Greetings list:
I'd like to pass along a plug for a book by an ex-colleague: "Ten
Turtles to Tucumcari: A Personal History of the Railway Express Agency,"
Clink Garrett with Toby Smith, University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque,
2003
(172 pages indexed).
This is very much an anecdotal account by Garrett who grew up near Spearfish,
South Dakota, landed his first REA job at Rapid City and ended his career as
a member of the REA board of directors shortly before the company's demise.
He worked a number of one-man agencies in SD, Wyoming and Nebraska and mentions
the CB&Q at least a couple of times, e.g. loading his REA truck from a nearby
siding because Shoshoni, WY, didn't have a depot, and loading gold onto the
Burlington at Lead, SD, under armed guard in 1950.
Smith told me much of his work was in taking Garrett's manuscript, tying the
anecdotes together, and doing the extensive legwork needed to document facts
and fill in gaps. The book is an easy read at 172 pages plus a few
dozen photos and other illustrations, and is reviewed in the March Trains as
"...valuable for its insight into this rather underreported aspect of American
railroading."
Smith is an Albuquerque Journal reporter whose previous book, "Coal Town,"
covers Dawson, New Mexico, the Phelps-Dodge property at the end of the Dawson
Railway/El Paso & Southwestern/Southern Pacific near Raton. Today Dawson is
little more than foundations and a cemetery filled by two underground disasters
although the mine still shipped coal on the BNSF until recently.
The REA book is available at www.unmpress.com at around $27.00. Note I have
no involvement in this work and had not seen Smith for several years until I
ran into him hawking the book at the Great American Train Show in Albuquerque
a couple of weeks ago. "Coal Town" was published in 1993 by Ancient City
Press, Santa Fe, NM.
Regards,
Bill
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