Name: Fleming's Army
Brand: DC Books (US)
SKU: 9781897190715
Price: 21.99 GBP
Availability: InStock

Fleming's Army

The Civil Engineers Who Built Canada's Intercolonial Railway

By (author): Jay Underwood

Published by DC Books (US)

In stock

£21.99

Format: Paperback
Pages: 224
Illustrations: b/w photos
ISBN: 9781897190715
Publication Date: 01-Apr-2011

Subjects:
Railway technology
engineering & trades
Trains & railways: general interest
Canada

Quantity

The book's history context is the period of the mid-1800s, when railway technology projects were viewed as making (or breaking) a community -- 'making' if the railway came to 'our' town, or hamlet, or even passed near our field -- 'breaking' if it did not, for our community would surely suffer, wither, maybe even die if passed by. The new technology was still in its infancy, with much 'learning as we go' -- and it was expected that the railway would bring prosperity to its developers, cash to its contractors, fame (and re-election) to its politicians . . . and perhaps a little, or lots, of silver over the palms of those who supported the railway's establishment, rights-of-way choices, and it civil engineers. The building of the Intercolonial Railway opened the opportunity for all kinds of excitement, greasing of palms, and outright fraud involving those who paid the bills to those who did (and often didn't) do overseeing of the construction work. Once completed, the Intercolonial Railway became a vital transit corridor, carrying thousands of people and tons of merchandise, with ICR eventually becoming one of the key components of Canadian National Railways.

Jay Underwood lives in Elmsdale, Nova Scotia, and has had a life-long connection with the military and the railways. Born in Changi, Singapore in 1958, son of a Royal Air Force non-commissioned officer, he earned his diploma in journalism from Holland College of Applied Arts and Technology in Charlottetown, PEI. He was city editor of the Truro, NS, Daily News, and served for several years as the information officer for 1st battalion, the Nova Scotia Highlanders (North), Canada's largest militia infantry battalion. He joined the Halifax Daily News as senior copy editor and a member of the editorial board.

"The many entries in this well-organised work rest on painstaking research, evidence of which is abundant in the footnotes." - SLS Journal (Stephenson Locomotive Society) Sept/Oct 2012