Les Kozma, ed. Along These Lines (2004)

     Les Kozma, ed. Along These Lines (2004) The Canadian Northern Society has collected both oral and written history of the Edmonton - Camrose - Stettler - Calgary line, along with some of its branches. Kozma has done a nice job of arranging these. He begins with an account of how the CNoR Society came into being. We now take specialist historical societies for granted, but when they decided that they could and should preserve and recondition Meeting Creek station, such societies still had carried an aura of the quixotic and impractical.
     It’s a book to dip into, not to read, and like many such local and personal histories has more meaning for family and friends than for the casually interested rail fan. A grad student, however, could make much of the details mentioned in passing or assumed as general knowledge. The history of the railroad worker hasn’t been written. This is good documentation for such a book. The photos are reasonably well reproduced, but a few too many betray their origin as low-res scans of the originals. A map would help immensely, and its lack is the only serious fault. I detected no typos, which indicates careful editing. ** (2007)