This is another one of my “grievance readings” of books discarded as a result of the Fort Worth city government decision to close the Central Public Library and sell off the land to real–estate developers. To me, this is on a level with the decision to close and demolish a public–housing project on the edge of downtown (convenient to jobs! even without a car!) and sell the land for a new Radio Shack headquarters… the company went bust and the complex stood empty for years, before being taken over by the community college district.
Be that as it may, this slim volume, subtitled The year history rode the passenger train, is a photoessay collection of the last days of railroad passenger service in the USA leading up to 1 May 1971, when the National Railroad Passenger Corporation took over. So you get to listen to me reading text written to accompany photos which you can’t see. Perhaps not my best choice of material…
- 2024–05–24 As I was not watching the clock closely, this recording breaks off very suddenly, partway through an essay by Harold Edmondson entitled “Sixty–Two Historic Hours” in Chicago.
- 2024–05–28 In the latter half of this show, I manage to read almost completely through a table listing all the intercity passenger rail services as of 1971–05–01, leaving out only Union Pacific and Chicago South Shore routes on account of lack of time. I think I will call this “done”.