John J. Thomas (1)

At the time of its publication, the book [Civil War Railroads] by Abdill cited Fifty Years on the Rail as the only published account of the southern side of railroading during that period. Since 1959 other sources have surfaced, notably [Southern Railroad Man] by Bell edited by Ward and [Train Running for the Confederacy 1861-1865] edited by Swank. Thomas's book is about his experiences in railroading and while it does provide accounts of running trains in the south during the Civil War the fact is most of the book is a VERY tedious recounting of his attendance at the yearly national meetings of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers. Unfortunately, most of the chapters dealing with the national meetings, which took place at different locations in the United States, give only the most meager of details of the times and events. One notable exception is Chapter 8 which describes his travels on the Colorado narrow gauge system. As for the Civil War, most of the entries pertaining to that time are contained in Chapters 2,3,4 and 6. Unless you just have to have every last first person written word on Civil War southern railroading I would recommend reading the two books previously cited - they are much more focused and they cover much of the same ground. (Text Length - 171 pages, Total Length - 191 pages includes Appendix.)… (altro)