Staff pick: On Railways Far Away by William D. Middleton

Reviewed by project manager Nancy Lightfoot

This recommendation of William D. Middleton's beautiful last book On Railways Far Away is probably not news to railfans and rail historians, who already know enough about Bill Middleton to know that they will want to own it. This is a spectacular book about trains, and prominent railroad authors will have quite a bit to say about that (one reviewer kept writing "Wow!" in the margins). But as much as this is a book about trains, it is a photographic fairy tale about people and places and times far away, and I hope it finds a wider audience than even our many fine railroad books. It is a book that is nostalgic and romantic on many levels, and tucked into the lush photos of trains are a thousand details that show what a curious and attentive and delighted traveler Bill Middleton was.

So as much as this is a book about trains, it is also a book about history—about the matter-of-fact steps people took to deal with the danger and violence in their everyday lives during the Vietnam War, and the amazing feats it took to build bridges deep into and high above great rivers and to tunnel through miles of stone in remote mountains, and to open the last wild places to the world and industry. And it is also a book about travel—about tropical rainforests in the mountains of China and sun-bleached beaches along the Adriatic coast and misty waterfalls in black forests in the mountains of Norway. It is certainly a book about beautiful photography.

But what speaks to me more than anything else about this book is that it is also a book about people and it is full of stories. The last chapter is entirely about people and railroads, but there are pictures of people throughout the book that would have done any glossy spread in Life magazine proud. Children ice skate on Christmas day on a frozen river below a railroad bridge in China, full of the excitement of being a child on a snowy day. A little girl in a straw hat, white socks, and black patent leather shoes sits all alone on the platform in Tokyo, on a purse half as big as she is, lost in a book as she waits for the train. What is she reading and where is she going, all dressed up and all by herself? A caption reads, "A tower man handles the crossing at the Hilal Tower where two lines cross over in Izmir, Turkey, May 1962," but it's not clear whether he practices more precision in his job, or in shining his spectacular shoes and ironing the pleats in his pants. Where is he going all dressed up like that? A stylish woman straightens a man's tie before the Tokyo bullet train whisks them away . . . to where?

It is the last picture in the book that I have thought about most often, though, because I have been so surprised by my own feelings of wonder about trains (as you might be). Two tiny children are looking up in awe at a giant railway car, and the caption reads, "Even in the midst of war, small children come to see the railway. This is the daily departure north from Da Nang to Hue, Vietnam, January 1966." What a world Bill Middleton saw, and what an amazing gift he had for sharing what was important . . . about railways and worlds far away. I told Bill while I was working on the book how much it made me want to pack up and take to the road. He laughed and said gently, "Those places aren't there anymore." I'm thankful I got to see them through Bill's eyes. They are well worth the trip.