Description
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, he 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 Great Northern, Denver & Rio Grande Western, and Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific, as well transportation management for several large industrial firms.
With McLaughlin, even the mundane becomes fascinating. 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 suddenly having to reroute 16,000 tons of talc ore from Montana to a ship in Portland. He describes living and working as part of maintenance and signal gangs, moving days on several lines, supervisory issues, and more. His collection of mid-20th century timetables and other paper ephemera provide 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.
Mike McLaughlin (1937–2012) lived in Seattle through his early 20s. He began lifelong railroad work in maintenance of way for Great Northern. After graduating from the University of Washington he worked for close to two dozen railroads across the United States, advancing to line supervisor and lower/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, as well as the author of more than sixty articles on various aspects of model railroading in Railroad Model Craftsman, Model Railroader, Railmodel Journal, and special-interest group quarterly magazines.
Transportation / 20th Century Railroading
Illustrations / maps / index / 8.5″ x 11″ / 260 pages (2025)
Recognition
“Railroaders are story tellers. All of them—whether in train service, behind a desk, or doing maintenance work out on the line—they have stories about their days on the railroad and they like to tell them.
Mike McLaughlin’s career in railroading began with a pick and shovel on a signal gang, part of a crew digging lineside trenches installing and repairing communications cables and equipment, not quite the electronics and circuitry work he first envisioned. Still, he stayed on, going from railroad-to-railroad coast-to-coast, often living in converted boxcars and retired passenger cars set off on isolated sidings at work sites. It really was ‘life along the tracks,’ right next to them. When a job was done, the cars and crews were picked up by a freight train and hauled to the next location. This was how things were done.
By the time Mike retired as an independent railroad consultant, the “how things were done” was different. More than the outfit cars he lived in were gone. Mergers, new equipment, and rationalizing the miles of track changed how railroading worked and fit in the nation.
There is no shortage of books on this subject written from the viewpoints of business, politics, and railroad fans remembering the ‘fallen flags’ of the industry. The workforce changed, too. Some jobs remain. Some are new. Others are gone along with the people who did them out in the field. With that, part of our national memory, our history, has disappeared.
McLaughlin lived during this era of change, helped make some of it happen, and gathered stories, some his own, some from other railroaders. Life along the Tracks is work glove, Carhartts, and hard hat history, not railroading according to Washington, Wall Street or downtown offices. It is history worth telling and knowing.”
—Bill Schaumburg, retired editor of Railroad Model Craftsman Magazine
“Life Along the Tracks is more than a technical manual; it is a cultural history of a disappearing way of life…It is an essential read for rail historians, model railroaders seeking prototype accuracy, and anyone interested in the labor history of the American West…it avoids romanticizing the industry. Instead, it uses a conversational, often humorous tone to document the grit of the job. It is heavily augmented by detailed maps by David R. Clemens and historical photographs by figures like Philip R. Hastings and Richard Steinheimer, making it a valuable resource for both historians and model railroaders.
This is a great reference in railroad history and can certainly be used to refine operations on a model railroad.”
—Rick Watson, The Dispatcher’s Office
