Boomer: Railroad Memoirs

This classic account of self-discovery and railroad life describes Linda Grant Niemann's travels as an itinerant brakeman on the Southern Pacific. A Berkeley Ph.D., Niemann turned her back on academia and set out to master the craft of railroad brakeman, beginning a journey of sexual and subcultural exploration and traveling down a path toward recovery from alcoholism.

Boomer details how one woman went to work on the railroad and how she found her voice and became a brilliant writer. Details of the loss and decline of railroading and the struggles of railroad workers with their companies at the end is discussed in this American classic.