From your posts, I thought you would.

I am enjoying The Golden Pinnacle very much.

Great story about the great-grandfather's experiences on the Great Northern Railway. I did a lot of research on that line for my novel, The Golden Pinnacle. James Hill's railroad was remarkable in many ways: no government subsidies or land grants, no violation of treaties with the Indians, efficient track-laying and use of the best European rails, building up the territory as the track was laid, discovery of the Marias pass through the Rockies, and Hill's high standards of workplace safety and construction. Hill was America's premier Industrial Revolution railroad man, yet very few people now know who he was.

Thanks Mike and Susanne for your comments, which I enjoyed.

I worked in trucking before computering. I earned a community college certificate in transportation in 1976; about half the course was railroads. Even in 2000, before I worked for Honda as a technical writer, I was on a receiving dock, checking in freight.

If I hadn't taken my job in Highways years ago, I would have went with Railroads. Something about being the most reliable and most economical bulk transportation (not to mention the most reliable timewise) and being private industry... just whomps butt. That, and, well, the massive thrumming vibrations of a heavy hauler locomotive as it revs up... I remember in my 20's seeing an Electromotive engine piston, and thinking... damn... build a motorcycle around a pair of those (it'd have to be fore and aft like a Duck or 20's Harley Sport twin to counter the massive inertial torque), and I could put Harley out of business! ;-)

Pretty cool. I went to the university library today and brought home a couple of books about railroad history.

Thank you fro that - not only was it an amazing bit of history, but it reminded me to go to the company store and get my Calendar for this year. (I collect RR calanders... you can thank Dagny for that!).

Life was harder back then, of course. That white settlers continued to attack native villages into the early 1900s is a bit of hidden history. The forced acculturation of children is also known but little discussed. That the railroad offered opportunities is the upside. For my grandfather it was coal mines, then steel mills. (In our time it is information systems.) All in all that was a poignant personal narrative. Thanks!