An author “enamoured with the engine’s colourful history and ongoing survival,” melds historical narratives and storytelling to create appealing glimpses of the engine in action, whether in 1886, 1947, or 1964. —Ron Verzuh reviews Engine 374 and Me: True (and Partly True) Stories of a Celebrated CPR Locomotive, by Lisa Anne Smith (Vancouver: Time Talk Press, 2024) $20.00 / 9780968786512
“Here, Haye’s drug of choice is speed, and not the illicit kind, for his clear-eyed aim is to track the fastest trains in history and to look to those that are coming in the future.” —Ron Verzuh reviews Quest for Speed: A History of Trains from Rocket to Bullet and Beyond, by Derek Hayes (Madeira Park, BC: Douglas & McIntyre, 2024) $44.95 / 978177162379
Heckman’s Canadian Pacific: A Photographic Journeyby Ralph Beaumont, foreword by John Geiger Mississauga, ON: The Credit Valley Railway Company, 2015$60.00 / 9780978440619 Reviewed by Walter Volovsek First published November 9, 2017 * The Canadian Pacific Railway’s in-house photographer Joseph William Heckman (1854-1937) worked between Nova Scotia and Vancouver Island for three decades, photographing every aspect…
Read more #199 What the Heckman
Rails Over the Mountains: Exploring the Railway Heritage of Canada’s Western Mountainsby Ron Brown Toronto: Dundurn Press, 2016. $29.99 / 978145973359Reviewed by Les Kozma First published April 26, 2017 * Over the past twenty years or so Brown has authored a plethora of books about railways and railroading in Canada. Rails Over the Mountains is…
Read more #125 To the end of Ron Brown’s line
ESSAY: Eyewitness to Bill Miner: A lost dispatch from the Victoria Daily Colonist, 1904 by Fred Braches First published Dec. 1, 2016 * For British Columbians who know their history, the name Bill Miner evokes memories of a failed train robbery in 1906, a crime generously viewed as a gentleman’s transgression. Fred Braches shares new…
Read more #55 Miner without the moustache