Customer Reviews

Set Up Running: The Life of a Pennsylvania Railroad Engineman, 1904-1949 (Keystone Book)

5 star:		(24)
4 star:		(3)
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I am basically a collector of railroad biographies, every occupation from the President down to locomotive watchman, and I have to say that this has to be one of the best I have ever read. In fact, I would call this book a miracle. The details! The mind bending information that the author relays about his father's years of working as a locomotive engineer on the Pennsylvania Railroad is astounding. Just the everyday stories, the trips he made, the people he worked with, and the locomotives, the intricate details about each type, the power, how they handled..........incredible!! There is stuff in this book that guys who wrote first hand accounts don't even include.
If you ever wanted to know what it was like to operate a steam locomotive then this is absolutely the book to read.
I'll stop here because I can't say enough good things about this book.

No matter what your railroad interest you'll find this oral history of Pennsy engineer Oscar Orr hard to put down. If you enjoy operations there are vivid descriptions of the daily chess moves that dispatchers and crews are forced to make on a single track helper district. Those devoted to locomotives will find details on the idiosyncracies of the Pennsylvania stable from the first half of the century. History buffs will enjoy watching the railroad town of Ralston go from boom to bust. Hidden in the chronicle of Orr's career is the history of industrial America, a time when "Company Man" was an accolade and clean overalls a symbol of pride in work. We are so lucky that deceased Trains Magazine editor David P.Morgan encouraged John Orr to pen his father's tales and that the University of Pennsylvania published them.

"Set Up Running" is not a book of dry statistics of Pennsy RR trackage, assets, debits, or passenger-miles served. Neither is it a sensational narrative of harrowing accidents, up-set locomotives, or exploded boilers (although O.P. does have a few close scrapes, and the line of rail jacks exploding one after another as his massive 2-10-0 freight locomotive thunders down a track under repair sets the reader on the edge of his chair). No, this book is better than those sorts of books because it brings a man--actually two men--to life. We come to know O. P. Orr very well indeed through the eyes of his son, the author, John W. Orr, and we end up knowing John as well.

This book shows American history as it should be written--giant machines moving the citizens and the commerce of the land, a huge railroad corporation with all the bureaucratic "snafus" of any multi-layered business as those snafus are seen by and sometimes affect the career of an engineman, the impact of the Great Depression on one family as typical of America as any could be. Historical facts are all here, but they are facts as seen by two very real, very human people, a father and a son. Were all history books written so well, we would all understand history far better and read it far more willingly.

My own grandfather was an engineman, through his road was the Frisco rather than the Pennsy, and my own father was a great lover of trains, though his career paths took him in a different direction. I came along late in my father's life, and, by the time I had the ability and the leisure to write about him, he was gone and his history with him. "Set Up Running" is the type of book I wish someone could have written about my own father, and I know of no higher praise than that. This is a book for railroaders, historians, Americans, and every father's child. At the end, I hated to have to say good-bye to O.P.--and to his son John--but I left knowing much more about the first half of 20th Century America, and I really enjoyed the telling.

As a child we had a Lionel train platform at Christmas and I loved them. For a summer evening out my dad would often take my brothers and me for a walk to the Frankford Junction in Philadelphia, PA to watch the trains. It was a train a minute back then. Fast ones, slow ones, freight and passengers were all to be seen. I loved the steam engines - they were alive - on fire if you will. Waving to the engineer in the 1950's was like a kid meeting a pro athelete or rock star today. Heros in the days of hard work. They always waved back! That is all I wanted to be - an engineer. John Orr's book about his dad and his life as a train engineer has given me the opportunity to be up there with a real engineer, in the cab, in the yard, on the road, for a whole career. Of course, I actualy never got to work on, or for, the railroad because by the time I was old enought, the Pennsy and most of the others were dying due to economic conditions. This book was writen as well as any book has ever been. It is a work of art. It is a history book with a soul. It is a history book with a story. If you like trains, if you like industrial or social history, if you only want to read a well written book on a subject you just wish to visit once, this is mandatory reading. Thank you John Orr. Thank you O.P.

This is a very good book and should appeal to both railroad historians and the general public interested in an inside look at a profession that has changed radically in the past 50 years,

The book's subject, Oscar "O.P." Orr, is described to us by his son as he progresses through a career path that starts with hand-firing boilers in a power plant and culminates as the second most senior locomotive engineer in the largest American railroad. This is a very personalized view of the Pennsylvania Railroad and railroading in general; the story is told through the eyes of O.P. with relatively little larger context.

The author manages to string together a series of anectodes and stories while avoiding the trap of turning it into a long series of quick conversations that have been crammed together without any thematic structure. Through these episodes we learn about the specific duties required of a locomotive crew, the difficulties they face from time to time, and the ever-present danger associated with operating huge pieces of industrial equipment at high speeds.

In addition to the railroading information we have the opportunity to meet a number of interesting characters. Some of them are skilled co-workers, others pranksters, and a few of them are nothing more than trouble-makers. We learn from Oscar what distinguishes the incompetent from the skilled train crew, and come to realize that he strives to be as good at his job as he can throughout the long span of his career.

There are a few problems with this book, and fortunately they are all minor. I am familiar with the general geography of the area where Oscar served but would have appreciated more maps showing exactly where various phases of the story take place. I also think that it would be a good thing to have photographs or illustrations of the various types of equipment operated by him.

According to the preface, the book has been published as part of the Pennsylvania State University's "Keystone" project dedicated to recording the history of the state. I intend to search out other books in this series describing Oscar's contemporaries in other fields.

Set Up Running: The Life Of A Pennsylvania Railroad Engineman, 1904-1949 is the personal story of Oscar P. Orr, who operated steam-powered freight and passenger trains throughout Central Pennsylvania and South Central New York. For forty-five years, Oscar sat at the controls of many famous stem locomotives; moved trains loaded with all manner of freight from coal to perishables, and encountered virtually every situation a locomotive engineer confronting railroad transportation in the first half of the twentieth century. Biographer John Orr is Oscar's son and tells his father's life as a railroad engineer with candor and attention to detail (including his father's first encounter with an automobile along the right-of-way) that weaves anecdote with compelling railroad history. Set Up Running is a "must read" for every dedicated railroad buff!

This is what too many railroad histories lack -- the human element. This is the story of a man and how he ran locomotives across Pennsylvania. It is also the story of his son, who loved trains and loved to listen to his father's stories. If you are frustrated by railroad histories that are nothing but an endless series of stock transactions, then this is your book.

As a former operating department official of the PRR and railroad consultant for 25 years I give this book the highest rating. It is easy reading, sometimes hard to put down and with very few technical errors, not enough to quibble over. I am writing a glowing review of this book for the Pennsylvania Railroad Technical and Historical Society's quarterly magazine "The Keystone."

Alan B, Buchan

Obviously, you have to be fascinated with steam locomotives. If you've ever wondered what it was like to be an engineer during the halcyon days of steam, John Orr's almost minute-by-minute account of his father's life is simply mesmerizing. I've read dozens of books on steam railroading, and this is my all-time favorite. I bought two more copies in case something happens to my original!

I have never seen a book like this one. There are books on trains, locomotives, steam and diesel, and railroad development, but this book occupies, it seems to me, a unique spot in Railroad information, as there has been seldom any treatment of what it was like to actually be a trainman--fireman, conductor, brakeman, engineer, stationmaster, etc. Somehow the most important part of railroading, the personnel that made the industry function appear to be the last thing mentioned, and that only in passing. This book not only is an excellent biography of a Pennsy RR Engineman during the salad days of Steam locomotion, but is a long needed treatment of what it was like to "Work on the Railroad." I only wish there were more like it, that, as does this work, cover the details in depth of what it was, and is like: working conditions, knowledge and skills needed, how the job was done,and so forth. I can't give this book anything other than an A-double plus!