Linda Niemann

Linda Niemann (Boomer) and Lina Bertucci, both veterans of working on the railroad (Niemann – Southern Pacific, Bertucci – Milwaukee), team up in this book to provide a written and a visual presentation of the world of modern railroading from the perspective of the people who actually do the work.

Bertucci began her railroad work as a Brakeman on the Milwaukee. From the first day of employment she made it a point to keep her camera tucked inside her bag and ready to record anything of interest. Her photographic record of people, places, and events on the Milwaukee Railroad covers the period of time when the railroads were in decline.

Linda Niemann’s first work was Boomer-Railroad Memoirs which is an account of her working on the Southern Pacific Railroad. The narratives she provides in Railroad Voices consist of additional stories she has to tell about her work on the SP as well as stories from other female railroad workers including Pat Doolette (SP Conductor), Cindy Angelos (Milwaukee Conductor), and Mary Alsip(SP conductor).

Each chapter covers some aspect of the work and is accompanied by a selection of Bertucci’s photographs. The stories, in chapter form, are well written and the photographs that accompany them gives the reader a real sense of “being there”. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in first person accounts of railroad work. See Common Knowledge for an example of the writing style.
(Text Length - 72 pages, Pictures – 58 pages, Total Length - 158 pages, includes glossary and benediction.)
(Book Dimensions inches LxTxH – 10 3/8” x ¾” x 9”)… (lisätietoja)

Linda Grant Niemann was an alcoholic literature PhD who went to work on the railroad and got sober. She tells about it in Boomer. I expected to learn more about railroad operations from this book than I did, but otherwise this book did not disappoint at all. The life of a boomer, a worker who went from work site to work site around the railroad looking for work, was hard, and it grew harder as the railroads including hers, the Southern Pacific, modernized. A despairing drunk had plenty of room to despair in that sort of work and living combination, and plenty of company. Meanwhile women were new to the scene, and bisexual women were a mystery to the men; on both accounts there were attacks.

I read this in three nights and an afternoon. I turned off the light those nights because even retired I have to sleep; I didn't want to stop reading.… (lisätietoja)

BOOK 77 - [Boomer Railroad Memoirs] by [[Linda Niemann]]

The fact that this was about a woman working on the railroad makes me want to rate it higher than I would otherwise, just because it's fun. I mean who gets a Ph.D. and then goes to work as a brakeman for the railroad? Linda Niemann did. I enjoyed reading this information about how railroads work and found it interesting. The author assumed the reader knows more about that topic than I did however, and I didn't know what she was talking about half the time as she described the work. There is a glossary but I didn't find it very helpful. Niemann describes some experiences with sexism but doesn't seem to have been too bothered by it and certainly handled it well. I enjoyed reading about her relationships with co-workers and lovers. Her struggle with alcoholism is one of the best descriptions I have ever heard about that process. I'd especially recommend it for people who fight that battle. I'd also recommend it for anyone who loves an alcoholic and wants to understand why the repercussions are so long lasting and really only begin after the drinking ends. Four stars.… (lisätietoja)

I bought this book a long time ago, may have read it then but my information says 'no'. Working railroads has changed a lot in the intervening 20 some years. I chuckled at the "soccer with boxcars" reference.

What a life - don't know the land, don't know the people, don't know the yard and don't know your own self. She makes it sound like a horrible life and with the completely unplanned schedule it is! I wonder how the railroads find anybody to work for them.

Are all the roads were like that or only the SP with all the merger spasms they went through back then. The story gets very repetitive. First it's sex, then it's alcohol, then it's drugs and it starts all over again in each of the railroad towns she goes to in search of work. In between a little railroading gets performed.

I'm not sure what I was expecting to read when I picked this up but it kept me going and hoping the repetition would go away. It finally did on the last few chapters when the idea of leaving kept surfacing.

I'll let you all decide if this is a review!!!???!!!… (lisätietoja)