Re: LIttle Mudhen

People like to criticize Lathrop's writing for its inaccuracies. One must remember that he originally wrote much of what later wound up in his books for Railroad Magazine. Many of the stories he wrote for them were just that--semi-fictional stories.

What Lathrop's writings are invaluable for was his first hand descriptions of what life (including railroading) was actually like in that era. While historians writing about those subjects now may have access to much more data and facts, Lathrop was there and experienced it first hand. That is why I, as one who has written from a historian's point of view, so much appreciate accounts written by people like Lathrop who lived and worked in that era, even though such accounts may not always be exactly factually accurate.

One can not ignore the fact, either, that Lathrop's writings were the spark that got many railfans, from the 1920's until now, initially interested in the narrow gauge. I, for one, am one of those.