29 of 31 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Great Train Disaster, February 6, 2007
This review is from: The White Cascade: The Great Northern Railway Disaster and America's Deadliest Avalanche (Hardcover)
We hear of avalanches now and then, taking to their deaths skiers or climbers, but as disasters they are these days relatively small scale. That was not the case on the night of 1 March 1910, when bizarre weather in the Cascade Mountains of Washington State brought down an avalanche that was half a mile wide. In its path were two trains pinned in by the snowstorms, and the cars were hurled down a mountain. The official death count was 96, although the number is an estimate, and the toll on the wounded and on the rescuers cannot be tallied. Gary Krist, whose previous books have been fiction, has become a historian of this disaster, telling it with a novelist's skill in _The White Cascade: The Great Northern Railway Disaster and America's Deadliest Avalanche_ (Henry Holt). The disaster was not, as Krist modestly admits, the "Avalanche That Changed America", because it was in many ways just one aspect of changes that were happening in railroading at the time anyway. It remains, however, a gripping tale of human endeavor against natural forces; it is all historical fact, but Krist has produced a page-turner.
Krist dutifully sets up the scenes in the mountains with historical context. In 1910, railroads made the American economy, and they had changed the American Northwest forever. The representative of the Great Northern Railway, the Superintendent of the Cascade Division was James H. O'Neill, in many ways the flawed hero of the book. He was a lifetime railroad man, "a precociously shrewd manager with seemingly inexhaustible reserves of drive and will." His were the responsibilities of the tracks, stations, buildings, and the movements of the trains through his region, a major mountain crossing that got an average of fifty feet of snow a year. The late February snow was bad enough to stop two trains, the Seattle Express and the Fast Mail, in transit between Spokane and Seattle. The passengers on the trains were at first merely annoyed by the delay. The passengers were kept fairly well in their cars; there was no lack of food, and though there was worry about having enough coal to move trains around, there was always sufficient coal to keep the cars warm. They socialized, and the porters and conductor circulated, trying to keep the passengers' spirits up, but cabin fever eventually set in. The tracks at the little trainyard town of Wellington had never been subject to avalanches as had others in the area, and indeed, avalanches at other parts of the tracks soon sealed the trains where they were. Early in the morning of 1 March, an avalanche came down the mountain, carrying all the cars with it, and smashing them to bits. The chapter on the avalanche itself is only sixteen pages, but it is followed by descriptions of the excruciating steps that O'Neill and his team took to rescue the few survivors, and then to recover bodies. The press, which had taken an exuberant and morbid interest in the case, printed absurdities like reports of mountain lion or wolf packs patrolling for cadavers. Newspapers originally praised O'Neill's work, and then looking for someone to blame, turned to reproach.
The book winds up in the courts, as humans attempted to decide how fairly to assess blame against God or against the railroad in an overwhelming natural disaster. Not only is this a fine book about people in the middle of a looming catastrophe, but it is also strong on the history and day-to-day operation of the railroads of the time. There is little left to remind us of the great avalanche; the railroad changed the name of Wellington, and then made a tunnel that would safely bypass the area. Passenger service peaked in the 1920s, so that any similar disaster became less and less likely. We don't have any lack of disasters in our own time, though, and Krist's great theme of "the gaps between foresight and hindsight" is one with which any reader will sympathize.
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16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Well Done, March 1, 2007
This review is from: The White Cascade: The Great Northern Railway Disaster and America's Deadliest Avalanche (Hardcover)
I agree with the other reviewers. This book is historic retelling done with a novelists flair. There is amazing detail and the characters are presented with balance. The author does a good job of presenting the way of life in 1910. I appreciated the detailed notes on the source of the material .
Living in the foothills of the Cascades, I was dimly aware of this disaster, but after reading this book, I plan on hiking the original railbed - now part of the Iron Goat Trail - to Wellington this summer and see for myself what occured there nearly a century ago.
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15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
History in the Novelist's Hand, February 15, 2007
This review is from: The White Cascade: The Great Northern Railway Disaster and America's Deadliest Avalanche (Hardcover)
Gary Krist does a superb job of placing the reader everywhere the historical characters go, mentally and physically. His writing style is readable but academic at the same time, neither pandering to base instinct or even ability, nor inundating the reader with words that need constant referral. He also makes the social, economic, and political issues of the day seem real and as pressing as any of today's problems. Finally, the technical detail Krist parlays is succinct and historically accurate without boring one to tears. All in all a very nice piece of work.
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