2002: Tom Allen, Rolling Home

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Description

History, drama and personal memoir combine in Rolling Home, a clear-eyed look at the changing fortunes of Canada's railway, an icon in our nation's life. Tom Allen, host of CBC Radio Two's Music & Company, crosses the country east to west and north to Hudson's Bay, meeting passengers, engineers, cooks and porters, in a story that is part celebration, part travelogue and part lament. In Rolling Home, Tom Allen travels with his family and alone, from Halifax to the interior of British Columbia, riding everything from a two-car dayliner held together with duct tape to a luxury rail cruiser through the Rockies that's packed with wealthy tourists. Along the way, he meets honeymooners and abandoned spouses, ordinary folk and deranged passengers, and has a memorable encounter with a charming man with no short-term memory. He meets visitors from abroad, local people on the milk run that provides a vital link between small remote communities, and veteran railwaymen who sustain pride in their work despite the massive cuts to their industry. Allen weaves his own memories of railroad travel with a family narrative past and present, all the while conjuring the drama, the disappointments, the history and the magic of Canada's railway history.

Judges' Comments

“The judges felt Rolling Home provided an evocative cross-country tour of Canada by train,” says Staebler award administrator Kathryn Wardropper. “Tom Allen’s experiences growing up during the last hurrah of passenger rail travel and its image buffed with lore and romance makes this a story with the drama, disappointments and history of Canada’s railway.”

Learn More

• Publisher: Viking

Explore the works of our previous Edna Staebler Award for Creative Non-Fiction winners.