And I was excited and thrilled when I met Tony Hiss by chance on the Boston-NYC shuttle, and he told me that the book had been reissued and was available on Amazon. I (virtually) ran right out and purchased it...as much for my 9 year old (also a rail fan) as for myself."Get on a train!" The old nostalgic ways of travel -- railroad trains and ocean liners -- have a romance to them that cars and airplanes just can't match. Rogers E.M. Whitaker, the man behind the pseudonymous E.M. Frimbo, and his sometime collaborator, Tony Hiss, capture some of that romance and interest in these essays by and about the world's greatest railroad buff. Detailing some of Whitaker/Frimbo's great train experiences from the '30s to the '70s, and recapturing the all-but-vanished world of life on the rails, the pieces gathered here make for fascinating and evocative reading.
As with any collection of essays, some of the chapters here are better than others. And generally, I found the chapters added to this "greatly expanded edition" to be less satisfying than the earlier ones, though the obituary of Whitaker and the long closing piece, "Frimbo's Peak," were both rather moving. Much of Tony Hiss's preface I could likewise have done without. His predictions for the revival of government-funded passenger rail in the early years of the twenty-first century seem, fortunately, not yet to be coming to pass. But then, it wouldn't be the first time a Hiss was on the wrong side of history.
But don't let the preface distract you. The essays themselves are by and large great reading, and have me hoping to hop a train before too much longer myself. Whether you're an inveterate train buff, a long-time Frimbo fan, or just a fan of great travel writing, I recommend grabbing this book and taking to the rails, if only in your mind.
