1907. The Pacific Southwestern Railway's Plug Mountain branch is dying. Snow buries the tracks, the mining camps go silent, and the company executives in their distant offices have already written off the line as a loss. Into this frozen graveyard rides Stuart Ford, a young superintendent with something to prove and no one to prove it to but himself. Ford is a man built for crisis. While corporate dithers over budgets, he rallies his section hands against the mountain, leading from the front through blizzards and balky engines. But survival isn't enough. Ford sees what his superiors won't: the Plug Mountain branch isn't a dead end, it's an empire waiting to be built. His ambition is audacious, his methods unorthodox, and the men who follow him into the snow learn that loyalty to Ford means more than any paycheck. Francis Lynde wrote this novel when American industry was still raw, still hungry, still believing that will could conquer anything. It's a story about the men who laid steel across continents and the battles they fought not just against nature, but against the cautious, the cynical, and the comfortable. Empire Builders is for anyone who loves a story about underdogs, ambition, and the particular glory of building something where everyone else saw failure.
