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About the Book



Early in Joe Harris's railroad career, one of his supervisors told him, "You have to blow your own horn; nobody's going to blow it for you." Harris tried to live by these words. And in this memoir, he also describes blowing a horn of another sort-that of a railroad engineer. Hell of a Way to Run a Railroad recaps Harris's thirty-six-year stint working on the railroad-from his debut as an electrician's helper in 1969 with the Burlington Northern Railroad to becoming an engineer in 1974. In his thirty years working as a locomotive engineer, Harris hit twenty vehicles and killed three people with the train. With a focus toward safety, Harris discusses becoming a volunteer presenter with Operation Lifesaver, a program designed to help save people's lives around railroad tracks. Including a comprehensive glossary of railroad terminology, Hell of a Way to Run a Railroad presents a fascinating look into the many and varied facets of working on the railroad with both passenger trains and freight trains-from the interesting locals to the quirky co-workers.