Railroad Noir

"Engine House, East Ely, Nevada"
copyright by Joel Jensen, all rights reserved
Used by permission
(click on images for larger view)

To say that writer Linda Niemann’s background is diverse may be an understatement. She earned a PhD in English literature from U.C. Berkeley and then spent twenty years working as a brakeman for the railroad. She now teaches writing and literature at Kennesaw State University in Georgia. Niemann’s latest book, Railroad Noir: The American West at the End of the Twentieth Century, published earlier this year by Indiana University Press, is collaboration with photographer Joel Jensen. Niemann is also the author of Boomer (University of California Press, 1990; later reissued as On The Rails: A Woman’s Journey by Cleis Press, 1997), and Railroad Voices along with photographer Lina Bertucci (Stanford University Press, 1998).

As one of the first women railroaders hired in the 1970s, Niemann trained and worked in Watsonville, California. But as railroads merged and rail yards closed not long after her hire, she spent much of her railroading career as a boomer, traveling to where the jobs were that she could bid on since she was low in seniority rank. She worked rail yards in Nevada, New Mexico, and Texas, as well as in her hometown of Los Angeles, California. In a career that spanned several decades, she worked as a brakeman, switchman, and later as a conductor.

"Container Train Crossing Dry Lake Bed, Amboy, California
Copyright by Joel Jensen, All Rights Reserved
Used by Permission

Linda Niemann writes some of the best narratives of place I’ve read. Through her descriptions of the southwestern desert, I can almost feel the dust, hear the rattlesnakes, and see the heat waves (a few drops of my own sweat may have even fallen onto the open pages as I read). She writes with passion about the land and the people she worked with, and she is not fearful about delving into difficult topics or showing the loneliness and isolation that go with the itinerant lifestyle of the boomer.

Niemann does not romanticize the railroader’s life, and Railroad Noir is sometimes a tough, gritty read. This is not Kerouac’s “Railroad Earth” (although I’ve read reviews making such comparisons – possibly because she sometimes worked the same routes along the peninsula south of San Francisco and Watsonville as he once did). It is, however, an honest story about a dangerous and physical job with a grueling schedule (sometimes twelve hours on, eight hours off – essentially working two shifts per day for twenty days straight, and always tethered to the telephone which could ring at any time to call workers in for a shift) that allows no sense of home or family life. In the introduction, Niemann writes: “I called the book Railroad Noir to borrow some of the dark, alienated, and hard-boiled elements from the cinematic term. A certain romance attaches to the railroad, but I wanted to signal that these stories give it a twist. Railroad workers often feel a sense of betrayed romance as they confront the realities of their lives . . . a part that is often omitted in railroad literature.”

"Abandoned Depot, Currie, Nevada"
Copyright by Joel Jensen, All Rights Reserved,
Used by Permission

The essays in Railroad Noir are indeed dark. Beautifully written, they provide an unflinching look at the hard desert landscape of the southwest and railroading during the 1990s when the Southern Pacific Railroad was in decline. Joel Jensen’s photographs were hand-selected by Niemann after she traveled to Ely, Nevada to meet with him and view his prints. Of his images, she writes: “The photographs showed extremes of weather, camaraderie, night work, solitude, bars, decrepit motels, and stark western landscapes. I immediately connected with them emotionally. They all took me back to specific places and states of mind I had been in working as a brakeman in the West. This is why I think of our work as having a shared vision. Joel knows the loneliness of the job and the place.”

Readers new to Niemann’s work may want to start with her first memoir, On The Rails: A Woman’s Journey (originally published under the title Boomer), as it gives a more chronological history of the beginning of her career and experience, particularly when she was learning the skills and craft of working on a switching crew from the “old heads.” While all of her books include a glossary of railroad terminology, Boomer provides the reader a good grasp of how the railroad systems work and what the various jobs entail. It also provides a more comprehensive understanding of Niemann’s railroad work in context to her personal life, including romantic involvements, family issues such as her mother’s slide into Alzheimer’s dementia, and Niemann’s own battles with alcoholism. The essays in Railroad Noir focus more on the later portion of Niemann’s railroading career, including her bout with breast cancer.

Railroad Noir is a complex and beautiful book -- part memoir as told in a series of essays, part coffee table photography book with pictures that tell a visual narrative of their own. Long after you close this book, the stories and images will linger in your brain like an afterimage and may even haunt your dreams.

• You can listen to commentary by Linda Niemann and Kurt Anderson in this podcast of Studio 360 from December 2000, which also includes a profile of photographer O. Winston Link.
• Be sure to check out Joel Jensen's photographs at his website gallery.

I Could Use a Box of Words

This week I’ve got nothin’. The well is empty. I have ideas and images for the final two posts of December for Christmas week and New Year’s week, but for this week I’m at a loss. Words fail me.

The photograph above is of the family Scrabble match on Christmas Day 1978. My father-in-law, who was a killer Scrabble player and insisted on at least one friendly game of cutthroat Scrabble at family gatherings, was making what was no doubt a high scoring play. My husband, who snapped this shot and recently came across the negative in his files, said: Look at my tiles, I got nothin’. I feel the same way this week, except I seem to be working with only consonants, as though I’ve been disemvoweled.

Yesterday, a good friend of many years came over for lunch, bringing good stories to share as he always does. Not written stories, but conversational stories told in the best tradition of storytelling. We expect that of him, and he knows it. What can I bring, he always asks, and we tell him to just bring a story. No stories, no lunch.

One story he shared was about his box of words, which the nuns at his grammar school made the students keep. I could almost see him as his little boy self carrying his shoebox full of words on index cards to and from parochial school.

I could use a box of words of my own right now.

He attributes his spelling ability today to that box of words. Says he can spell almost any word without having to look it up because he had to memorize that box of words. Told of how he recently impressed a coworker by rattling off the spelling of the word egregious without having to look it up.

Man, those were some heavy words those nuns made you carry around, I told him. I’d envisioned words similar to what was in my Fun with Dick and Jane first grade reader. He clarified that egregious was not in his little boy box of words, but just happened to be the word his coworker was trying to spell. Whew. What a relief.

Despite my love of words, they sometimes fail me. I’ve taken a few runs toward this week’s post, but abandoned them because they felt forced, tedious. The words had no spark. I didn’t love those words. They weren’t accomplishing what I wanted them to do. They lacked the spark of discovery that should accompany the act of writing. And if they sparked no insight for me in writing them, they were certainly not going to light any fires for the reader.

I’ve felt this way before. Felt that I’d written myself out, that the well was dry. It was how I once felt in a workshop led by writers David Jauss and Pamela Painter, faculty members at Vermont College where I earned my MFA. I admitted to David that I felt empty, that there were no words left, and he smiled knowingly and said: But that’s when you’re getting to the best material. Wells fill from the bottom. It’s where you can tap into the purest source.

Those may not have been his exact words spoken a decade ago, but it’s the essence of what he told me. And he was right. I had a very productive semester following that particular workshop. Now, I no longer panic when I hit dry spells and instead trust that the well is filling from the bottom. Trust that I’m about to tap into something good.

This week I’ve pulled two favorite books on writing craft from my bookshelf: Words Overflown By Stars, edited by David Jauss and Alone With All That Could Happen, written by David Jauss. These essays reassure me of what I already know, remind me of what I’ve forgotten, and teach me what I wasn’t yet ready to grasp before. And best of all, they reconnect me with the very special place of the MFA program at Vermont College, which has recently become the Vermont College of Fine Arts.

Words Overflown By Stars is a compilation of essays from lectures on craft by some of the faculty at Vermont College. Included are many of the fiction writers I worked with there, either in workshop or as semester mentors: Ellen Lesser, Bret Lott, Diane Lefer, Doug Glover, Christopher Noel, Francois Camoin, Sue William Silverman, and David Jauss. Others are by faculty I knew and whose lectures and readings I attended, but didn’t work with directly, such as Phyllis Barber, Victoria Redel, and Syd Lea. Also included are essays by the poetry faculty and by prose writers who were not on faculty while I was there. Take a look at the table of contents.

The title Alone With All That Could Happen is enough in itself to get me writing, just by implying that something will happen if I settle myself down and quiet my mind and let the words come. These are essays that I revisit over and over, each time gleaning something new.

Maybe I don’t need a box of words after all. I have books of words – as inspiration, and to serve as my compass.


News and Updates:

A big thank you goes out to Laura Didyk at She Writes for selecting In This Light as one of the three blogs she reviewed as Curator of the Week there. Her words were particularly meaningful during this week when I was struggling to come up with a new post. In her review of my blog, Laura writes that it “has a truly calming effect. And as a poet who is inspired by images, In This Light makes me want to get out into the world, walk around, and keep my eyes open.” It’s always rewarding to hear the posts have connected with a reader. Please be sure to check out Laura’s own blog, Outloud.

Photo Credit:
“Family Scrabble” copyright © 1978 by Kevin Scanlon, used by permission.