Hell of a Way to Run a Railroad

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.