"The Boomer: A Story of the Rails" H Bedwell

[Kevin Wilson-Smith]

An entertaining read, this book is published in the United States by the University of Minnesota press.

Now a Boomer basically is somebody who works on the railroads in the United States, but doesn't stay anywhere particularly long. This is what this book is about, where the fictional character who works on the railroads in years gone by, is a the telegraph operator. It has plenty of adventures and is rated in the United States as one of the best railroader novels ever written in that country.

Enjoyable and recommended.

Second-hand copies can be obtained from the UK or United States at a reasonable price - it is a paperback.

[John Ashworth]

A very good biography of a female boomer is "Boomer - Railroad Memoirs" by Linda G Niemann, University Of California Press (1990), ISBN 0520068440.

A few years ago I wrote a short review: 'A very interesting book about the life of an itinerant female brakeman (sic), known in the US railroad industry as a "boomer". It is of interest not only to railway enthusiasts, but also more widely, as a study of a woman working in a man's industry in which gender sensitivity was still a long way off.'

I bought my copy in an interesting second hand bookshop in the former ticket office of the long-closed old Osterley Station on the Piccadilly Line of the London Underground. The station moved a few hundred metres along the line many years ago, but the old platforms can still be seen from the train and the old station building is now a bookshop (or at least it was in 1995).

[Kevin Wilson-Smith]

The bookstore sounds interesting. Must try and see if it is still there the next time I am in London.