TRAVEL & GEOGRAPHY

Off the Tracks: A Meditation on Train Journeys in a Time of No Travel

by Pamela Mulloy
ECW. Apr. 2024. 192p. ISBN 9781770417298. pap. $18.95. TRAV
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Novelist Mulloy (As Little as Nothing) riffs on historical train travel, rail-related literature and films, and a selection of her personal experiences in Canada, the U.S., and Europe. Her youthful “grand tour” of France was accomplished on an Interrail pass. The book’s vignettes cover many aspects of train travel, including as a vehicle for a freewheeling imagination. Her flashbacks go back and forth in time and place, which some readers may find difficult to keep straight in their heads. She touches on private railway cars for tycoons, train crimes, accidents, stations, meeting fellow passengers, cultural effects of rail lines, porters’ working conditions, and passport checks.
VERDICT This flashback musing about train travel can be confusing at times, but the vision of shining rails leading to new horizons holds it together.
Reviewed by David R. Conn , Mar 29, 2024
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