The late 19th-century American railroad was a world of smoke, steel, and mortal stakes, and Frank H. Spearman knew it from the inside out. This collection of railroad stories pulses with the raw energy of an industry that built a nation while consuming its workers. The centerpiece, "The Nerve of Foley," opens amid a tense strike where engineers prepare to walk off the job, leaving a railroad desperate for men willing to cross the picket line. Into this volatile moment steps Foley, a newcomer whose cool courage during a runaway train crisis will reshape the fates of workers and management alike. These are stories of men who commanded machines that could kill them, who lived by schedules and signals in a world where a single mistake meant death. Spearman writes with the authority of someone who understood railroading as few fiction writers ever have: the loneliness of the cab, the brotherhood of the crew, the terrible beauty of speed. The stories capture a pivotal moment in American industrial history, when the railroad was both the engine of progress and a battleground for labor's future.
