The Old Iron Road: An Epic of Rails, Roads, and the Urge to Go West [Hardcover]

David Haward Bain (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 6, 2004

In the summer of 2000, David Haward Bain and his family left their home in Vermont and headed west in search of America’s past. From Omaha to San Francisco, Bain and his family retraced the entire route of the first transcontinental railroad. Following abandoned railroad tracks and the traces of old wagon trails, cruising down back roads and main streets, they discovered the deep, restless, uniquely American spirit of adventure that connects our past to our present.

A superb writer and an exacting researcher, Bain conjures up the marvelous sense of coming unstuck in time as he lingers in the ghost towns and battlegrounds, prairies and river ports, train yards, museums, and diners that line the old emigrant routes of the railroad and the Lincoln Highway. As he cruises west to California, Bain encounters a fascinating cast of characters, both historic and contemporary—from Willa Cather to Marlon Brando, from pathfinder John Fre´mont to naturalist Terry Tempest Williams. Here, too, are memories of Bain’s own grandparents and the journeys that shaped his own heritage.

Writing in the tradition of William Least Heat-Moon and Ian Frazier, yet with an engaging warmth and a deep grasp of history all his own, Bain has fashioned a quintessentially American journey.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Bain plumbed the history of America's West in Empire Express: Building the First Transcontinental Railroad, and he elegantly broadens his scope here by logging 7,000 miles from his home in Vermont to California with a wife and daughter who'd never been to the West Coast and an eight-year-old son who'd never left the East Coast. Bain first takes them to the capacious Kansas City home where his grandparents lived, finding a "forgotten waste" (the house had been razed), a discovery illustrating one of Bain's themes: the curious interplay of past and present. He uses physical entities-museums, abandoned highways, the pioneers' still-discernible wagon wheel ruts-to swerve into historical forays that deftly and palpably engage. Bain lassoes the usual suspects-Calamity Jane, Butch Cassidy, Buffalo Bill Cody-but his prodigious research also reveals the stories of forgotten figures like Esther Hobart Morris, a Wyoming suffragist who was the first American woman to receive a civil appointment (as justice of the peace of South Pass City), and western writer Owen Wister, who helped establish the cowboy as an American archetype. Bain's main concern, however, isn't merely to foster a dialogue between the 19th-century Old West and its contemporary incarnation, but to fashion a literary travelogue. In that capacity, he's an intriguing guide (he eloquently describes the easy familiarity of the road by explaining why he doesn't let on to Bruce Hornsby that he knows who he is when their two families happen to meet). Bain bypasses a facile sentimentality for a more complex portrait of the American West. B&w photos not seen by PW.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

As a reward to his wife and children for their years of patience while he wrote Empire Express (1999), Bain takes them on a road trip out West, spending two months following early wagon trails, railroads, and highways. Showing them historical sites he's long studied, he hopes to create an "impressionistic narrative" of Indians and explorers, emigrants and railroaders, that portrays the transformation of the territory. But while he cites some strong literary forebears in this effort (William Least Heat Moon, John McPhee), Bain isn't quite able to make us share his feeling of becoming "unstuck in time." At each stop, he rushes headlong through a jumble of events, personalities, and descriptions, seemingly afraid to leave anything out. What's lost is a sense of space and perspective--something the landscape itself has in abundance. Railroad buffs and Western history fans will still find value here, but many readers will feel a bit like kids in the backseat, asking, "Are we there yet?" Keir Graff
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 464 pages
• Publisher: Viking Adult; 1ST edition (May 6, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0670033081
• ISBN-13: 978-0670033089
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.6 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #224,086 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #100 in Books > Professional & Technical > Transportation > Railroads

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A fascinating historical travelogue of the "Old West"., May 18, 2004

By 

David J. Gannon (San Antonio, TX USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Old Iron Road: An Epic of Rails, Roads, and the Urge to Go West (Hardcover)

As a reward for their unwavering patience in putting up with him while he wrote his excellent book on the building of the transcontinental railroad, David Haward Bain treated his wife, Mary, and their two children to a 7000 + mile trip out west, roughly retracing the routes of the original pioneers who settled the area. The Old Iron Road: An Epic of Rails, Roads, and the Urge to Go West is the literary result of this undertaking. Part family history, part US History, part true travelogue, the book is a wonderful and highly informative look at the often sad and tragic history of those who settled the west.

Although it's the history that is especially compelling in this mix, that history is delivered in the way it must have been during the trip itself. Bain is the master of the odd fact, such as the revelation that Malcom X, Marlon Brando and Fred Astair were all born in Omaha, Nebraska. The traditional figures, such a Buffalo Bill are included, but it is Bain's anecdotes about more marginally known characters-such as Phillip Sheridan and Brigham Young-that really hit home. Bain also goes to great lengths to cover the ways and results of the pioneer's relations and actions towards the various Native Americans disrupted by the Anglo western migration.

However, it is the pace itself that so obviously moves Bain. His treatment of the many isolated and wasted ghost towns they encounter and how the development of the west proved boon to some, disaster to others is both insightful and, often, quite moving.

In the end, the family interactions and this "history" of their travels prove to be moving as well, especially when one is cognizant, as I was when reading it, that not long after the trip Bain's wife died of heart disease. In the end, the book proves to not jst be informative, but heartwarming as well.

A truly unique book that is, all in all, one of the best anecdotal historical books I have read in a long, long time.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Nitty gritty flair for detail, October 24, 2004

By 

Bruce D. Jensen "Doug Jensen" (Grass Valley, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

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This review is from: The Old Iron Road: An Epic of Rails, Roads, and the Urge to Go West (Hardcover)

I normally do not write reviews but felt compelled to say a little something about this wonderful book and this man and his ability to peel away at layers of stuff to get down to the nitty-gritty of railroad and western history and do it with a flair that makes you want to read more. I have tried to read every book there is on the Transcontinental Railroad and after reading Empire Express, felt that I had finally read the best. Shortly after I read this I also read Steve Ambrose's fluff on the same subject and realized what a masterpiece Bain had written.

So of course when I saw Bain's new book come out about his travels with his family I had to read it (I'm a great fan of folks like William Least Heat Moon also and love this kind of travelogue). I really didn't think I would learn much more about the history of the railroad but he added more and more to material about places in my back yard that I have walked and driven to (including a long ago trip across Promontory Desert retracing the Old Central Pacific grade when I was 16 years old with my mother and sister in the 4 x 4 with me!).

Mr. Bain, you do a great job. My heart goes out to you and your children to the loss of your wife, Mary. She sounds like the partner we all wish we could have. I look forward to any and all of your books that I hope you will write in the future.

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Well, Walt Whitman reviewed Leaves of Grass.............., September 7, 2004

By 

G. J. Graves "california history fan" (Auburn, Ca United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Old Iron Road: An Epic of Rails, Roads, and the Urge to Go West (Hardcover)

As this is written, I am reminded that Walt Whitman reviewed his book entitled "Leaves of Grass"; and while I did not write THE OLD IRON ROAD, I sure was along for the ride.
That being said, Mark Twain called his guides "Ferguson" in Immigrants Abroad, this because, Mr. Twain tells us, he was unable to pronounce the unfamiliar names that were furnished him by his guides. Hmmmm, David H. Bain often called me, and still does, Old Bud, perhaps out of respect for the beer of a similar name.
With that being out of the way, I can attest to the accuracy of this tome. David, his wife and kids met Chuck Sweet, Bob Chugg and I "cold" in Ogden Canyon, in a most brief dinner meeting on the eve of a three week trek across the West. Our goal, Chuck, Bob and I, was to give this Eastern writer a true taste of the West, dust, sagebrush, blue skies and heat. We succeeded in our mission.
As God is my judge, none of the three of us expected to be quoted in any manner; we just wanted Bain and family to experience what life was like in 1863-1869 in California, Nevada and Utah, as well as introduce Bain (we called him, out his ear-shot, "Exhaused Rooster" due to the long days, and from time to time, longer nights, that we provoked him into)to the REAL WEST.
99.9% of what he has written actually happened; the guys in the Goldfield, Nev. jail were playing Monopoly, and one of them did end up, 'in jail'; we all got darned dirty chasing the old CPRR grade across three states; everyone was richer for the experience. Neither Chugg, Sweet nor I can attest to the final .1% that is chronicalled between the covers of this book, as somethings are written that we were not privy to experiencing with Mr. Bain.
I would guess that if you enjoyed "Blue Hiways" by Wm. LeastHeat Moon, you will enjoy THE OLD IRON ROAD. Flat tires, ghost towns, boot hills and all.
Reading this book, a few years after the actual experience, makes me want to go out and experience the Real West, again.
Happy Reading!