Other things you might like to read

Railroad history & fiction

• Railway Adventure (L.T.C Rolt): The classic railway preservation novel, one part history, another part semi-autobiography; recounts the revitalization of the Welsh based Talyllyn Railway. The origins of railway preservation as a world-wide movement begin here, and although the most famous stories of gallant old steamers were shamelessly copied by The Railway Series (and later Thomas & Friends), the original book offers a more adult and realistic view into that history. More importantly, it suggests the wacky hijinks of railway preservation I hear down the grapevine in the present day are a feature that has been there since day one.

• Sleep No More (L.T.C. Rolt): Another Rolt book, this one was published before the more famous Railway Adventure, but is unique as a short fiction collection revolving around horror stories. All the locations of the spooks are in various remnants of industrial Britain’s past, from railroads to mines and everything in-between; and preserves the tone of folklore one might have heard from a grizzled old railway veteran on a chill October night.

• My Life on Mountain Railroads (William J. Gilbert Gould): The underappreciated cult-classic is an autobiographical memoir recounting William Gould’s working career on the Denver & Rio Grande and later Utah Railway over Soldier Summit in the dawn of the 20th century. The result is a look into the wild and unpredictable life of railroaders, with snippets of witty anecdotes, sobering accident stories, inter-work rivalries, and even poetry sprinkled through-out the pages. The book is a strong look into the culture of steam railroading in an era pre-OSHA where running trains required almost a fighter-pilot like bravado. The book is edited by William Gould Jr. an experienced engineer (of the mechanical engineering kind… not the train operating kind) whose own career included work for Edison Electric on nuclear power plants, tracing a direct line between the world of railroading and those whose S.T.E.M. careers were inspired by it.

• Images of Rail: Logging Railroads of Humboldt and Mendocino Counties (Katy M. Tahja): Where would the railfan world be without Arcadia Publishing’s Images of Rail series? When I realized I was starting to get serious about the idea of drawing comic strips about my cartoon skunks working trains, I began looking for the matching Images of Rail book to have as a pictorial and research aid. While there is no book in the series dedicated solely to the California & Western (yet) it and neighboring logging lines are included in this collection making it a valuable resource for understanding railroading history in the California redwoods.

Comics

• Sabrina Online (Eric W. Schwartz): Ah yes, the granddaddy of all sorts of furry cartoon skunk antics on the internet. I stumbled into the comic on accident a few years back; and while I was initially hesitant about the bawdy premise (the story of a woman who finds herself working graphic design for an adult film studio), once I read it I was pleasantly surprised. The comic is a slice of life/coming of age story following its geeky protagonist in her mid-20’s as she tries to navigate her career, family, romantic life, parenting and social pressures with an air of Looney Tunes and Animaniacs inspiration about it. It seemed to strike a chord with me as a college student myself who felt like I (or others I knew) were in situations similar to Sabrina’s life, and next thing I knew I started drawing my own cartoon skunk characters and well, now we’re here. I don’t dare read the adult spin-off material so I can’t comment on that, but the main series itself is collected in print volumes titled “A Decade in Black & White”, “The Tail of Two Decades”, “Baby Steps”, and “Homecoming & Skunk’s Day Out.” For fans of vintage homemade computer animation, the characters from the comic also starred in a series of Amiga animated short films that were passed around on file sharing disks, a pre/early-internet equivalent to the Flash Animations I and many others grew up with.

• Calvin and Hobbes (Bill Watterson): Ah yes, I am not surprised if a ton of comic strip and comic book fans continually rank this as one of their favorites, and its not hard to see why. Watterson’s art is legendary, and paired with his introspective and witty writing its pretty easy to make a case that the series is perhaps the best newspaper comics ever got… before online news began to chew into the financial stability of the newspaper and began culling the space of the comic pages. The series’ short run is both its greatest strength and detriment, leaving the reader begging for more; yet concluding before it ever got stale. I highly recommend picking up a copy of “The Tenth Anniversary Book” to anybody who is curious about the behind-the-scenes history of the famous strip and Watterson’s attempts to navigate corporate pressures while keeping his fierce auteur streak going. I certainly lack the skills of Watterson, but highly admire his art work and willingness to push beyond the norms and can only dream of being at that skill level someday. Also even if I never make the kind of money he made via newspaper syndication, Watterson’s gripes about the business world certainly make me glad my own work is on my own free time.

• The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl (Ryan North): Launched in a time when it seemed Marvel was culling every comic book which couldn’t hit their arbitrary sales goals easily, rumor has it the series ended up with a long life due to high sales of its collected volumes at book stores and fairs. Its hard not to see the appeal why though, since American-Canadian superhero Doreen Green provides a shocking breath of levity and silly antics in what was an increasingly self-serious world of superheroes. North with his fine tuned sense of humor from his own Dinosaur Comics and the S.T.E.M. intuition from his career as a computer programmer produces a super hero yarn that is often times educational and equally absurd. The joke about “Squirrel Girl died while trying to study calculus” from the choose-your-own-adventure issue still makes me laugh every time, and the discussion of the Quebec Bridge Collapse and the Iron Ring were one of my first serious introductions to engineering ethics. Also Kraven the Hunter’s turn from villain to anti-hero is great, and Brain Drain served as one of the inspirations for my long running Dungeons & Dragons warforged character.

Aerospace

• An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth (Chris Hadfield): retired astronaut Chris Hadfield’s memoir is a moving and touching story about modern day space flight.

• Liftoff (Eric Berger): the early days of SpaceX provide a fascinating glimpse into a scrappy start-up with the-then seemingly impossible goal of pulling off the first private orbital rocket launch.

• Test Gods (Nicholas Schmidle): another space start up story, this one follows the rocky safety culture of Virgin Galactic as it goes from losing its early lead in the space race to struggling to compete against leaner offerings. Critical though to the narrative are the stories of the test pilots who crewed SpaceShipTwo, providing a 21st century glimpse of “The Right Stuff.”

Audio

• Super Skunk Train - A Ride On The Super Skunk Through The Redwoods: In the pre-internet era, there were plenty of ways heritage railroads and other tourist sites reached out to potential customers and created mementos for tourists to keep from their visit after the fact. This 1965 audio release on a 7” vinyl is a gem, recording the experience of riding behind a steam powered passenger train in the early tourist years of the California & Western. I don’t know what the copyright status is on the original record is on this point, but I would love to see it digitized and made available for a wider audience someday.