As a boy in the early 1950s, Mike McLaughlin was a regular stowaway riding switch engines back and forth in Seattle, Washington.
By the time he was in high school, McLaughlin was hand-firing steam engines as an unofficial crew member.
Obsessed with trains and destined for a life along the tracks, he started by digging ditches as a gandy and ended as a railroad and transportation consultant, but he never completely relinquished his shovel. His career spanned multiple railroads, including the Great Northern, Denver & Rio Grande Western, and Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific, as well as transportation management for several large industrial firms.
McLaughlin tells his railroading stories in the new book, Life along the Tracks: Candid Stories from a Career Railroader, co-authored by Jim Providenza.
Even the Mundane is Fascinating
With McLaughlin, even the mundane becomes fascinating and often humorous. Unlike those of an executive or engineer, his personal accounts focus on what went on behind the scenes — from the finer points of using a shovel to the sudden need to reroute 16,000 tons of talc ore from Montana to a ship in Portland.
He describes his work as part of maintenance and signal gangs, moving days across several lines, supervisory issues, and more. His collection of mid-20th-century timetables and other paper ephemera provides minute detail related to railroad activities and communications.
Numerous photographs and Dave Clemens’ hand-drawn maps enhance the text, illustrate where stories take place, and promote a deeper understanding of some gritty, intense railroading.
“The majority of the text was written by Mike McLaughlin. As such, it is a very personal story…Mike had always hoped that his stories—or ‘vignettes’ as he liked to call them—would be published in a book, but he died unexpectedly,” co-author Jim Providenza explains. “I wanted to give his writing the recognition it deserves. Mike was a perceptive and articulate author who writes about parts of the railroad industry that are rarely discussed.”
About the Book
Mike McLaughlin (1937–2012) lived in Seattle through his early 20s. He began lifelong railroad work in maintenance of way for the Great Northern.
After graduating from the University of Washington, he worked for nearly two dozen railroads across the United States, advancing to line supervisor and lower- to mid-level manager, and later to traffic manager for major companies such as Coors and Leprino Foods. He finished his career as a railroad and transportation consultant.
Jim Providenza has lived most of his life in the San Francisco Bay Area. He holds a B.A. and a J.D. degree from Santa Clara University and retired as a police captain after a 38-year career in law enforcement. He is a co-author of A Compendium of Model Railroad Operations and the author of more than sixty articles on various aspects of model railroading.
Life Along the Tracks is hardbound, 7″ x 10″, 256 pages, and lists for $45.00. It is available through bookstores nationwide, direct from Basalt Books at 800-354-7360, or online at basaltbooks.wsu.edu.
The trade imprint of nonprofit academic publisher Washington State University Press in Pullman, Washington, Basalt Books focuses on general-interest titles on cooking, nature, history, science, and more for young children to older readers—all with a connection to the Northwest.
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