If you enjoy fine writing, check out Howard Bahr's novel about railroad men on the Meridian, Mississippi - New Orleans, Louisiana run in the early 1940s. Simply stunning.
An excerpt:
For all its elegance and style, however, the Silver Star was still tons of steel hurtling along on the dime-sized contact between wheel and rail, drawn by a complex machine that was itself a controlled explosion. Mass, speed, and high-pressure steam were the ingredients, and they existed in a fragile balance that required perfection in a world wildly imperfect, required flawless performance from flawed men and women, required vandals and anarchists to resist their natural impulses. These facts were not available to the passengers. The company wished them to believe that they were in no more danger than if they were in a hotel and went to great lengths to ensure their safety and contentment.The illusion was successful. Artemus knew a number of people, including himself, who could not be induced at gunpoint to board an airplane, but he had rarely known railroad passengers to be nervous. Only the trainmen understood that luck was their sole protection, and that any train - even the Silver Star - could run out of it.
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