(The following article by Chip Jones was posted on the Richmond Times-Dispatch website on April 19. Doug Riddell is a member of BLET Division 14 in Washington, D.C.)
RICHMOND, Va. — Doug Riddell says he’s stopped trying to explain the allure of railroading to people outside the industry.
“They don’t understand why I leave home, family, friends and social obligations on a moment’s notice when the crew clerk summons me to another run,” writes Riddell, an Amtrak train engineer who lives in Mechanicsville.
Riddell – one of the area’s best-known train buffs – has been helping promote “The Faces of Railroading” by Carl A. Swanson, senior editor of Model Railroader magazine.
Riddell, a frequent contributor to rail-themed magazines, wrote the book’s introduction.
Kalmbach Publishing Co., which publishes high-quality consumer and trade magazines, is selling the 160-page hardcover book with 160 black-and-white photographs. List price: $29.95.
The book is available in bookstores and hobby shops nationwide. It also can be ordered on Kalmbach’s Web site – www.trainsmagbooks.com – or by calling 800-533-6644.
Its goal is to “give us a glimpse into the working lives of these people and shed a ray of light on the labor and love that created the steel web connecting our communities,” according to a promotional blurb.
Most of the pictures were taken during railroad’s heyday in the early to middle 20th century. They provide a kind of train ride down memory lane.
One photo of a “Vista-Dome car” shows “a penthouse on wheels” with a view for passengers “previously reserved for engineers and firemen.”
Rail and history buffs alike will find nuggets such as an 1898 dining menu: A boiled ham and cabbage sold for a mere 50 cents; prime roast beef went for 45 cents.
The book also explores some of the dangerous, gritty work that went into building American railroads. And it covers the conversion from steam to diesel engines in the 1950s.
“Sentimentality wasn’t part of the balance sheet,” Swanson notes of the shelving of the beloved steam engines.
Some legendary photographers – such as O. Winston Link – are included in the collection.
Contacted last week after a day on the railroad, Riddell said he was on the Voice of America for a worldwide broadcast earlier this month.
On the radio, he was asked about rail security in the wake of the Madrid train bombings. Riddell, always aware of the history of the rails, harkened back to the 1800s, saying, “The railroads have always had a very effective police force.”
Despite fears that rail and public transit systems could be tempting targets for terrorists, he said, “Personally I’m very confident the railroads have a very good security system in place.”
In his book introduction, Riddell reflects on his career – and the experiences of his grandfather who worked out of Main Street Station for the old Chesapeake and Ohio Railway (now part of CSX Corp.).
A third generation of Riddells continues the family tradition. His son, Ryan, 19, is an Amtrak conductor.
“What is it that draws us to the rails?” Doug Riddell writes.
“For starters, it’s looking back at the . . . northbound Silver Meteor as it fades into a blowing curtain of new fallen snow at sunrise, the train braking gently and gliding over the frozen James River into Richmond”