Logging Railroads of Alabama

Logging Railroads of Alabama. By Thomas Lawson Jr. Birmingham: Cabbage Stack Publishing, 1996. xviii, 277 pp. $59.95.

Thomas Lawson describes Logging Railroads oJ`Alabama as "a large textbook wherein all of the basic facts about the timber railroads that were once in the state are outlined in their simplest terms: who, what, when, where and how" (p. iii), but his description sells the work short. He has in fact penned a readable, well-organized introduction to the Alabama lumber industry from the 1880s through the 1950s and a significant chronicle of the region in which the industry flourished, as well as a history of the railroads themselves. This volume, the product of Lawson's "40-year fascination with logging railroads and their geared steam locomotives" (p. iii), provides useful information for scholars in a variety of disciplines and lays the foundation for in-depth studies of particular companies or communities by other researchers. Lawson organizes his voluminous data into sixteen chapters based on a geographic region or the road to which local lines connected. Each chapter begins with a definition of the area covered and an overview of logging and railroads in that area, then breaks up into narrative sketches of each company that operated within the area. Engagingly written, these sketches are not only replete with details about the company's equipment and routes but also convey a feel for the company and its engines, one of which, for example, Lawson describes as "dapper" (p. 2).

An alphabetical index of company names includes information on the location of firms, their track gauges, and the number of their locomotives and also cites the pages on which detailed coverage of each company can be found. Those interested in a specific railroad should look here first. To meet the needs of the "dedicated locomotive historian" (p. 22), Lawson furnishes a forty-three-page roster of logging locomotives, which provides details on ownership, the manufacturer and model number of each engine, the arrangement and size of cylinders, gross weight, purchase date, previous owners, and final disposition. Attractive end papers created from lumber and logging railroad letterheads and hundreds of photographs-many from private collections, including the author's own-round out this workmanlike study.

General readers would have benefited from an introduction to logging and locomotive terms as well as a brief historical overview of the lumber industry. And archivists and historians will wish for more information on the sources for this largely undocumented work. Even with these omissions, however, this volume more than justifies the author's belief that "if a book about Alabama logging railroads were ever going to be written I had to be the one to write it" (p. iii).

Logging Railroads in Alabama will prove valuable to researchers interested in Alabama economic, social, and community history, as well as to railroad buffs and students of the lumber industry and related economic enterprises. College and university libraries or local history collections in cities and counties that are or were located in lumber country will want to order a copy of this work, which ably and colorfully supplements Wayne Cline's Alabama Railroads (Tuscaloosa, 1997), from the publisher (Box 19912, Birmingham Alabama 35219).

ELLEN GARRISON

W S. Hoole Library University of Alabama

Copyright University of Alabama Press Apr 1999
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