[.ca] The White Cascade: Thr Great Northern Railway Disaster ... (ISBN 0805077057)

MAN VS. NATURE...:
This is a riveting account of the Great Northern Railway disaster of 1910, in which a passenger train and a mail train on their way to Seattle were trapped high up on a steep ridge in the Cascade mountains in Washington state during a blizzard. Although a battalion of men were engaged in trying to clear the tracks, so that the trains could proceed to their destination, they were fighting a losing battle with snow drifts as high as thirty feet. Day after day, the passengers and crews nervously waited, the rumblings of avalanches all around them. Six nights later, with the onset of a freak thunderstorm, the inevitable happened and a huge avalanche engulfed the trains and sent them plummeting down the mountain side. The author sets the tragedy into a historical context, giving the reader an idea of the place that railways had in terms of the national economy. He also makes the account eminently interesting because of the human perspective he able to provide, drawing upon the writings and letters some of the passengers left behind, as well as the court transcripts of ensuing lawsuits. It is a most poignant account of a tragedy, and one that will keep the reader turning the pages. The book also includes sixteen pages of archival photographs that add to the reader's enjoyment of this wonderfully written, well-researched book. Bravo!