946, shortly after the end of the time period often identified as the era of classic railroad fiction (1901-1941). The collection contains stories from the list of usual suspects of good/great writers of railroad fiction (Spearman, Packard, Warman, Cohen, Somerville, and Bedwell) as well as stories from others who are not so well known.

The only non-fiction piece is James’s account of the theft of The General and the resulting Great Locomotive Chase (U.S. Civil War – April 1862). With the exception of the usual suspects listed above the quality of the writing is varied. Some of the stories (An Engineer’s Christmas Story, Run to Seed, and Huey, The Engineer) have not stood the test of time and, for a modern reader, leave much to be desired. The stories, A Little Action, The Angel of Canyon Pass, and Remarks:None are, for want of a term, different. A Little Action is a variation on the Walter Mitty kind of existence, however, unlike Mitty the hero of this piece really does live his imagined experiences-sort of. The Angel of Canyon Pass is a variation on the real-life adventures of Kate Shelly. The character development is predictable but the action does hold the reader’s interest. Remarks:None is a curious piece. The plot ending is visible long before the reader gets to the halfway point of the story, however, the setting is, for this reviewer, unique. It is the only piece of fiction or fact I have ever read which focuses on the work of high tension wire stringers on the electrified railroads and it is the author’s attention to the detail of this work (he worked in this capacity for many years) that held my interest.

I wouldn’t consider Headlights and Markers a must read but I do think it is a reasonable collection of representatives of the genre of railroad fiction and it will remain in my library. (Text length - 406 pages, Total length - 406 pages)

Contents:

The Yellow Mail Story – Frank Spearman
The Roadmaster’s Story – Frank Spearman
A Little Action – Harold Titus
The Stolen Railroad Train – Marquis James
An Engineer’s Christmas Story – John Alexander Hill
Run to Seed – Thomas Nelson Page
The Night Operator – Frank Packard
A Ghost Train Illusion – Cy Warman
The Angel of Canyon Pass – Charles W. Tyler
Huey, The Engineer – Jesse Stuart
The Berth of Hope – Octavus Roy Cohen
Mrs. Union Station – Doug Welch
Remarks: None – William Wister Haines
Wide-Open Throttle – A.W. Somerville
Counterbalance – A.W. Somerville
Smart Boomer – Harry Bedwell
Priority Special – Harry Bedwell… (altro)