Nostalgic Retiree Insists Trains Were Better When They Required Constant Shoveling of Coal

Retired locomotive fireman Arthur Clinker, 82, has published a self-financed memoir titled 'The Beautiful Agony: Why Coal Was the Only Honest Fuel,' in which he argues at length that the diesel locomotive represents 'the death of everything noble about railroading.'

'You want to talk about a real day's work?' Clinker said from his porch, where he was inexplicably covered in soot despite not having been near a locomotive since 1979. 'Try shoveling eight tons of coal into a firebox the size of a closet while a 300-ton train climbs a 2 percent grade in August. That was railroading. What they do now is just driving.'

The memoir, which runs to 480 pages and includes detailed descriptions of coal quality, fire management techniques, and the specific characteristics of various types of industrial ash, has sold 34 copies, 31 of which were purchased by Clinker himself.

'I give them as gifts,' he explained. 'Nobody seems to finish them.'

Clinker's central thesis is that the physical hardship of steam railroading created a 'spiritual bond between man and machine' that diesel technology destroyed. 'You can't bond with a diesel,' he writes. 'A diesel doesn't need you. It just sits there converting fuel into motion like a refrigerator. A steam engine needs constant attention, constant feeding, constant love. It's like a relationship.'

His wife, Ethel, who has been married to him for 57 years, noted that 'he has never described our marriage in those terms.'

Modern locomotive engineers have responded to the book with polite indifference. 'My cab is air-conditioned,' said BNSF engineer Sandra Throttle. 'I can see out of my windshield because it isn't covered in soot. I don't understand the nostalgia for occupational respiratory disease.'

Clinker is currently working on a sequel focused on the specific emotional qualities of different coal grades. 'Anthracite has dignity,' he previewed. 'Bituminous has passion.'