A Memory of Trains: The Boll Weevil & Others

I found the book interesting to read. Louis entertains the reader well in describing his everyday life at work in the newspaper business. To relieve the everyday stress from work, the author goes to spend time near the railroad yards or terminals and sometimes makes pictures of the railroad activity. His interest in trains stems from his youth when he used to hear the trains go through his hometown of Charleston, SC. The reason I state it is not your typical railfan book is because he does not go into the usual facts and figures that railfans seem to enjoy. Rather, he tells the story of watching trains go by in Charleston as a youth and then different parts of the eastern US where where he worked. The title stems from lowly train that fascinating the author as a child in his hometown but he never rode until the train was no longer the one he remembered from his youth. After the reading material are many pages of pictures made by the author of trains he either rode or watched. I found some the pictures to be dark and not very sharp. I think it was the printing process that caused this. Nevertheless, if you or you know someone who enjoys the romance of trains and rail travel during the days of steam locomotives, I think you will enjoy the book and the photographs.

You won't find New England railroads in Louis Rubin's book, but you will find a wonderful personal narrative of this inveterate train watcher who captured on black and white film many of the great steam locomotives and early diesels of the 1940s and 1950s. Louis followed the Norfolk & Western from Norfolk to the coal mines of West Virginia; the Seaboard and the Atlantic Coast Line's name passenger trains which ran between the north and Florida; commuter railroads between New York and New Jersey, and some name trains out of Chicago to the Gulf and west coast. The only one he missed was the Boll Weevil, a gas-electric doodlebug which fascinated him as a boy growing up in Charleston, South Carolina watching it amble along near his baseball field between Charleston and Hamlet, North Carolina on it's daily runs. When the opportunity came to ride the Boll Weevil, it had been replaced by a Baldwin "Babyface" diesel locomotive pulling a baggage car and a coach. The only photo in his book which Rubin did not take is of the Boll Weevil.The pictures are excellent. They are not of the glossy variety you see in expensive coffee-table books. They show real trains, really working at whatever they were doing when the author/photographer happened upon them, or they upon him as he patiently waited trackside. The narrative is as wonderful as the photos. His description of the departure of a passenger train is worth a thousand pictures. For those of us who have witnessed this event it will conjur up the wonderful sounds, sights, and smells which we might have forgotten over time. For those who have not been so fortunate, Rubin's descriptions will paint a vivid image that will surpass anything short of being there -- and maybe even that, as the first-time observer will be overwhelmed with details, many of which will be missed. Louis Rubin's description misses nothing. Retired University Distinghished Professor of English at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Louis Rubin is one of the most talented and prolific writers of non-fiction in the United States. We railfans are indeed fortunate that he shares our interest in trains and that he has written this wonderful memory of them.