Stephen Karlson (shkarlson) wrote in 50bookchallenge,
Stephen Karlson
shkarlson
50bookchallenge
  • Mood: hungry

RAIL ENTHUSIAST TO RAIL PROFESSIONAL

We'll wrap up the first six months of the 2018 Fifty Book Challenge at Book Review No. 16.  David Maidment's A Privileged Journey: From Enthusiast to Professional Railwayman.  It's primarily a metaphor.  A reader might find a few insights on working with people in the corporate culture that was British Railways, in particular the survival, along with the steam locomotives, of the traditions of the Great Western as distinct from the Southern, despite these legally being regions of the same state enterprise.  It's mostly about the recollections, including those of the schoolboy train enthusiast who became a manager, and there are lots of illustrations, and, this being by a Britisher about British ferroequinology, there are platform-end logs of numbers and coach-window logs of times and speeds.

Mr Maidment has since left the employ of the railway, and founded a charity, Railway Children, for the assistance of kids living in the streets, which in East Africa and India often means scraping an existence by in the railway stations.  Royalties from the sale of Privileged Journey support that charity.

(Cross-posted to Cold Spring Shops.)
Tags: british, memoir
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